Giving Voice to the Silenced Other:

Carol Ann Duffy′s "Salome" in the Context of French Feminist Poststructuralist Theory

1. Introduction

With the first wave of feminism in the early 20th century, women like Virginia Woolf (1930s)

or Simone de Beauvoir (1950s) ("the Mothers of Feminism") started to question and analyze

the traditional inferior status of women and the notion of femininity, and to attack patriarchy

for its oppression, silencing and exclusion of women from politics, religion, science or

literature. Moreover, they became active in order to fight for women′s social equality and

wanted to encourage the development of a sense of female self-consciousness. The 1960s and

1970s saw the second wave of feminism as a powerful social movement, looking not just at

equality at work and political power but at every aspect of culture. Linking these historical

and cultural developments with the course′s topic "The Shadow of the Other Subject:

Cultural-Historical Meanings of Intertextual Reconfigurations of Scriptural Female Figures in

Literature," I would like to reflect and elaborate on two major concepts dealt with during the

semester: French feminist poststructuralism and postmodern female literature ­ two

movements that aim at re-interpreting the world from a feminist and female perspective.

Taking the main arguments of poststructuralist French feminism (together with some ideas of

Beauvoir, Lacan and Freud) as a theoretical background, I am going to analyze and interpret a

postmodern reconfiguration of the biblical character Salome in Carol Ann Duffy′s eponymous

poem, which appeared in her collection

The World′s Wife

in 1999.

2. Outlining and reflecting upon French Feminist Poststructuralist Theory

French feminist poststructuralist discourse developed in the 1960s and its main exponents are

Julia Kristeva, Luce Irigaray and Hélène Cixous. Although each of them has their own

theoretical and critical concepts, they basically share the same ideas, attitudes and aims. What

I personally find most interesting is the both theoretical and practical nature of their

endeavours.

In theoretical terms, the French feminists aim to investigate, revise and undermine the

patriarchal (and therefore masculine) concept of subjectivity, mental construction of gender

identity and misrepresentation or even repression of female subjectivity and femininity as

such. They argue that in our Western culture dominated by patriarchy, logocentrism and a

binary way of thinking, the universal and rational subject is usually identified as male.

However, he can only define himself and affirm his superiority by referring to woman′s

difference to him (cf. Beauvoir: the Other is dialectically necessary for the existence of the

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One). Thus, woman is not an authentic subject, but only a culturally constructed, inferior and

passive object associated with "body," "nature," "irrationality" and "immanence" (cf.

Beauvoir′s notion of the Inessential Other and Lacan′s notion of the Imaginary): she cannot

define herself, but is defined by man in terms of binary oppositions (i.e. male-female

dichotomies), that is by her difference to the active, superior and male subject and his

attributes such as "mind," "culture," "rationality" and "transcendence" (cf. Beauvoir′s notion

of the Essential One and Lacan′s notion of the Symbolic).

In this context, I think it is also worth mentioning that they criticize Freud′s and Lacan′s

theories for being prescriptive and for confirming patriarchal structures. They especially

disagree with Lacan′s hierarchical concept of the Imaginary, i.e. the female and maternal pre-

linguistic realm without meaning (cf. Freud′s concept of the pre-oedipal), and the Symbolic,

i.e. the male and paternal realm ruled by the Law of the Father, the social and cultural order

constituting meaning, language, subjectivity, independence, sexual difference as well as

individual, gender and social identity (cf. Freud′s concept of the oedipal): it privileges man

over woman, and only allows subject formation in terms of masculinity. As a distinct female

subject position independent of masculinity does not exist at all, she is defined, constructed

and represented with reference to man, but, in turn, she can thus not be said to be an

autonomous female subject. Consequently, woman and her difference are not only excluded

from, but also repressed within the symbolic order. In my view, this means that culture and

language belong to the masculine realm and can exist without the feminine, but that woman

has no power in this context and needs them for her cultural and linguistic identity and

representation of her seeming subjectivity or of her body: her position as man′s negative

mirror image, meaning that she is only what he is not, is a naturally given fact (cf. Irigaray).

As she is denied subjectivity, autonomy, a voice as well as the opportunity for self-

representation, she cannot contribute to culture, traditions, myths, history and individual or

universal meaning, which all form part of the Symbolic. In my opinion, this can be seen in the

fact that women in Western culture have for a very long time (up to the 20th century) not

really participated in the cultural, political, religious or scientific discourse.

The more practical objective of poststructuralist feminist theory is of special interest in

the context of this paper: according to the French feminists, women have to re-think, re-

analyze and re-interpret the traditionally patriarchal concept of the world, history and culture

from a female or rather feminist point of view by questioning, subverting and rewriting the

whole patriarchal discourse. They advocate that women and their subjective voices,

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perspectives, realities and truths have to be put into history, literature and culture in order to

present "

her

story" rather than "

his

tory" (cf. postmodern female literature).

In general, I have the impression that feminist-poststructuralist theory can basically be

considered as a further development of Beauvoir′s theory of "Woman as the Other,"

according to which woman is constructed as man′s negative mirror image by using her as the

projection screen for his fears and desires in order to establish himself as the Essential One.

However, in contrast to Beauvoir, the French feminists not only focus on a re-

conceptualization and re-evaluation of the female body and on the role of language (and not

so much of society) for subject and gender formation, but also claim that woman is not only

inscribed and oppressed, but even repressed within patriarchal discourses (i.e. "his(s)tory"),

and that it is not enough to simply participate actively in it (e.g. by writing her own texts in

this tradition) in order to become a subject with her own voice and identity in a male-

dominated world. I think that thereby, the basic patriarchal structures as such would remain

fairly stable, and masculinity would still be accepted as the governing universal principle,

only allowing women some freedom. On the contrary, I would say that they want woman to

refuse and deconstruct the whole patriarchal system as such and especially its way of

constructing female identity.

Sources:

Feratova-Loidolt, Melanie. 2005. "Lecture Notes on Simone de Beauvoir′s Theory of `Woman′ as `the Other′".

<http://homepage.univie.ac.at/melanie.feratova-loidolt/courses/ws2005/memos/beauvoir.htm> [5/7/2008].

Feratova-Loidolt, Melanie. 2007. "Lecture Notes on Derrida, Freud, Lacan & French Feminist Poststructuralism".

<http://homepage.univie.ac.at/melanie.feratova-loidolt/courses/ss2007Gender/poststr.htm> [5/7/2008].

3. Deconstructing a popular biblical myth:

Carol Ann Duffy′s "Salome"

Carol Ann Duffy, a British poet, playwright, and university teacher, was born in

Glasgow/Scotland in 1955, studied philosophy, and is one of the most famous female writers

of the postmodernist period, which started around 1940. Some of her most important works,

mainly collections of poetry, are

Standing Female Nude

(1985),

Selling Manhattan

(1987),

The Other

Country

(1990),

Mean Time

(1993),

Grimm Tales

(1996),

The World′s Wife

(1999),

The Feminine Gospels

(2002) and

Rapture

(2005). In general, Duffy deeply distrusts

and therefore aims to deconstruct, rewrite or even parody master narratives of Western

culture, which claim to be universal (e.g. the Bible) in order to criticize or even subvert the

patriarchal structures of these writings and to give a totally and radically new perspective and

pattern to traditional myths, stories and genres.

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