V.

Senthil Nathan
Asst.Prof of English
Sri Vidya Mandir Arts and Science College
Katteri; Uthangarai
Krishnagiri Dt
Email Id. literarian.eng@gmail.com

Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness

- Elaine Showalter

Introduction

Elaine Showalter is one of the most famous American Critics, feminists and writers on
cultural and social issues. She is also a founder of feminist literary criticism in United States
academy. Her “Feminist Criticism in the Wilderness” is first published in Critical Inquiry in
1981. It is her first major work which lucidly presents the evaluation of feminist criticism.
Feminist theory, or feminism in short, has evolved as one of the most influential and radical
critical theories of the 20th century. According to her, the feminist criticism is not more unified,
but “it is more adventurous in assimilating and engaging with theory”.

Feminism

Like all other critical theories, feminism has a critical history. As Chris Beasley rightly
observes, “feminism starts from a critique of the mainstream of the norm, of what is taken for
granted”. It operates from the point of view of questioning ‘whether the world has to be what it
is? And questioning even whether the world is as it is said to be? The critical stance of feminism
assumes the form of a critique of misogyny, the assumption of male superiority and centrality.
Thus it is a critical theory that refuses what is described as the masculine bias of mainstream.

Literary criticism like other spheres of life was a victim of pernicious male dominance
from which many feminists wished to escape. There has been no unified and integrated school of
feminist criticism. Masculine thought allowed no space for women writers and their ideology.
Virginia Woolf in her “A Room of One’s Own” has expressed how she was prohibited from
entering University library and it shows the fundamental sanctuary of the male logos.

Thus feminist criticism in the beginning was in a state of impasse due to male supremacy
in art and literature. The feminine viewpoint was ignored. Showalter refers to the feminist
theorists Carolyn Heilburn and Catherine Stimpson who identified two poles of feminist
literary criticism. The first of these modes righteous, angry and admonitory, they compared to
the Old Testament, “looking for the sins and errors of the past”. The Second mode, disinterested
and seeking “the grace of imagination”, thus compared to the New Testament.

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Defining the Feminine: Gynocritics and the Women’s text

“A woman’s writing is always feminine; it cannot help being feminine; at its best it is most
feminine; the only difficulty lies in defining what we mean by feminine.”

- Virginia Woolf

Feminist criticism is hard to define. It widely differs from male centric criticism in the
sense that it is concerned with varied aspects of womanhood. Showalter sums up “this
specialized critical discourse” in one word ‘gynocritics’ which she herself has invented.
Gynocritics reveal that they are concerned with something solid, enduring and real about the
relation of women to literary culture.

Broadly speaking gynocritics use four models of difference biological, linguistics,

psychoanalytic, and culture. Each is an effort to define and differentiate the qualities of women
writers and the women’s text, each model also represents a school of gynocritics feminist
criticism with its own favourite texts, styles and methods.

Women’s Writing and Women body

“More body, hence more writing”

- Cixous, ‘The Laugh of the Medusa’

Organic or biological criticism of a text is based on body, “anatomy is textually”.

Biological criticism centers round the female biological difference in writing. Carolyn G.Burke
remarks “Women’s writing proceeds from the body, that our sexual differentiation is also our
source”. Victorian physicians believed that women’s physiological functions diverted about
twenty percent of their creative energy from brain activity. Victorian anthropologists believed
that the frontal lobes of the male brain were heavier and more developed than female lobes and
thus that women were inferior in intelligence. But feminist criticism rejects the attribution of
literal biological inferiority. As Miller rightly quotes, the difference of women’s literary practice,
therefore, must be sought in ‘the body of her writing and not the writing of her body’. Thus
Biological feminist criticism stresses the importance of body as a source of imagery.

Women’s writing and Women language

The question arises whether men and women use the same language. In fact, women use
language differently. According to Elaine Showalter, Women’s language cannot be explained in
terms of ‘two sex specific languages’ but need to be considered in terms of styles, strategies and
contexts of linguistic performance. Women writers have to cultivate linguistics and stylistic
devices which naturally and spontaneously, artistically and effectively express feminine
sensibility and their individuality. The formation of such a language would bring them a distinct
status in the field of literature and criticism. Women must express themselves both ‘body and

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soul’ in language, a feminist language. They must enjoy full freedom of expression and
according to their choice and must carve out a space for themselves in the use of language.

Women’s writing and Women’s Psyche

Psycho-analytic feminist criticism “locates the difference of Women’s writing in the

author’s psyche and in the relation of gender to the creative process”. Female psyche or self is
shaped ‘by the body, by the developed of language and by sex-role socialization’. The nineteenth
century feminist literature reveals the disturbed and chaotic state of female psyche. Freud in his
essay “the Relation of the poet to Daydreaming” maintained that the unsatisfied dreams and
desires of women are chiefly erotic; these are the desires that shape the plots of women’s fiction.
Thus they cannot explain historical change, ethnic difference, or the shaping force of generic and
economic factors. But many feminist like Gilbert, Gubar, Abel, and Miller rejects this kind of
argument to show they are not inferior.

Women’s Writing and Women’s Culture

“I considered women’s literature as a specific category, not because of biology, but

because it is, in a sense, the literature of the colonized.”

-Christiane Rochefort, ‘The Privilege of Consciousness’

Culture determines the nature and character of writing by women. Language too is
shaped by cultural ideas women writers differ culturally, racially, nationally, and historically. All
these factors influence literature by women. Female cultural experience differs from the male
cultural experience. In male centered history women centered inquiry has been unfortunately lift
out. So the focus should be on a women centered inquiry, considered ‘the possibility of the
existence of a female culture within the general culture shared by men and women’. It redefines
Women’s activities and goal from a women centered point of view. Thus Women’s culture,
broadly speaking, implies full independence from the centered and influence of male dominated
institutions.

Conclusion

Thus Feminist Criticism is concerned with the interpretation and reinterpretation of texts
of women writers. It enlightens us and broadens our understanding about the works of women
writers and their demands in the male-centric world.