The Feminine Identity and Struggle for Subjectivity in Postmodern Fiction

One of the most challenging issues in recent research is the identification of the female identity. This can be achieved through various critical readings and concepts. Julia Kristeva’s study Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (1982) charts the role of abjection as a means in defining the self and achieving subjectivity.

Consequently, it may be means of dismissing what hurts or discourages the subject from being subjective. Women suffers from some psychic disturbances which hinder their development along with some social factors as portrayed in many postmodern texts. As such, they go through a process of abjection to rid themselves of any burden in order to achieve an autonomous body. This article sheds light on abjection and how it can be a weapon to help women and at the same time reflect their situation and suffering.

The 20^th century has witnessed a revolution of studies on the female gender basically because of the interference of females in their own field and their active participation. Although there have been many women writers in previous centuries starting with Aphra behn (1640-1689) through to the later centuries, but their marginalization cannot be hidden. In the previous century we started to witness women writing not only fiction but criticism as well, and mould the writings of their women lot in terms that serve their cause. Many of the feminist issues started to appear and preached about which in turn called the society’s attention. Also, many seminal woks have put the solid grounds of women’s issues in feminist terms, as Simone de Beauvoir, Germane Greer, Judith Butler, Luce Irigaray, Julia Kristeva to name a few.

   In recent years’ research women’s identity is the main concern, beside a major concern of feminism, according to Hassan and Talif (2014), which is the examination of grounds upon which women were denied access to public life (67). That is why many feminist critics have worked on methods by which they can achieve their long-quested subjectivity particularly in male-centered societies, because patriarchy keeps nullifying women’s existence. As such, newly generated concepts work on constructing the feminine subjectivity and implementing their desire. Julia Kristeva is one of the pioneers in this field whose theory of abjection helps constructing women’s subjectivity. Fay Weldon as a postmodern British writer is well aware about the females’ cause and feminine identity. In her fiction, she portrays an important aspect of feminism. Her heroines suffer on many levels, psychic, social and personal that is why abjection employed to actualize the self.

Julia Kristeva as a modern French feminist critic is considered as a “prolific, eclectic, rigorous, difficult and occasionally outrageous” theorist (Becker-Leckron, 2005: 5). The translator of her works Leon S. Roudiez avers in his introduction to Kristeva’s Revolution in Poetic Language (1984) that “Julia Kristeva is a compelling presence that critics and scholars can ignore only at the risk of intellectual sclerosis” (1). In her seminal work Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection (PoH) (1982) she theorizes the concept of abjection as a means for achieving subjectivity and actualizing the self.

   Abjection according to Kristeva is separation or rejection of what harms the subject and what might obstruct development. It is a process of jettisoning any hindrance that prevents the subject being an autonomous body. Thus, it is “not lack of cleanliness or health” it is “what disturbs identity, system, order, what does not respect borders, positions, rules” (PoH 4). So, the abject is “the place where the meaning collapses” the place where ‘I’ does not exist and threatens life that is why it should be radically excluded (PoH 2) from the place of the living subject and jettisoned away. As such, Kutzbach and Mueller (2007) confirmed that abjection can be considered as a psychic power that a subject employs to fight the destabilizing impact of the abject to reaffirm identity (222).

   In POH, Kristeva rewrites the ideas of Freud and Lacan and comes with a new definition of her own for the concept of human subject construction. Kristeva makes it necessary for the infant to be separated from his mother in order to realize the borders between ‘me’ and m/other before finding itself in the Symbolic. Lacan holds that the infant encounters his split from the maternal body in the mirror stage to which Kristeva opposes, justifying that the split, the state of abjection happens before the mirror stage since the child develops boundaries through excreting, spitting out the mother’s milk, and rejecting the latter’s embrace. It is here the infant lives in a crossroad, when he is puzzled between two needs, it yearns to the maternal body on one hand and on the other hand the infant realizes that it needs to break away from the semiotic chora to become a self.

   Freud claims that the infant needs to repress his desire for the mother otherwise it would encounter psychological troubles. In this case Freud’s claim is validated as far as all the repressed desires will cause neurotic disorders when emerge to the surface. Kristeva’s abject on the reverse, remains with the subject and never completely buried in the unconscious same as Freudian desires. The abject keeps haunting the subject as a threat to the boundaries of the self and continues with him on the “periphery of the consciousness” (McAfee 2004: 48).

This article is an attempt to highlight the means by which women can develop themselves and attain their subjectivities. Because of the overrule of patriarchy and male dominance women started developing such means in order to secure their place in the society and prove their existence.

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?? POH ? ????? ???????? ????? ????? ????? ?????? ????? ?????? ???? ??? ??? ?????? ???? ????? ???????. ???? ???????? ?? ??????? ??? ?????? ?? ?????? ?? ??? ????? ?????? ??? "???" ? "????" ??? ?? ??? ???? ?? ?????? ??????. ??? ????? ?? ?????? ????? ??????? ?? ??? ???? ?? ????? ?????? ???? ??????? ???????? ? ?????? ?? ???????? ? ???? ??????? ???? ??? ????? ?????? ??? ????? ???? ?????? ?? ???? ????? ? ???? ???? ???? ? ? ??? ?????? ??????. ??? ???? ?????? ?? ????? ??? ? ????? ???? ?? ???? ??? ?????? ? ???? ??? ??? ???? ?? ????? ? ??? ????? ???? ???? ?????? ??? ????? ??? ???????? ?? ?????? ?????????? ????? ?????.

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References

Becker-Leckrone, M. 2005. Julia Kristeva and Literary Theory. Houndmills: Palgrave Macmillan.

Hassan, M. F., & Talif, R. 2014. Re-Gendering Discourse in Adrienne Rich’s Snapshots of A Daughter-In-Law. Malaysian Journal of Languages and Linguistics, 3(1), 67-77.

Kristeva, J. 1984. Revolution in poetic language. New York: Columbia University Press.

Kristeva, J., & Roudiez, L. S. 1982. Powers of horror: An essay on abjection. New York: Columbia University Press.

Kutzbach, K., & Mueller, M. 2007. The abject of desire: The aestheticization of the unaesthetic in contemporary literature and culture. Amsterdam: Rodopi.

McAfee, N. 2004. Julia Kristeva. New York: Routledge.