Essay from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 1,7, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, language: English, abstract: In the year 1975 the French feminist author Helene Cixous published an essay called The
Laugh of the Medusä. In it, she develops an entirely new theoretical concept with the aim of
giving rise to feminist voice. The central ideas of Ecriture Feminine, literally womens
writing, are going to be presented in this paper. In the first part, a brief description of
Cixouss intellectual milieu is given in order to show the actual reason that led her to come up
with a new notion of liberating women from patriarchy. In this context, an elaboration on
poststructuralism, the philosophical current Cixous belonged to, follows. Closely related to
that is the authors skepticism towards Sigmund Freuds language philosophy. Specifically
speaking, Freuds statements on the penis envy theory. Primary attention is paid to the theory
of phallocentrism, which can be seen as one of the main reasons for Cixouss writings. For a
better understanding of this term, the concept of logocentrism is also explained, as well.
Logocentrism can be seen as a pillar of the theory of phallocentrism and therefore it deserves
to be mentioned at this point.
In the second part, we deal with the question of what is actually meant by womens writing.
Furthermore, we will analyze which role the female body and sexuality plays in this context.
This excursion is highly interesting as it is crucial for the understanding of her concept. Since
the female body is considered a key for women to resist masculinist thinking and, hence, the
systematic repression of women. Apart from that, we try to show whether features of
Ecriture Feminine are evident in the The Laugh of the Medusä. Moreover, a different
viewpoint on Cixouss theory is shown in the chapter Criticism in which arguments for and
against her theory are shown. In point five Conclusion the main aspects of this paper are
summed up.
When writing this paper, the main source of information were essays on womens writing and
French feminist writing, dating from 1987 to 1986. Besides, secondary literature on literary
and cultural theory as well as feminist practice and poststructuralist theory were used. Recent
research on Cixouss work, however, could not be found. The only source dealing particularly
with her writings dates from 1991.