Exploring Cultural Identities in Jean Rhys' Fiction by Cristina-Georgiana Voicu
Author:Cristina-Georgiana Voicu [Voicu, Cristina-Georgiana]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Anthropology, Cultural & Social, General, Literary Criticism, Comparative Literature, Sociology
ISBN: 9783110368123
Google: 748oCQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter GmbH & Co KG
Published: 2014-10-02T05:25:42+00:00
4 Jean Rhys and Intertextuality
4.1 Authorship
In this subchapter, I will focus on feminist literary criticism, starting with two feminist critics who try to define what it means to be a woman writer in a patriarchal culture. Essentially, the âanxiety of influenceâ is about the writerâs âfear that he is not his own creator and that the works of his predecessors assume essential priority over his own writingsâ (Gilbert and Gubar, 2000, p. 46). Bloomâs Oedipal model of the âstrong poetâ, whereby a âman can only become a poet by somehow invalidating his poetic fatherâ is undoubtedly a masculinist model but one, as such, eminently suited to understanding the patrilinearity of Western literary history and the âpsychosexual and sociosexual contexts by which every literary text is surroundedâ (Gilbert and Gubar, 2000, p. 47).
By using a model of womenâs cultural difference, I could argue that feminist critics can also incorporate ideas about their language, bodies and psyche, but they will âinterpret them in relation to the social context in which they occurâ (Showalter, 2001, p. 197). Cultural theories identify womenâs âcollective experience within the cultural wholeâ, whilst simultaneously acknowledging important differences amongst women writers. Just to concentrate on the notion of the âwild of womenâs cultureâ, a zone spatially, experientially and metaphysically rushed outside the dominant boundaries, we may see that spatially it is a âno-manâsâ land; thus, forbidden to men, and experientially, includes parts of female lifestyle unlike those of men. In both these areas there are corresponding male zones, not open to women. Metaphysically, however â in terms of consciousness â there is no corresponding male experience alien to women. All male consciousness is within the boundaries of the dominant structures and thus accessible or structured by language. Although they have never experienced it first hand, women may know what male experience is like, since it has been the subject of myth and legend. But man can never know what is in the wild. It is always imaginary. âIn their texts it becomes the place for revolutionary womenâs language â the language of everything that is repressedâ (Showalter, 2001, p. 201). Furthermore, the âwild zoneâ represents the true arena for an examination of womenâs difference. It is here that we will locate the essence of femininity. A cultural model of feminist criticism and womenâs difference establishes the female tradition as a âpositive source of strength and solidarityâ as well as a ânegative source of powerlessnessâ. Since women exist within two traditions simultaneously, feminist critics must address themselves to both dominant and muted structures.
Using the cultural model of gynocritics for Rhysâ Wide Sargasso Sea, we will get two different perceptions of reality corresponding to âdominantâ and âmutedâ groups. Within the text these two axes come in a variety of forms. The most obvious is the male/female dichotomy. But there is also a racial divide, primarily between the British and Jamaican communities (e.g. the protagonistâs white Creole origin of mixed European and Negro descent). Frequent references are made to the differences between
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