The Laugher Of The Medusa | Analysis

The Laugher Of The Medusa AnalysisThrough away score, women have been excluded from any kind of writing that could allow them the participation in the making of hi taradiddle and culture. Being considered as creatures of lesser rank in mental capacities and intellect, women have been, everywhere centuries, kept in the dark by a patriarchal outline that has successfully muted their deficiencys for expression, be it physical, oral or compose. In her fundamental see The Laugh of the Medusa, Hlne Cixous, French philosopher and womens rightist critic, openly introduces this idea of womans need for writing as a biologic drive which intimately relies on her ceasing back and mastering her own luggage compartment that has been violently miused by antherals rhetoric , as Toril Moi asserts that always and everywhere, the rational, active, masculine intellect operates on the passive, objectified, feminized body (189). Its only from the bodily experience that women, according to Cixous , can give stomach to an criture fminine which will subvert the phallocentric discourse of masculine writing, along with the logocentric representational system through which it functions. The purpose of this paper is to examine the key insights that the actor explores in her essay, of importly the maidenlike writing1with the idea of sexual differences. It is, also, necessary to consider, in the following stages, how Cixous view ass use of Freuds and Lacans psychoanalysis and Derridas deconstructist system to disrupt the phallocentric assumptions, hence to break up with all forms of repression against women. A particular focus will be on the critics contribution to French feminism and Anglo-American feminist theory.Le Rire de la Mduse was written by Cixous in 1975, and translated into English as The Laugh of the Medusa in 1976 by Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen. This influential essay, essentially adressing women in order to bring them to writing (Cixous 875), is uttered in a b eautiful and poetic language to convey the idea of the existence of an criture fminine, which is already used by the author.As with many of her writings2, Cixouss The Laugh of the Medusa revises sexual differences in the midst of men and women from past to present, anticipating a future radical change in the perception of this notion which would only subscribe shape if woman takes back a body that is hers, from the masculine repressing language, in order to employ it as a cause and effect of a new genre of writing which Cixous introduces as the distaff writing. The whole premise of the essay is that Woman must write her self must write roughly women and bring women to writing . (Cixous 875). In the light of this idea, the critic goes on to relate womens writing to their bodily experiences that represent a source of desire and urge for creativity. In other(a) words, for a woman to be able to break up with the old traditional doormat in her skin, she must trace her own body wi th a feminine language. As a result, women will create their own tradition of writing, embarking from the past and its repressive language.Over centuries, masculine discourse has been the dominant and the stronger one. Women had no word to say in a patriarchal universe where, as Cixous states, they were regarded as dark and dangerous (878). Women have, accordingly, developed a sense of resentment for other women and themselves under the influence of the masculine ideology. To break up with this complex, Cixous calls woman to manifest through a writing that belongs to her but which can neither be delimit nor theorized (883) since, as it can be deduced, language is males property, and there is no room to theorize a feminine writing within the masculine dominant discourse. However, the feminine regularity of writing can be described as innovationary against the phallocentric language and thought (888). Cixouss point is to approach this genre of writing in singing to sexual dif ferences and gender in order to demonstrate how these differences have served historico-cultural purposes to hinder womens intellectual capacities. She goes further to discuss the traditional idea of bisexuality as neutrality- that engenders the aid of lacking3, contrasted with a bisexuality, that allows one to identify one self as having sexual orientation toward the cardinal sexes. From this equation, Cixous concludes that woman is bisexual by the nature of her organs and the turning shifts of events whereas man cannot be so without losing his phallocentric masculine individualism (884). In the same way, she believes that writing is bisexual, for women should write to women and men without no exclusion.Throughout the article, Cixous sensibilizes women to the urgent need of a universal revolution against the phallocentric discourse to which they have been the signified subject. By creating their a discourse of their own, women will fly through and, at the same time, luxate b ack that which is already theirs4, their voices that have been repressed. The author points out to the fact that this subjugation has resulted in creating a female voice consciousness which, aware of the difficulties that women have undergone, reclaims their socio-cultural identity and their natural rights. She also argues for womens freedom to have children or not to have any, without being threatened or blamed for the choices they make in life (890).The main purpose of this study is to analyze the key insights that Cixous discusses in The Laugh of the Medusa, along with the major influences that affect her writing, namely the Derridian deconstruction and psychoanalytical theory. As its title indicates, the essay includes the Medusa as a metaphor to portray womans beauty, oppression and intelligence at the same time. By using this Greek mythical figure5, Cixous hits two birds with one stone she firstly alludes to women being treated badly by their male counterparts, as Medusa was once ill-treated and raped. On the other hand, the author also hints to womens jealousy of and hatred to other women under the influence of the masculine worldview. Cixous goes on to develop this idea when she argues that men have committed the greatest shame against women. Insidiously,violently, they have led them to hate women, to be their own enemies . In the same way, the Medusas metaphor is associated with the modern psychoanalytic interpretations of Sigmund Freud who refers to the Medusas head as the supreme talisman who provides the grasp of castration associated in the childs mind with the discovery of maternal sexuality and its denial (Freud). Cixous takes on the idea of castration, by which the phallocentric mind is haunted, and relates it to the Medusas image so as to chuck out that man is unconsciously weak at the sight of the feminine sex, to the point that he is consumed, as Freud and his followers note, by a fear of being a woman (884). At this level, th e critic implicitly alludes to the French psychoanalytist Jacques Lacan, who follows Freud in his concept of Wunsch6to arrive at a desire that is associated with a lack. According to Lacans theory of Lack, as explained by Joel Dor in his Introduction to the Reading of Lacan, womans desire towards the masculine body does not originate from the body itself as the object of desire instead, it originates from her lacking a penis ( Dor 236). Ironically, Cixous refutes this phallocratic analysis arguing that her personal desire of the other is for the other, and that a desire originating from a lack is much poor and lacking(891). She goes further to criticize women who crazily fetishize the masculine sex, treating them of the woman of yesterday who is either kept in the dark ages, idolizing the traditional way the big penis takes her or falsely modernized with fair virtuous thinking as Cixous affirms here They still exist, easy and numerous victims of the oldest of farces ei ther theyre cast in the original silent version in which, as titanesses lying under the mountains they make with their quivering, they never see erected that theoretic monument to the golden phallus looming, in the old manner, over their bodies. Or, coming today out of their infans period and into the second, enlightened version of their virtuous de-basement, they see themselves suddenly assaulted by the builders of the analytic empire and, as soon as theyve begun to formulate the new desire, naked, nameless, so happy at making an appearance, theyre taken in their bath by the new old men, and then, whoops Luring them with flashy signifiers, the demon of interpretation (892)Following this idea, Cixous is harshly attack the masculine phallocentric values in the personae of Freud and Lacan, whom she accuses of exploiting the new version of modern woman to satisfy their sexual needs while theyre reducing them to an inferior and negative position. unitary cannot understand Cixouss ide as without going back to the Freudian and Lacanian psychoanalytic theories. If we examine Freuds interpretation of sexual differences which place man in a superior position for biological reasons7, it would then be obvious why he has been criticized by feminists8, including Cixous. Though she mainly builds her theoretical legacy on psychoanalysis, precisely Freuds, Cixous uses this latters analysis of developmental theory and gender roles -which are based on the biological differences between man and woman- as a counter-argument to assert that, though there is a sexual difference, women should be treated equally, and not in terms of the Lacanian binary oppositions, as she states writing has been run by a libidinal and cultural-hence political, typically masculine-economy that this is a locus where the repression of women has been perpetuated, over and over, much or less consciously, and in a manner thats frightening since its often hidden or adorned with the mystifying charms of f iction that this locus has grossly exaggerated all the signs of sexual opposition (and not sexual difference), where woman has never her turn to speak . (879)In the same way, Cixous criticizes Lacans theory of phallocentrism which posits the phallus in the centre of the masculine being. Furthermore, the critic employs this primacy of the phallus in the Derridian deconstructist critique of logocentrism to coin the term phallogocentrism , which refers to a (superior) masculine language centered upon the phallus, opposed to a (deficient) feminine language which lacks a phallus. In other words, her writing is a deconstructist one through which she undermines the phallocentric ideology that dominates language (Tidd 98).In addition to the medusas image which is used by the author to overcome Freuds castration and Lacans lack , is the metaphor of Dora9that strongly disturbs Freuds legacy in psychoanalysis and therapy. When she directly adresses Dora as the true mistress of the Signifi er (886), Cixous evokes the story of humiliated girl who was manipulated by her vex as a pawn in a sexual game between him and his mistresss husband, and later by Freuds therapy that essay to convince her of the necessity to play the game. As a result, the girl was a subject of a double oppression, applied firstly by the father, and secondly by Freud. The case of Dora in the essay, if it alludes to patriarchal ideology and oppression of the females voice, it does not fail to deconstruct the Freudian assumptions of male superiority and the Lacanian theory of the Name of the Father which prescribes the father as a symbol of law and order. For Cixous, the name of Dora represents more than an example of the psychological violence caused by males oppression she rather employs it as an icon of females revolution and manifest (Showalter 332).The Laugh of the Medusa is the most significant example of Cixouss criture feminine . Rich of artistic metaphors and innovative ideas, this infl uential essay is inscribed as a fundamental work of art within literary and critical theory. Influenced by the deconstructist and differentialist thought, Cixouss writing has been effective in undermining the patriarchal dominance over language. By revising the question of sexual differences existing in the psychoanalytical theories of Freud and Lacan, she deconstructs the equation of the binary oppositions applied to the couple man-woman, while intelligently adopting the difference to prove the equality rather than the opposition between the sexes. The idea is recognized through feminist critiques like Shiachs Their Symbolic Exists- it Holds Power in which she notes Cixous has represented the process of differentiation in more social terms, and has offered the possibility of more hopeful conclusions the construction of new sorts of identity, which cut across dual hierarchized oppositions .( 165)Her poetic language and feminine style is a proof of what she calls criture fminine . Influenced by her reading of James Joyce and Virginia Woolf, Cixous seems to take up their experimentation and modernist mode of writing, herded with a feminine sensual voice and experience, as essential features of a new form, which is the feminine writing. Consequently, introducing this idea, among many others, into the critical theory has undoubtedly made of Cixous one of the most prominent figures of French feminism. When translated into English, Cixouss The Laugh has gained international interest, mainly by Anglo-American feminists. Admittedly, the author has been often criticized10for considering the sexual differences and making them as a basis for her argument, which, for certain critiques, cannot but reinforce the unequality, hence, repression. To make sense of her ideas, however, one has to contextualize them within a poststructuralist framework. Being a deconstructist par-excellence, Cixous emphasizes the differences in order to deconstruct them. For a deep understandi ng of her writing, it is crucial to be familiar with psychoanalytical concepts of Freud and his readers, so as to make sense of them in a Cixousian shape. Karen L. Taylor recognizes Cixouss legacy, against Morag Shiachs critique11, when she states Furthermore, through her writing, Cixous engages in a psychoanalytical exploration of the feminine. Reading and writing are, for her, the means to grapple with the enigma of male / female relations. She has been criticized for her psychoanalytical style, influenced by Jacques Lacan, and marked by a superabundance of images. Nonetheless, Cixous has been instrumental in establishing a new form of literature that lies somewhere between myth and novel. ( 70)What Cixous does is more than claiming equal civil rights for women with regards to their male counterpart. What she does is deconstructing the patriarchal language that hierachizes woman into inferior positions, calling at the meanwhile for a new mode of writing that inscribes the feminin e as equal to the masculine, hence, anticipating a possibility of change in social structures. Through the criture fminine , the feminine body will enkindle far more radical effects of political and social changes than some might like to think ( Cixous 882).