An exploration of the idea of a plural form of gender that emerges from Schoene Harwood’s essay About Man making and Cixous’s Sortes.
This essay will engage Schoene-Harwood’s essay on man making and Cixous’s essay on the tradtional binaries of gender to find a relation between these diverse yet similar theories of masculinity and feminism.
This essay will predominantly focus on analysing the notion of a plural form of gender that emerges within both texts with an engagement of Gender and Gothic theory. Mutual notions of gender explored within both texts: the place or displacement of the mother in thought and discourse, the correlation between effeminateness and hyper masculinity, and gender reduced to binaries ‘abjecting’ the ‘other’ will …show more content…
Similarly, Harwood discusses the passivity and lack of presence of the women in Frankenstein. Harwood argues that the men and women of Frankenstein ‘represent the stereotypes of perfect heterosexual polarity’. He notes that it is through ‘their unwavering dutifulness’ that Caroline and Elizabeth ‘resemble picture-book caricatures of ideal womanhood’. Victor Frankenstein is set as the ‘active’ juxtaposition as opposed to these ‘passive’, docile, and almost non-existent female characters. Harwood emphasises that ‘No matter what remarkable strength and courage Victor 's mother displays in later life, it is her original weakness that is commemorated by the Frankenstein family.’ (Harwood, 2000:6) This image of Caroline that Harwood draws attention to exemplifies the later Victorian notion of the ‘angel in the house’. The image presents a two-dimensional romanticised caricature of a female reducing her to a sobbing sweetheart who requires the protection of a man. The female characters within Frankenstein remain silent and almost …show more content…
Cixous suggests that ‘The world of ‘being’ can function without the mother’. She goes on to elaborate that there is ‘No need for mother –provided that there is something of the maternal: and it is the father then who acts as –is-the mother. (Cixous, 2013: 354) She argues that the mother is not necessarily the binary opposition to the father rather it is the son. This argument illustrates the repression and substitution of the mother questioning why the mother doesn’t hold power if it she who gives birth. Why is the mother substituted for the father? History, culture, philosophy, religion and the structures of language empower the father.As Cixous highlights when you question ‘you are led right back -to the father’. (Cixous,
This essay will engage Schoene-Harwood’s essay on man making and Cixous’s essay on the tradtional binaries of gender to find a relation between these diverse yet similar theories of masculinity and feminism.
This essay will predominantly focus on analysing the notion of a plural form of gender that emerges within both texts with an engagement of Gender and Gothic theory. Mutual notions of gender explored within both texts: the place or displacement of the mother in thought and discourse, the correlation between effeminateness and hyper masculinity, and gender reduced to binaries ‘abjecting’ the ‘other’ will …show more content…
Similarly, Harwood discusses the passivity and lack of presence of the women in Frankenstein. Harwood argues that the men and women of Frankenstein ‘represent the stereotypes of perfect heterosexual polarity’. He notes that it is through ‘their unwavering dutifulness’ that Caroline and Elizabeth ‘resemble picture-book caricatures of ideal womanhood’. Victor Frankenstein is set as the ‘active’ juxtaposition as opposed to these ‘passive’, docile, and almost non-existent female characters. Harwood emphasises that ‘No matter what remarkable strength and courage Victor 's mother displays in later life, it is her original weakness that is commemorated by the Frankenstein family.’ (Harwood, 2000:6) This image of Caroline that Harwood draws attention to exemplifies the later Victorian notion of the ‘angel in the house’. The image presents a two-dimensional romanticised caricature of a female reducing her to a sobbing sweetheart who requires the protection of a man. The female characters within Frankenstein remain silent and almost …show more content…
Cixous suggests that ‘The world of ‘being’ can function without the mother’. She goes on to elaborate that there is ‘No need for mother –provided that there is something of the maternal: and it is the father then who acts as –is-the mother. (Cixous, 2013: 354) She argues that the mother is not necessarily the binary opposition to the father rather it is the son. This argument illustrates the repression and substitution of the mother questioning why the mother doesn’t hold power if it she who gives birth. Why is the mother substituted for the father? History, culture, philosophy, religion and the structures of language empower the father.As Cixous highlights when you question ‘you are led right back -to the father’. (Cixous,