The essay “Women on the Market” by Luce Irigaray makes a comparison between women’s value and Marx’s analysis of capitalism. As in my previous responses, I try to tie up our weekly readings to our secondary readings. In this case, Frankenstein is the novel that kept coming back to my mind while reading Irigaray’s essay. The value of the main woman character in this novel, Elizabeth, only comes to light when compared to the Monster, because they are both seen as comparable tradable goods. Thus, commodity here is applied to people not just inanimate items. Elizabeth, Victor Frankenstein’s almost sister whom he is to marry, is the epitome of the perfect women because she is chaste, quiet, and a homemaker. However, she is not the most
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In order to serve as such, the give up their bodies to men as the supporting material of specularization, of speculation. They yield to him their natural and social value as a locus of imprints, marks, and mirage of his activity. (802-803)
If one is to follow the idea that Frankestein is homosexual and has created the Monster to fulfill his homoerotic desires, Elizabeth becomes useless to him because he is not searching for a female partner, but for a male one. Thus, although Elizabeth has the characteristics of a perfect woman, she does not have much value, because the man Victor, the man, values other men. Irigaray also says that, “In order to have a relative value, a commodity has to be confronted with another commodity that serves as its equivalent. Its value is never found to lie within itself” (802). Again, although Elizabeth has many good characteristics, she can only have a value if compared to her counterpart. In this case, her counterpart is the Monster. Victor has a choice between Elizabeth and the Monster. After weighing his desires, the Monster becomes more valuable than Elizabeth because it is in the monster that his desires lay. Irigaray concludes that, “Commodity amongst themselves are thus not equal, nor alike, nor different. They only become so when they are compared by and for man” (803). Therefore, Elizabeth’s value, or lack there of, only comes to surface when compared to the Monster’s value
In order to serve as such, the give up their bodies to men as the supporting material of specularization, of speculation. They yield to him their natural and social value as a locus of imprints, marks, and mirage of his activity. (802-803)
If one is to follow the idea that Frankestein is homosexual and has created the Monster to fulfill his homoerotic desires, Elizabeth becomes useless to him because he is not searching for a female partner, but for a male one. Thus, although Elizabeth has the characteristics of a perfect woman, she does not have much value, because the man Victor, the man, values other men. Irigaray also says that, “In order to have a relative value, a commodity has to be confronted with another commodity that serves as its equivalent. Its value is never found to lie within itself” (802). Again, although Elizabeth has many good characteristics, she can only have a value if compared to her counterpart. In this case, her counterpart is the Monster. Victor has a choice between Elizabeth and the Monster. After weighing his desires, the Monster becomes more valuable than Elizabeth because it is in the monster that his desires lay. Irigaray concludes that, “Commodity amongst themselves are thus not equal, nor alike, nor different. They only become so when they are compared by and for man” (803). Therefore, Elizabeth’s value, or lack there of, only comes to surface when compared to the Monster’s value