Page 268 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Literary Criticism and Theories

Notes examined to discover how women writers have historically perceived themselves and their cultures.
Other goals of gynocriticism are to preserve and chronicle the history of women's writing and to
rediscover lost or neglected women writers. Showalter describes feminine writing as a form of the
general experience of minority cultures, cultures that are also "Others" and whose members are
struggling to find a place usually reserved for white males. This leads to the problem of multiple
marginalization, since some men and women may be Others in terms of ethnicity and sexual
orientation.
Language
Feminist writers may also focus on language, defining it as a male realm, and exploring the many
ways in which meaning is created. This language-based feminism is typically associated with
French feminism. Such feminists may conceive of language as phallocentric, arguing that it privileges
the masculine by promoting the values appreciated by the male culture. Such a language-based
approach typically attempts to reveal a relationship between language and culture, or, more
specifically, the way the politics of language affects and even determines women's roles in a
culture. Radical French feminists may associate feminine writing with the female body, so that the
repression of female sexual pleasure is related to the repression of feminine creativity in general.
They insist that once women learn to understand and express their sexuality, they will be able to
progress toward a future defined by the feminine economy of generosity as opposed to the masculine
economy of hoarding. Such a position has drawn criticism from other feminists, since it seems to
reduce women to biological entities and fosters (though it reverses) a set of binary oppositions-
female/male. Julia Kristeva, Annie Leclerc, Xaviere Gauthier, and Marguerite Duras are four
French feminists.
Interestingly, differences between the French and English languages involve complicated feminist
issues. The English language distinguishes between sex and gender, so that human beings are
either female or male by sex and feminine or masculine by gender. The feminine/masculine
opposition permits some fluidity, so that androgyny can become a central, mediating position
between the two extremes. The distinction between male and female, however, is absolute. The
way the English language categorizes people has itself created a debate within feminism, over
naming. In French, by comparison, the concepts of femininity and femaleness are included in the
same word.
Political and Social Agendas
Finally, British feminists have tended to be more historically oriented than French and American
feminists. These British critics tend to be materialistic and ideological; they look carefully at the
material conditions of historical periods and consider such conditions as central to understanding
literature. Literature, in this model, is culturally produced. Some British feminists consider that an
American opposition to male stereotypes has produced a feminine reaction that has led to an
ignorance of real differences among women's races, social classes, and cultures. British feminists
also emphasize that women's development of individual strategies to obtain real power within
their political, social, or creative arenas is actually a negative move. They argue that such examples
mystify male oppression and perpetrate the myth that, somehow, male oppression creates for
women a world of special opportunities.
Generally, the British position encourages historical and political engagement to promote social
change. This model of activism contrasts with the American and French models, which focus
primarily on sexual difference. A typical strategy of the British approach is to examine a text by
first placing the text in its historical context and then exposing the patriarchal ideologies that
structure the text and govern the depiction of women characters. Because of historical oppression,
the women characters tend to be either silent or mouthpieces for men's myths. Judith Newton and
Deborah Rosenfelt are two examples of British feminists.
History
Feminist criticism owes much to the work of Simone de Beauvoir and Virginia Woolf, two founders
of contemporary feminist thought. De Beauvoir explored many ways in which women are defined

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