Sexual Difference and Women's Space in Sandra Cisneros' Caramelo

2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (6) ◽  
pp. 119-126
Author(s):  
Razieh Faraji ◽  
Sahar Jamshidian
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Sandra Cisneros ◽  
The Other ◽  
Main Character ◽  
Luce Irigaray ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
The Subject

Unlike previous feminist critics who were seeking ways to reduce the otherness of the women to help them be the same as men, the subject, Luce Irigaray, strongly emphasizes the irreducibility of the women's place as the "other." Concerned with the concept of sexual difference and the otherness of women, Irigaray occupies a unique position among feminist critics. Irigaray aims not to be the "same," but to make a clear border between these two sexually different creatures. Based on sexual difference, both men and women should stand in their bordered place, and they cannot be substituted for the other. Accordingly, Irigaray seeks irreducible alterity for women in all aspects, which is the most crucial objective of this paper. Being a feminitst by spirit, Sandra Cisneros, the prize-winning chicana writer, in her novel, Caramelo (2002), dramatizes what Irigaray theorizes in her Ethics of Sexual Difference (1993). In this light, the current study analyzes Caramelo to illustrate how the "place" of the "other," that is women's "place," is occupied unfairly by the empowered men, and how female characters resist and/or succumb to the oppressive situations. The results of the study indicate that Lala, the main character, possesses the potentiality of being aware of "sexual difference" and "space," as key tools, to regain her place occupied by men, and reclaim her subjectivity, goals for which both Sandra Cisneros and Luce Irigary have aimed for years.

Tracing Sexual Difference

1998 ◽  
pp. 1-6
Author(s):  
Pamela Anderson
Keyword(s):  
Personal Identity ◽  
Emmanuel Levinas ◽  
Sexual Difference ◽  
Western Culture ◽  
The Self ◽  
The Other ◽  
Luce Irigaray ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Self Identity ◽  
The Difference

A reading of Luce Irigaray suggests the possibility of tracing sexual difference in philosophical accounts of personal identity. In particular, I argue that Irigaray raises the possibility of moving beyond the aporia of the other which lies at the heart of Paul Ricoeur's account of self-identity. My contention is that the self conceived in Ricoeur's Oneself as Another is male insofar as it is dependent upon the patriarchal monotheism which has shaped Western culture both socially and economically. Nevertheless there remains the possibility of developing Ricoeur's reference to 'the trace of the Other' in order to give a non-essential meaning to sexual difference. Such meaning will emerge when (i) both men and women have identities as subjects, and (ii) the difference between them can be expressed. I aim to elucidate both conditions by appropriating Irigaray's 'Questions to Emmanuel Levinas: On the Divinity of Love.'

The Unacknowledged Socrates in the Works of Luce Irigaray

Hypatia ◽  
2006 ◽  
Vol 21 (2) ◽  
pp. 28-44
Author(s):  
Shaun O'Dwyer
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
The Other ◽  
Luce Irigaray ◽  
Dialectical Method ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Other Woman

In Luce Irigaray's thought, Socrates is a marginal figure compared to Plato or Hegel. However, she does identify the Socratic dialectical position as that of a ‘phallocrat’ and she does conflate Socratic and Platonic philosophy in her psychoanalytic reading of Plato in Speculum of the Other Woman. In this essay, I critically interpret both Irigaray's own texts and the Platonic dialogues in order to argue that: (1) the Socratic dialectical position is not ‘phallocratic’ by Irigaray's own understanding of the term; (2) that Socratic (early Platonic) philosophy should not be conflated with the mature Platonic metaphysics Irigaray criticizes; and (3) that Socratic dialectical method is similar in some respects with the dialectical method of Diotima, Socrates’ instructress in love and the subject of Irigaray's “Sorcerer Love” essay in An Ethics of Sexual Difference.

scholarly journals Rethinking Language in Irigaray’s Mimesis Applied in David Mamet’s Oleanna

2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (3) ◽  
pp. 2357-2362
Author(s):  
Shahrzad Mohammad Hossein ◽  
Narges Raoufzadeh ◽  
Fatemeh Sadat Basirizadeh
Keyword(s):  
Women Characters ◽  
Luce Irigaray ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Keen Interest ◽  
David Mamet ◽  
The Subject

Throughout history, women have always sought their rights and place and this has long been the subject of much debate among writers and critics. So writers and critics, both men and women have reflected this issue in their works in different ways. From the very outset of her career, Luce Irigaray showed a keen interest in the exploration of the key role that language has in determining how women are evaluated in their society and the position they hold in it. In order to show resistance to masculine values imposed on them, women resort to strongholds such as mimesis in opposition. This paper aims to primarily, trace the backgrounds of this notion, secondly, to pursue the effect and use of it by women characters and to depict in what way it is employed as a means of resistance. Examples that will be provided shall be selected from the play “Oleanna”, a modern play written by David Mamet.

scholarly journals Titus Flavius Clemens’ Stance on Wine as Expressed in Paedagogus

2019 ◽  
Vol 9 ◽  
pp. 187-205
Author(s):  
Jolanta Dybała ◽  
Krzysztof Jagusiak ◽  
Michał Pawlak
Keyword(s):  
Pure Water ◽  
Family Members ◽  
Food Product ◽  
The Other ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Golden Mean ◽  
Wine Consumption ◽  
Christian Theologian ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Medicinal Properties

Titus Flavius Clemens was a philosopher and Christian theologian from the period of the 2nd–3th century. The aim of this paper is to present his view on the subject of wine and his recommendations on wine consumption as described in his work entitled Paedagogus. In this work Titus Flavius Clemens focuses primarily on the moral side of drinking wine. He is a great supporter of the ancient principle of moderation, or the golden mean (μεσότης). We also find its traces in his recommendations regarding the drinking of wine. First of all, he does not require Christians to be abstinent. Although he considers water as the best natural beverage to satisfy thirst, he does not make them reject God’s wine. The only condition he sets, however, is to maintain moderation in drinking it. He recommends diluting wine with water, as the peaceful Greeks always did, unlike the war-loving barbarians who were more prone to drunkenness. On the other hand, Titus Flavius Clemens warns the reader against excessive dilution of wine, so that it does not turn out to be pure water. He severely criticizes drunkenness, picturesquely presenting the behavior of drunks, both men and women. Wine in moderation has, in his opinion, its advantages – social, familial and individual. It makes a person better disposed to himself or herself, kinder to friends and more gentle to family members. Wine, when consumed in moderation, may also have medicinal properties. Clemens is well aware of this fact and in his work he cites several medical opinions on the subject. Unfortunately, in Paedagogus we find little information about wine as a food product / as an everyday bevarage. The input on the subject is limited to the list of exclusive, imported wines. What is worth noting, Titus Flavius Clemens appears to be a sommelier in this way.

The Diabolical Strategy of Mimesis: Luce Irigaray's Reading of Maurice Merleau-Ponty

Hypatia ◽  
1996 ◽  
Vol 11 (3) ◽  
pp. 114-129 ◽  
Author(s):  
Susan Kozel
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
The Other ◽  
Luce Irigaray ◽  
Self And Other ◽  
The Voice

In this essay I explore the dynamic between Luce Irigaray and Maurice Merleau-Ponty as it unfolds in An Ethics of Sexual Difference (1993). Irigaray's strategy of mimesis is a powerful feminist tool, both philosophically and politically. Regarding textual engagement as analogous for relations between self and other beyond the text, I deliver a cautionary message: mimetic strategy is powerful but runs the risk of silencing the voice of the other.

scholarly journals Woman as the Other—Interpretations of the Gender Wars in “A Woman on a Roof” from the Perspective of Existential Feminism

2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
pp. 63
Author(s):  
Junying Song
Keyword(s):  
Short Story ◽  
Nobel Prize ◽  
Doris Lessing ◽  
The Other ◽  
Female Characters ◽  
Male And Female ◽  
Patriarchal Society ◽  
Male Power ◽  
Lower Status ◽  
The Subject

Doris Lessing is one of the Nobel Prize winners and “A Woman on a Roof” is such a famous short story of hers. In the patriarchal society, women are in the lower status, but the woman in the story struggles bravely to fight against the male power. During her fighting, the woman has doubts and hesitation, but she finally forces the three males to put off their prejudice. This paper focuses on how the woman strives for her own rights, and talks from the perspective of Existential Feminism, taking the main male and female characters in “A Woman on a Roof” as examples, so as to explore women’s self-survival in the dualistic society. Through studying her feminist thinking in the short story, the paper points out that the woman finally transforms her role from the Other to the Subject and then she is in an equal position with the three males. Though the two genders does not reconcile with each other as it seems to be with the purification of rainwater in “A Woman on a Roof”, the woman has made a big progress in the pursuit of her own transcendence.

Ovid and Modern Times

1958 ◽  
Vol 5 (1) ◽  
pp. 13-15
Author(s):  
T. F. Hicham
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Modern Times ◽  
The Subject ◽  
The Moment

No author is more helpful than Ovid to anyone whose task it is to express modern ideas in Latin or to sum up in a brief and memorable way the achievements of distinguished men and women. Here I have gratefully brought together some examples of the help he has given me during the last twelve years in presentations for honorary degrees at Oxford. My hope is that this form of bimillenary tribute will not seem out of place in Greece & Rome. The Editors will know that the revival of spoken Latin is much in the air at the moment—there was a conference on the subject at Avignon in 1956—and they themselves not long ago invited suggestions for a Latin rendering of ‘television’. Ovid's own prophetic shot at this word is listed among the other examples of his foresight given below. All my borrowings from him have been actually used in public orations; but I have not thought it necessary to name the honorands concerned, nor have I sometimes scrupled to adapt to present purposes the Latin used to introduce the borrowed quotation.

Fourteen Unpublished Letters by Henry Crabb Robinson; A Chapter in His Appreciation of Goethe

PMLA ◽  
1916 ◽  
Vol 31 (3) ◽  
pp. 395-420
Author(s):  
Adolph B. Benson
Keyword(s):  
German Literature ◽  
The Other ◽  
German Philosophy ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
Madame De Stael ◽  
Personal Influence ◽  
Unique Position ◽  
Works Of Art ◽  
Literary Relations ◽  
History Of

Henry Crabb Robinson occupies a unique position in the history of literary relations between England and Germany. He exerted influence in both directions, tho his greatest service consisted in making Englishmen acquainted with German literature. While a student in Germany from 1800 to 1805, he interpreted English ideas diplomatically among the Germans, whenever the opportunity presented itself; and, after his return to England, he labored incessantly for the rest of his life, over sixty years, to create a more general taste for German works of art, especially for the works of Goethe, among his own countrymen. Indeed, he came to be considered by many literary men and women, both in England and on the Continent, as an oracle, well worth consulting on matters English or German, even on European affairs in general. It was Crabb Robinson who taught Madame de Staël her first lessons in German philosophy; and this same Robinson, during his third visit to Germany in 1829, astonished Goethe by his extraordinary knowledge of modern German literature and life. On the other hand, Goethe was glad to hear him read Byron, Milton, and Coleridge in the original. In England his position was much the same. Not only many minor writers sought and obtained his aid, but both Coleridge and Carlyle, in their studies of German literature, obtained many helpful suggestions from Crabb Robinson. He was always ready to lend a helping hand to all who wanted it, and sometimes to those who did not. Robinson's influence was chiefly personal, to be sure; but the personal influence of a man who loved his subject was needed under the circumstances, and was salutary, even tho the man was somewhat importunate.

Irigaray, Luce (1930–)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Tina Chanter
Keyword(s):  
Sexual Difference ◽  
The Other ◽  
Philosophical Tradition ◽  
Luce Irigaray ◽  
International Recognition ◽  
The World ◽  
History Of ◽  
Other Woman ◽  
Partial View

Luce Irigaray holds doctorates in both linguistics and philosophy, and has practised as a psychoanalyst for many years. Author of over twenty books, she has established a reputation as a pre-eminent theorist of sexual difference – a term she would prefer to ‘feminist’. The latter carries with it the history of feminism as a struggle for equality, whereas Irigaray sees herself more as a feminist of difference, emphasizing the need to differentiate women from men over and above the need to establish parity between the sexes. Speculum de l’autre femme (1974) (Speculum of the Other Woman) (1985), the book that earned her international recognition, fuses philosophy with psychoanalysis, and employs a lyrical ‘mimesis’, or mimicry, that parodies and undercuts philosophical pretensions to universality. While adopting the standpoint of universality, objectivity and uniformity, the philosophical tradition in fact reflects a partial view of the world, one which is informed by those largely responsible for writing it: men. Without the material, maternal and nurturing succour provided by women as mothers and homemakers, men would not have had the freedom to reflect, the peace to think, or the time to write the philosophy that has shaped our culture. As such, women are suppressed and unacknowledged; femininity is the unthought ground of philosophy – philosophy’s other.

Getting a Glimpse of the Otherness of the Other

1997 ◽  
Vol 2 (1) ◽  
pp. 41-72
Author(s):  
Ingrid Ljungberg van Beinum
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Action Research Project ◽  
Unit Of Analysis ◽  
Men And Women ◽  
The Subject ◽  
Organizational Action ◽  
To Come ◽  
Critical Unit ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Unit Of Action

Discussions between women and men about men and women form the focus of this article, These discussions took place in the context of an inter-organizational action research project. The position of women in organizations and the subordination of women in general is seen as a relational phenomenon. The relationship between women and men is considered paradigmatic and therefore constitutes the critical unit of analysis as well as the strategic unit of action in this study. The participating organizations had no difficulty in initiating collaboration between women and men and to get them to engage in a joint action to develop a program aimed at improving gender relationships. However, ambiguity emerges as the basic characteristic of gender relationships in view of the fundamental otherness of the other. Dialogue between men and women is not only shaped by the relationship between women and men, but is also forming and transforming it. Dialogue is both means and end, it is the subject as well as the context. Therefore, the criteria for an ethics of mediation, necessary for managing the inevitable ambiguity in the relationship between women and men through mutual respect for their differences, have to come from within the dialogue.

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