The Influence of French Feminism on Contemporary Feminist Literary Criticism

Overview

The theory of Feminist literary criticism mainly focuses on language, and has been greatly influenced by Derrida and Lacan, whether it is Cixous’ Ecriture Feminine, or Kristeva’s semiotic discourse. Attempting to use language as the cutting-edge and tool of the patriarchal culture of Shunye. The theoretical forms of other women are radical, but in terms of political practice, they are much inferior to the British aesthetics.

On the whole, this is a kind of political-cultural criticism, with a triple common belief: exposing the premises and prejudices of patriarchy; promoting the discovery and re-evaluation of the works of women writers; and studying the social and cultural environment of literary criticism in detail.

Detail

In terms of countries, the feminist ideology of France and the United States has had a significant impact on contemporary feminist literary criticism. Feminist criticism in France flourished in the socio-political movement in the 1960s (the famous "May 68"). This movement is more theoretical and more enthusiastic about discourse revolution.

French feminism’s unique understanding of “women” is that “women” does not represent a gender, but an attitude against customary culture and language. The rise of feminist criticism in the United States is mainly due to the post-structural deconstructionist trend of thought.

Theoretical Basis

Its theoretical basis is the psychoanalytic theory of Jacques Lacan and the deconstructive philosophy of Jacque Derrida. It connects the history of women's oppression with the status quo and discourse issues, and believes that the root cause of women's writing obstruction lies in the general repression of their original desires.

Therefore, feminist critics have tried to subvert the idea of ​​androcentrism through discourse revolution. Accordingly, Julia Kristeva proposed "semiotic discourse", and Helene Cixous proposed "Ecriture Feminine", which critically uses the ideas of male theorists to reveal the oppression of women. The essence of the study examines the relationship between the language of the female body and writing.

Related theories of Derrida

In Derrida’s view, meaning is not produced in a binary opposition as the previous structuralists believed, but in the relationship with other items in the same sequence. The open relationship between the presence of the signifier and the absence of other signifiers. Therefore, language is not as stable as traditional structuralists believe. Language is not a structure with clear rules, clear boundaries, and symmetrical units of the signifier and signifier. It is like an infinitely extending network. The components of the network are constantly exchanged and circulated. No component is absolutely limited, but everything is restricted and influenced by various other things. Derrida created a new term Différance, which is defined with two meanings, one is difference or distinction, the other is to delay or postpone Derrida invented the word to explain, the meaning is from it and the countless alternative meanings. At the same time as it arises, meaning cannot be self-evident absolute. Its precise direction spreads in all directions, and the meaning is actually a game of substituting one interpretation for another. Variation is not a concept, but an infinite process. It becomes a powerful weapon to deconstruct the traditional dualistic thinking of the West. Such a binary opposition hierarchy is not only manifested in religion and philosophy, but also in language. The task of deconstruction is to expose and dismantle the logic and terminology that make this dual opposition possible. When analyzing modern society, Derrida believes that this kind of duality shows the tendency of Phallus center and Logos center in modern society. He compounded these two tendencies into one word-phalogocentric. Deconstruction involves the goal of feminism.

Related theories of Lacan

Lacan believes that language is a situation of unhealed consciousness. He regards psychoanalysis as a language interpretation. He believes that the unconscious should be interpreted like interpreting words, and that exploring the language structure of the unconscious helps to reveal the subject, because Unhealed consciousness is the result of the insatiable desire of the subject. The subject is nothing else, it is a signifier in the language system, it sneaks in the signifier chain, constantly being constructed and subverted.

In Lacan's theory, The Imagery and The Symbolic are two basic terms that are different from The Real. Imagination is consistent with the pre-Oedipus stage. In this stage, the child thinks that he is a part of the mother, and there is no difference between himself and the world. There is no depression, no lack, and no subconsciousness. The symbolic world is different. The appearance of the father separates the mother and the child. For the child, it means the loss of the mother's body. Therefore, the desire to possess the mother is suppressed, and the unconsciousness develops. That is to say, the unconscious emerges as a result of the suppression of desire. In a certain sense, the unconscious is desire. The symbolic order is actually the gender and social cultural order of patriarchy in modern society. It is composed of phallus surrounding the male reproductive organs, and is governed by the Law of the Father. Regardless of whether the subject is willing to enter the symbolic order, because it is a social culture And the dominance of social life, the subject must enter the symbolic order so as not to become a mentally ill patient. To return to the pre-Oedipus imagination to resist the repression of women by the symbolic order of patriarchy is a common strategy used by French feminists. The construction of subject in language makes French feminist language research revolutionary.

Four stages of the French Feminist Criticism From the 1960s to the 1990s:

Women’s Image Criticism

The main method is to re-read and comment on the text from the perspective of gender. The main content is to criticize traditional literature, especially the portrayal of women in the works of male writers and the comments on female works by male critics. The purpose is to reveal that women live in literary works. The historical, social and cultural roots of subordination

Women-centered Criticism

At this stage, feminist critics began to challenge the traditional classic literature (canon), turning their attention to the works of women that have always been neglected, focusing on digging, analyzing, collating and working hard to create a system of women's literature history and women's aesthetics

Rise of Feminist Literary Theory

Feminists who had despised literary theory in the early years began to reflect on the basic issues of literary research, re-understand the essence of literary criticism theory, and began to challenge the basic assumptions of traditional literary history and critical theory. More importantly, feminist critics began to create feminist theories in the United States

Identity Criticism

Everyone writes, reads, and reviews from a standpoint formed by specific culture, race, gender, class, society, politics, economy, and personal factors. Their views, perspectives, and the reproduction of literature are all marked by " "Identity" brand.

Features of the French Feminist Criticism

In general, French feminist criticism is better than female creation research, focusing on the analysis of the characteristics of the text, and more adhere to the interest in female aesthetic style. Feminist criticism in the United States is full of combative aspirations, trying to promote women's resistance to social or cultural prejudices through literary criticism, and emphasizes perceptual and empirical style and posture.

The study of female language is not the patent of French feminist literary criticism. There are corresponding linguistic studies in the United Kingdom and the United States. However, the study of Anglo-American linguistics is fundamentally different from the language-focused feminist literary criticism in France. In Saussure’s opinion, language is an independent system and a stable medium with a fixed relationship between the signifier and the signified. This is precisely the French feminist’s view that French feminist linguistics opposes that language is more than just It is the system of naming, marking and communication, and it is the place where all meaning and value are produced, and it is the place of power. The study of the French is a non-humanistic linguistic study.

Compare to the American Feminist Criticism

Compared with French feminist criticism, American feminist criticism pays more attention to the status of women in reality, and pays more attention to the significance of empirical facts such as race and class to feminist criticism. They opposed the tendency to over-theorize and called for the purpose of literary criticism to improve the social status and situation of women.

Moreover, more and more feminists believe that the pure literary pursuit of transcending the author's social and historical background is deviating from the general direction, even absurd. Therefore, requiring feminist criticism to be politicized and have practical significance has become one of the important characteristics of American feminist criticism.