Giving Voice to the Silenced Other: Carol Ann Duffy’s “Salome” in the Context of French Feminist Poststructuralist Theory

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 prelinguistic 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 selfrepresentation, 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 20 ^th 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, reanalyze 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 “herstory” rather than “history” (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 reconceptualization 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 maledominated 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’”. [5/7/2008]. Feratova-Loidolt, Melanie. 2007. “Lecture Notes on Derrida, Freud, Lacan & French Feminist Poststructuralism”. [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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In The World’s Wife, she reconstructs, for example, true and fictional stories as well as

biblical and classical myths about men, and turns them upside down by shifting the focus to

the originally marginalized, silenced or even absent (female) Other (e.g. Salome, Mrs.

Lazarus, Mrs. Aesop, Mrs. Darwin, Frau Freud, Mrs. Faust, Queen Kong or Elvis’ twin

sister). With her female representations of the women behind these men, she rewrites these

stories by adopting a female point of view, and exclusively using the voices of female

speakers. Thus, she changes each story into one about a woman, who tells “herstory” in her

own words, and is independent of and unimpressed by the man she is usually associated with.

In doing so, she criticizes the traditional and historical role of woman determined by her

relationship with a man, which used to put her on the periphery of society and culture and

turned her into an outsider. Thereby, she systematically deconstructs and undermines the male

power discourse. In particular, she highlights its inadequacies, and exposes it as a means of

sustaining masculinity and of silencing, oppressing and even repressing women by excluding

them from the Symbolic, i.e. especially language and culture. In turn, this points towards her

poetry’s intersection with feminist poststructuralist theory.

Salome (In: The World’s Wife, 1999)

1 I’d done it before 2 (and doubtless I’ll do it again, 3 sooner or later) 4 woke up with a head on the pillow beside me – whose? – 5 what did it matter?

6 Good-looking, of course, dark hair, rather matted;

7 the reddish beard several shades lighter;

8 with very deep lines around the eyes, 9 from pain, I’d guess, maybe laughter;

10 and a beautiful crimson mouth that obviously knew 11 how to flatter ...

12 which I kissed ...

13 Colder than pewter.

14 Strange. What was his name? Peter?

15 Simon? Andrew? John? I knew I’d feel better

16 for tea, dry toast, no butter, 17 so rang for the maid.

18 And, indeed, her innocent clatter 19 of cups and plates, 20 her clearing of clutter, 21 her regional patter, 22 were just what needed – 23 hungover and wrecked as I was from a night on the batter.

24 Never again!

25 I needed to clean up MY act, 26 get fitter, 27 cut out the booze and the fags and the sex.

28 Yes. And as for the latter, 29 it was time to turf out the blighter, 30 the beater or biter,

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