Page 285 - DENG501_LITERARY_CRITICISM_AND_THEORIES

Unit 25: Gynocriticism and Feminist Criticism: Analysis

The Theoretical Achievement of Gynocriticism Notes
Idea about "female subculture" Showalter finds that because of the phallic prejudice, the female
writers are easily to be submerged in the river of literary history. Then she raised the assumption
of "female subculture" which has its own subjects and images. Showalter emphasized, "Gynocritics
is related to feminist research in history, anthropology, psychology, and sociology, all of which
have developed hypotheses of a female subculture including not only the ascribed status, and the
internalized consciousness of women" (Showalter, 1979). Based on the development of female
consciousness, Showalter "identified three historical phases of women's literary development: the
'feminine' phase (1840-1880), during which women writers imitated the dominant tradition; the
'feminist' phase (1880-1920), during which women advocated minority rights and protested; and
the 'female' phase (1920), during which dependency on opposition —that is, on uncovering
misogyny in male texts is being replaced by a rediscovery of women's texts and women" (Guerin,
2004, p. 198). This is also the track of the growth of female subculture. In the first phase, female
writers imitated the traditional mode of mainstream culture; in the second phase, female writers
began to oppugn these traditional value rules; the third phase is the self-discovering period,
female writers began to search their own identity without relying on the opposition with male.
The idea about "female subculture" apposes the long time oppression of the female consciousness
in the phallic society. This idea also enlightens the later feminist critics to probe into the female
aesthetic more comprehensively.
The Theory on “female creativity”.
The mad woman in the attic (1979), Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar rebuilt the visage of female
literary in the 19 century, and also tried to find out the essence of female creativity—whether it
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is the female nature or the femininity which is constructed by the social culture. Though the
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comprehensive study of the brief female writers in the 19 century, Gilbert and Gubar found that
the creativity was defined as masculine. Their concept "anxiety of authorship," used to describe
nineteenth-century women writers like Harold Bloom's male-applied term "anxiety of influence"—
derives from Freud's psychosexual paradigm of the Oedipus complex. If women follow a normative
female resolution of the Oedipus complex, the father (the male literary tradition) becomes the
object of female desire, and the pre-Oedipal desire for the mother (or her literature) is renounced.
Twentieth-century women writers have the option of the "affiliation complex," which allows them
to "adopt" literary mothers and to escape the male "belatedness," or the "anxiety of influence"
theorized by Bloom, which is in effect a biological imperative forliterary descent from an originatory
father. Normative resolution of the Oedipus complex may leave women anxious about the fragility
of paternal power, worried about usurping paternal primacy, and fearful of malevengeance. The
resulting "masculinist complex" grants autonomy, a new maternal relation, and the creative option
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of male mimicry—a departure from Freud's negative judgment. However, in 19 century, because
of the patriarchal literary creativity, the right of creating female image of female writers' own has
been deprived. Then, the female writers must create some "immutable" female images according
with the patriarchal standard to meet the masculine yearning. On the contrary, the ideal women
quality is hidden in the monstrous figures such as Bertha Rochester, the madwoman in Charlotte
Bronte's Jane Eyre.
This figure is a counter-figure to the idealized heroine, but it is usually in some sense the author's
double, an image of her own anxiety and rage. Based on this, Gibert and Gubar answered the
question about female creativity. They deepen the significance of these "madwomen," and treat
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them as the creative impetus of female writers in the 19 even 20 century. These madwoman or
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monster repeatedly created by women writers is the author's double, expressing her anxiety, rage,
and "schizophrenia of authorship" (Gilbert & Guber, 1979, p. 78). They detect asymmetrical male
and female responses to the rise of female literary power. Women have emerged from their
liminal position in the attic to wage the battle between the two genders. The contribution of
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar is mainly on theoretical level. Their novel way of theoretical
research enlightens a lot of feminist critics. Their work stands on the first stage of the change of
feminist criticism. At this time, feminist criticism began their real literary and textual analysis.

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