Using Myth and Language to Explode Patriarchal Constructs of Myth and Language
Cixous, Helene. "The Laugh of the Medusa." Signs. 1.4. (1975): 875-93.As the title of Helene Cixous' essay, "The Laugh of the Medusa" suggests, Cixous, like Freud uses Greek mythology to critically examine attitudes of her culture towards expressions of sexuality. Unlike Freud, however, Cixous is concerned with the lack of female voice in a patriarchal culture and language that defines women as inarticulate, animal, beyond language, and all that is 'not male.' When women attempt to create a uniquely female canon of writing, even feminist writers limit themselves, by confining female aspirations in terms of achieving fluency in male-dominated language. Cixous, t
Also like Cixous Philip makes use of Greek mythology, using it as a symbol of all that is Classical and male. To even write her own essay, Cixous tries to consciously subvert the grammatical structures of language. Phillip implicitly makes a radical claim that what is female can signify both men and women, rewriting both classical culture as well as its relationship to Africa and conventional Western norms of gender. o defy the 'lock' that patriarchy has had in defining the current myths of our society and language, instead urges women writers to turn to the body and to subvert rather than celebrate linguistic constructs. She deliberately uses a non-linear style that defies conventional academic discourse. Charlottetown; Ragweed Press, 1989. This is a wound inflicted upon all African people, even though Africa is portrayed as a female in her retelling of the myth. She Tries Her Tongue: Her Silence Softly Breaks. Phillip makes use of wordplay such as how "language" causes one to "l/anguish" with "anguish" to challenge the false idea of a universal, objective male and Westernized voice-by breaking down language, she shows how sorrow is rooted in even the alphabet of the West. Thus Cixous rehabilitates the Medusa, in other words, a mythical woman defined by men as ugly who spoke through her body to men by turning them into stone. In contrast to Helene Cixous, Norbese Phillip's work She Tries Her Tongue: Her Silence Softly Breaks attempts to subvert racial as well as gender-based linguistic structures. And like Cixous Phillips subverts the traditional meaning of Greek myths to serve her purpose. She tries to eschew binaries of male/female, either/or, and celebrate indeterminacy to create a female language.
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Acceptance Essays
