The concept of Ecriture Feminine in Helene Cixous's The Laugh of the Medusa

Essay from the year 2012 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature grade: 17 Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel language: English abstract: In the year 1975 the French feminist author Helene Cixous published an essay called TheLaugh of the Medusa. In it she develops an entirely new theoretical concept with the aim ofgiving rise to feminist voice. The central ideas of Ecriture Feminine literally women'swriting are going to be presented in this paper. In the first part a brief description ofCixous's intellectual milieu is given in order to show the actual reason that led her to come upwith a new notion of liberating women from patriarchy. In this context an elaboration onpoststructuralism the philosophical current Cixous belonged to follows. Closely related tothat is the authors skepticism towards Sigmund Freud's language philosophy. Specificallyspeaking Freud's statements on the penis envy theory. Primary attention is paid to the theoryof phallocentrism which can be seen as one of the main reasons for Cixous's writings. For abetter understanding of this term the concept of logocentrism is also explained as well.Logocentrism can be seen as a pillar of the theory of phallocentrism and therefore it deservesto be mentioned at this point.In the second part we deal with the question of what is actually meant by women's writing.Furthermore we will analyze which role the female body and sexuality plays in this context.This excursion is highly interesting as it is crucial for the understanding of her concept. Sincethe female body is considered a key for women to resist masculinist thinking and hence thesystematic repression of women. Apart from that we try to show whether features ofEcriture Feminine are evident in the The Laugh of the Medusa. Moreover a differentviewpoint on Cixous's theory is shown in the chapter Criticism in which arguments for andagainst her theory are shown. In point five