Brief Analysis of Feminist Literary Criticism

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Brief Analysis of Feminist Literary Criticism
Rongqiong Guo
Xi’an Peihua University, Xi’an, Shanxi, China, 710100, China.
263168489@qq.com
Abstract. Feminist literary criticism knows as the critical analysis of literary works based on the
feminist perspective. In other words, feminist literary criticism is a kind of literary criticism on the
basis of feminist theory or the politics of feminism more precisely. In particular, it also can be
explained as using ideological discourses and feminist rules to study language, structure and being
of literature. “This school of thought seeks to describe and analyze the ways in which literature
portrays the narrative of male domination in regard to female bodies by exploring the economic,
social, political, and psychological forces embedded within literature.”
Keywords: Feminist Literary; Criticism; literary works.
1. Introduction
Feminist literary criticism has almost gone through two centuries up to now. This literary criticism
based on the reflection of women’s situation by themselves in a long term and achievement of their
specific and practical action. Thus, feminism is the source of feminist literary criticism. Feminism
has experienced two waves. The First Wave, also called liberal feminism, usually refers to the social
movement that women fought for their legal vote right and the basic civil rights in American and
Britain from 1890 to 1920. In the First Wave, women had successfully strived for their civil rights
and the opportunity of attending higher education and finding jobs in the specific industry areas. The
more important was that this wave was a perquisite for the deeper and subtle social works by feminists
later. The Second Wave also knows as the Women’s Liberation Movement, which focused on the
differences between female and male and discussed the origin and operation of gender discrimination
in ideology, culture and society. Owing to this ideology of the feminists, the early development of
the feminist literary criticism tried to seek a chance and approach to change mechanism of literature
between personal and political.
2. The Development of Feminist Literary Criticism
The modem feminist movement origins from The Second Sex by Simone de Beauvoir “one is not
born, but rather becomes, a woman." Over these years, the concept of being equal with male has
developed into different stages and various feminist schools have come into being: radical feminism,
liberal feminism, socialist feminism, black feminism, post-modem feminism and psycho-analytical
feminism.
According to the schools of ideologies and thoughts, feminism can be mainly divided into four
groups: Liberal feminism, Radical feminism, socialist feminism and Marxist feminism. Because of
differences of historical and cultural inheritance, western feminist literary criticism mainly consists
of American school, Britain school and French school. These schools were not totally isolated, instead
they were communicated, affected and promoted each other. No matter what kind of schools, they all
made great contribution to the development and maturity of feminist literary criticism. According to
Lisa Tuttle, the final goal of feminist criticism is “to develop and uncover a female tradition of
writing,” “to analyze women writers and their writings from a female perspective", “to rediscover old
texts", “to interpret symbolism of women's writing so that it will not be lost or ignored by the male
point of view” “to resist sexism in literature and to increase awareness of the sexual politics of
language and style". (Lisa Tuttle: 1986, 184)
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3. The Key Terms of Feminist Literary Criticism
There are many classic and far-reaching feminist works created by those rather wise, serious and
important feminists. Such as The Second Sex (Simone de Beauvoir), Sexual Politics (Kate Millet),
Thinking About Women (Mary Ellman), The New Feminist Criticism: Essays on Women, Literature
and Theory (Elaine Showalter) and other feminist classics created by other feminist pioneers all made
great contribution to the development and maturity of feminist literary criticism. Concerning the
critical theory of feminism, there are some significant key terms: the patriarchy, the other and the
second sex will be discussed in details below.
3.1 The Basic Introduction to the Patriarchy
Patriarchy is one of the key terms in feminist literary criticism. Feminists consider that it is a social
system in which men are the principal authority figures who are the central to social organization,
control of property, occupy leading roles of moral authority, political leadership and where male
family members hold authority over women and children in household. Historically, patriarchy has
made itself in the political, social, economic and legal organization of a series of different cultures. It
also refers the institutions of male rule and female subordination. The patriarchal societies are also
patrilineal which means that title and property can only be inherited by the male lineage.
Patriarchy refers to the role of males in the society in which men take the chief responsibility over
the community welfare by and large. The word "patriarch" derived from two Greek words: “patira,”
and “archy” which means family and rule respectively. “Traditionally, patriarchy granted the father
nearly total ownership over wife or wives and children” “classically, as head of the family the father
is both begetter and owner in a system in which kinship is property". (Millet, 1970:67) In a word,
males are the absolute authority while females are subordinate and inferior to males wherever in the
family and society. According to Eisenstein, Patriarchy ideology hammer at “destroy woman's
consciousness about her potential power, which derives from the necessity of society to reproduce
itself (Eisenstein, 1981:14)
The patriarchal ideology also can be called masculinist or androcentric which is prevailing in most
great classical literary writings that were mainly created by male for male up to now. In these works,
male writers usually describe female characters, neglecting female their own characteristics but using
the male values and ways of thinking, emotion and action. Hence, the female readers always act as
an alien or outsider and are unable to understand and appreciated the heroes who were described by
the male writer and even female may generate anti-emotions against the works. Sandra Gilbert, Elaine
Showalter and Susan Gubar these feminists have also intended to study this phenomenon and
collaborated on their works The Mad Woman in the Attic (1979), A Literature of Their Own: British
Women Novelists from Bronte to Lessing (1977).
All in all, Patriarchy can be understood as male-dominated, male supreme over female and
androcentric in the society. It is known to us all, in the patriarchy society, men are the absolutely
dominators in every social aspect. Since the emergence of the feminism, feminists have done their
best to lead all women to fight against the male-dominators. Even though they have got great success,
the root of the patriarchy hasn’t been removed. Females still suffer in the male-dominated society.
More precisely, it means the female subordination and female inferiority. Moreover, patriarchy has
already shaped by both female and male, for which male are the rulers while female are the ruled.
Overall, Patriarchy idea prevailing in all social areas and rejecting patriarchy is the key step to the
liberation of the female.
3.2 The Basic Introduction to the Other
The other is another important key term in feminist literary criticism. It refers to those alienated
human being who hasn’t or has lost the self-awareness, is under control of other people or
surroundings, acts as an object position and loses subject personalities. It is a tradition that men decide
themselves to be the subject, perform the male domination in all social aspects and defines human
beings by their will. No wonder that female regards the androphany as the positive or standard but
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treats feminine as the unimportant or negative. Thus, because of being lack of initiative and their
inherited weakness—passivity, women are the other of man in the patriarchy society unshakable.
In 1949, De Beauvoir Published the Second Sex which regarded as the Bible of feminism and
classic of feminism theory. In this book, Simone de Beauvoir used the existentialism to analyze and
study female issues. Meanwhile, she explored Freudian, Marxist, Hegelian and other classical critical
theories to expose the inherit qualities of female to be the other. Beauvoir also bitterly pointed out
that the western society was totally male-dominated, and female in this society are “the second sex”,
the “other” of men: “She is defined and differentiated with reference to man and not he with reference
to her; she is the incidental, the inessential as opposed to the essential. he is the subject, he is eh
Absolute—she is the Other.” (De Beauvoir, 1968 :59) Kate Millet, a famous feminist, had also
declared the similar sense of the other in her classic work—Sexual Politics. She announced
“patriarchy has already been established and the male has already set themselves as the human form,
the subject and referent to which is the female is ‘other’ or alien” (Millet, 1970: 25)
3.3 The Basic Introduction to the Second Sex
The second sex this key term origins from the famous work The Second Sex published in French
in 1949 by Simon de Beauvoir. This term is the replacement of the “female” or “woman”. She pointed
out that women always define themselves “I am a woman” while men never bother but position them
as the representative of human beings, which indicates that “men” and “women” are definitely not
the symmetrical terms. She noticed that the lawyers, priests, philosophies, writers and scientists kept
trying to show that female’s attachment state was formed by fate and contributed to well-being of
humanity—“One is not born, but rather becomes, women”. In other words, because of the inferior
nature of women, equalities between sexes will be a mirage forever.
Concerning about the discussion of gender differences, exactly as Beauvoir had once said “ woman
is just a uterus”. That is to say, female’s fate was decided on this anatomy and when facing this Nature
Order, all the efforts which attempt to challenge the female’ unfair treatment of gender discrimination
melt into thin air. Furthermore, talking about discourse, female discourse has been suppressed by
male’s ruling language fundamentally. If Michel Foucault’ s so called “ truth” (Subjectivité et Vérité,
1980-1981) which depends on who controls the propositional utterance is acceptable, there is reason
to believe men’s control power is a trap to induce women fall into men’ s “truth”. Thus, female writers
should resist men’s control of discourse but retreat into a harbor for female discourse passively and
negatively.
4. Conclusion
All in all, a serious of conception about women: delicacy, vulnerable, sensitiveness, tolerance and
considerateness, etc. are the products of society and culture, are formed by male based on their needs
but not the results of female’s specific physical structure. As a result, Simon De Beauvoir suggested
to use “the second sex” this term to substitute for the term “female”. She believed that this substitution
may probably weaken various prejudice and discrimination which are forced on women by traditional
ideology and finally achieve the goal of gender equality.
References
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New York: Harper & Row, 1948.
[3]. Tuttle, Lisa. Encyclopedia of Feminism. [M]Harlow: Longman, 1986.
[4]. Harding, Sandra. Feminism and Methodology. Bloomington: Indiana University Press ,1987.
[5]. Paton, New York: Harper & Row, 1948.
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[6]. Milet, Kate. Sexual Politics. [M] Garden City: Doubleday, 1970.
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