Monday, January 26, 2009
"Female" Writing
This is an admittedly stereotyping deconstruction of 'female' writing because I do find it problematic to gender sentences and sentence structure, but if any writing can be classified as feminine, Angela Carter's would be so. Her craft is gendered not only because she is ornate, descriptive and full-bodied, but it has social feminist implications because it disregards "rule" and linear structure. She has no need for consistent tense or point of view or the regular constructions of grammar. She is self aware and understanding of body and sexuality in ways that 'male' writing may prefer to ignore. In neglecting the standard rules of writing, which are archaic as well as masculine in history, she is pointedly choosing a more modern and so feminine writing objective.
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I really appreciate your approach. It has a sense in terms of explaining what we discussed in class today [I suppose that you wrote this point of view in class]. However, there are still some questions about this issue. For example, if we consider Carter's style is feminine, why the others, such as G.S did not follow her? I think that the destructive way that Angela is using in terms of language has more connection with readers. She is not writing for or to feminine, but she is writing feminine, I suggest. Are all the fairy tales in her novel written first by males? If yes, then we can consider the linguistic style as you state.
ReplyDeleteHannah,
ReplyDeleteGood point. I agree.
However, If we are to gender her writing style, I do think that though she may be writing "female" sentences she also mixes in some of the typically "male" sentences as well. Though her sentences are ornate, descriptive and play with language they also know what they want and how to get there (as I believe Trish mentioned in class in regards to the typically "masculine" sentence). I think Carter is trying to mix up the two stereotypes and make something of her own.
Excellent points, all round. I think Hayley you are right to point out that there is no lack of agency or direction in Carter's sentences...her deployment of grammar is dazzling, a high wire walk on which she seldom gives even the hint of vertigo, though we may feel it, wondering where the sentence began and when it will end. My suggestion that her sentences were gendered was not intended to suggest some essence or stereotype of femininity, so much as to say that as her fairystories are stories about fairystories (and the gendered myths they encode), then her sentences are sentences about sentences, and what they can do, and how they have been understood to work and how women and men have been written as writing them...
ReplyDeleteHayley,
ReplyDeleteI definitely agree with your point that Carter combines "female" sentences with "male" sentences, rather than merely portraying a distinctly feminine writing. I think that not only is Carter mixing up the stereotypes of femininity and masculinity to make something unique, but also as a way to androgynize language - to conceive of a language that is neither dictated by gender, nor by seeking to go against it. To me, the language demonstrates the nature of most people in general - no individual is either wholly feminine nor wholly masculine. Everyone is filled with conflicting desires and modes of thought. Most narratives attribute to the narrator a fixed, unchanging voice, thus suggesting that this is the way people actually think. In reality, there are hundreds of thoughts within thoughts that connect as often as they conflict. Moreover, by mixing up the language, Carter is able to place emphasis on those moments in the text that are distinctly masculine or distinctly feminine.
For me, Carter's use of language reflects the connectedness between everything and how nothing is ever one sided, or one way, even within an individual. Most narratives tend to depict something completely one way or completely another, but Carter's writing captures the internal conflicts, digressions, and shifts within in the characters - in other words, Carter's writing demonstrates the "in betweeness" of most people, who are very often straddling the line between one view and another.
Additionally, I think that by utilizing both "feminine" language and "masculine" language, Carter is able to expose injustices without placing the blame on either gender.
- Margaret