Kristevan themes in “Sula” and “The Bluest Eye”

Type :

Term papers

Pages :

6 pages

Format :

.doc

Published date :

04/07/2009

Category :

Philosophy & literature

Sub category :

Linguistics

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Summary :

Introduction
Julia Kristeva and other French feminists
The new language
Feminine language
The failure of words
The self/other dichotomy
A unity deeper than language
Language: Inherently gendered and inherently political
Bibliography

Abstract

When Morrison describes her attempt to express black feminine subjectivity in the bluest eye, she claims that, "the problem, of course, was language"(211). According to Morrison, " 'civilized' languages debase humans"(Afterward, 216). Pauline, Pecola's mother, finds herself "oppressed by words"(112). How could Morrison express her characters' subjectivity using a language that inherently "debases" and "oppresses" it? What happens to Pecola is literally unspeakable, and Nel and sula share a bond that is in many ways beyond language. To give voice to Pecola and sula's silences, language itself would have to be subverted and rewritten. Morrison reinvents language, filling her story with a language of laughter, belches, and cries in which female characters strain against the bonds of masculine language to represent their own subjectivity. To explain the revolutionary mode that Morrison employs, it is useful to turn to the French feminists.According to Lacan, we form our identities through "alienation and subjection to paternal law"(Taylor). When we realize that our "selves" are distinct from the world (and this is achieved primarily through the recognition of sexual difference from the mother) language forms as a way to communicate with that distinct world, to fill the gap of meaning (Kristeva). the semiotic stage, in which there "are no distinctions", is supplanted by a symbolic system that creates meaning through a self-other dichotomy. But what about a women, whose sexual difference from her mother, is not distinct? Lacan posits that language is inherently masculine because it is symbolic. Men submit to a "law of the father", which is essentially a law of alienation and symbolism.