Feminist criticism

in the wilderness
Elaine Showalter

women have no wilderness in

them. They are provident instead.
Content in the tight hot cell of
their heart to eat dusty bread.
.Louise Bogan

Elaine Showalter
Elaine Showalter is

one of the most

powerful contemporary
feminist writers and
critics. She started by
an ideological position
that literary criticism
produce even during
the peak of feminist
movement has been
inadequate and lacking
focus and direction.

Gynocriticism
Showalters gyno criticism is

based on the assumption that

the production, consumption
and assessment of a literary
product has to shift its focus
form the patriarchal hierarchy
to a matri-lineal system.

Elaine Showalter differentiates between

two modes of feminist criticism
The first mode is necessarily

ideological which deals with woman as

a reader, attempting to read literary
text and focusing on the stereotype,
misconception and certain omission.
This mode of criticism tend to
intellectualize, ignore the life
experiences of women as they live in
society and in language.

Woman as writer
The second mode of feminist

literary criticism is an attempt to

read women as a writer and the
subjects of this criticism are
history, style, theme genres and
structures which she also told to
constitute the psycho dynamic of
womens writings.

Modes of literary
criticisms
Modes of
literary
criticism view
woman as

Reader of
literary work
produce by
men

Writer of
.literary work

Showalter talks
about four factors of
women criticism.
These factors have
been debated over a
long period of time.

Factors of feminist
criticism
Women
s body

Women
s
languag
e

Women
s
psyche

Women
s
culture

Womens writing and womans- 1

body
Most feminist critics have
seriously debated the issue that
culture is owned and defined by
the patriarchal hierarchy. There
are serious of essays and books
written on this issue by feminists
who make an argument that
womens body have been the
object of writing and not the

inherent prejudice
that inferior females
body produces an
inferior body of
literature.
In a sense, writing too was
judged on the basis of biology.
Showalter is basically objecting
to the inherent binarism in the
dominant critical practices.

The biological criticism is obviously

grounded on the idea of the superior
male; the patriarchal notions of the
biological polarity have seriously harmed
not only the writing about women, but
womens writing as whole.
Showalter believes that in order to live a
fully human life, women must recognize
the resistance of their physically as a
united whole , then only the body of
womens writing could be properly
appreciated.

Womens writing and womens- 2

.language
Showalter seriously questions that

language has always been rooted in the

gender polarity and the language that
women use, is a language of emotions, of
impulse, lacking in decorum, authority
and reason. The argument therefore
naturally leads to the conclusion that if
women have weak language, they will
produce weak literature.

It is possible therefore to create

altogether new language a feminist
language or what Showalter calls a
gynocritical language. Showalter does
not suggest that women can create
altogether new language, like most
contemporary feminist. Showalter too
makes a case for reclaiming the
recourses of womens language,
language rooted in mothering,
characterized by care, nurture, selfless
love and nutrition as against control,
domination, discipline and rigidity.

Showalters gynocritical idea

of language is shared by a
large number of feminists who
believe that women must
reclaim the resources of their
language and thereby, their
self-respect as humans beings
is possible only by realizing
their power as mothers.

Womens writing and woman-3

psyche
Showalter argues that the difference

between men and women is also

used to assess the creative process.
It uses the linguistic and biological
models of genders to define the
female psyche. It was the assumption
in Freudian psychoanalysis that
women have few writing blocks
compared with the writing factors like
the ink, the pen, the paper, etc.

Moreover, the Freudian idea

that women suffer from
castrations complex also
seriously effects writing by
women. A deep rooted
psychoanalytical prejudice that
women suffer from inadequacy.
They are not complete because
they are not men has created
serious limitations in criticism
about womens writing.

Womens writing and- 4

woman culture
The last model of Showalters thesis

of gynocriticism is the location of

womens writing in culture.
Women have always thought about
their roles in society, history, and
culture in male-centric terms. Which
obviously is a limitation of womens
writing.
Women have never attempted to

Showlater makes out a case that women

must seriously investigate into the matrilineal resources of culture both as an
individuals and as member in a group. In the
dominant history, women voices and
womens cultural productions have been
silenced and muted.
The matri-lineal resources of culture have a
very wide field of inference such as their
emotions, their relationships with nature,
ecology domestic economy or the recycling
of human resources, which need to be
brought into the main stream of womens
writings.

Thank you for watching.

Good luck.