GYNOCENTRICISM AND PHALLOCENTRICISM: A STUDY OF
MARY SHELLEY’S “FRANKENSTEIN” AND BUCHI EMCHETA’S “THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD”
Name- Kavisha Alagiya
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Paper 5- Romantic Literature
Roll No- 10
Enrollment no.- 2069108420200001
Email id- kavishaalagiya@gmail.com
Batch – MA 2019-21
Submitted to - Smt S. B. Gardi Department of English
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CONTENTS
Abstract
Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Feminism
Phallocentricism and Gynocentricism
Phallocentric criticism
Gynocentricism
Frankenstein and Gynocentricism
The Joys of Motherhood and Phallocentricism
Conclusion
Works Cited
GYNOCENTRICISM
AND PHALLOCENTRICISM: A STUDY OF MARY SHELLEY’S “FRANKENSTEIN” AND BUCHI
EMCHETA’S “THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD”
Abstract
Abstract
It is rightly observed by Simone de Beauvoir that ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’ which seem to prove that from time to time woman and literature were seen as a product of patriarchal culture. The present study aims to analyze the two texts from a feminist perspective. The researcher tries to enter into
the novels- Mary Shelley’s “Frankenstein” and Buchi Emecheta's “The Joys of
Motherhood” through the framework of feminist discourse. With a special lens of
Phallocentric critical theory and Gynocriticism, the researcher targets to open
a new dimension of viewing the texts from modern perspectives. Shelley’s
‘Frankenstein’ is an account of a masculine creation where the creature’s difference from the “universal shape” is rejected and brings devastation not
only to the creator but also to his family. On the very other hands, is the
Nigerian narrative which shares experiences of Nnu Ego and her objectified body
where she passes through the severely painful process more than eight times
as well as her body is used as a medium or source to prove man’s manliness so
the novel from a surface level seems gynocentric but it is phallocentric and
another one is ‘Frankenstein’ which the researcher is going to compare
with, seems from the surface level phallocentric but actually is a
gynocentric.
The researcher is trying to see connections that greatly share links between both
the texts in many aspects and proves the texts worthy for reinterpreting.
Keywords-
Feminism, Gynocriticism, Phallocentrism, Gender, Body.
GYNOCENTRICISM AND PHALLOCENTRICISM: A STUDY OF
MARY SHELLEY’S “FRANKENSTEIN” AND BUCHI EMCHETA’S “THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD”
INTRODUCTION
The foundation stones of
contemporary Feminism is said to have remained in Mary Wollstonecraft’s “A
Vindication of the Rights of Woman” from there to “A Room of one’s Own” by
Virginia Woolf who is considered as the pioneer feminists who challenges the
patriarchal ideologies brought out the central element of Feminism.
Modern feminism can be
assumed to be more focusing on the politics of gender and politics of
language. In fact, modern feminists have deconstructed the narrative discourse
of the way of a male portraying a female and the appropriation of ‘male
language’ which can be justified in the ‘female language’ that empowers the
voices of contemporary women. Being aware of the need for establishing a
different way of thinking against all forms of oppression including the
feminine repression by the phallocentric structures, early feminist critics and
scholars focused mainly on disrupting culturally essentialist binaries and
advocating gender equality in all domains of life. However, realizing that the
language itself was the reason for the systematic deprivation of women, they
centered their ideas on deconstructing gender differences in the language during the 1970s. (Nazlıpınar)
This assignment aims to bring
out the contributions made by the earlier researchers on feminism and to add a novel hypothesis with a fresh thought in the area of gynocentrism and phallocentrism.
FEMINISM
Feminism can be called an
awakening ideology which socially, culturally, politically as well as morally
attempts to highlight the inequalities that discriminate against women. It focuses on
the equality of both genders. Right from the eighteenth century to the
present day, there has been a need for feminism in one or the other way. The
idealization of women became heavily domestic in the nineteenth century. The 20th
century allowed women to play a role in the political scenario and the 21st
century is again witnessing the issue of gender discrimination. Radical
Feminism highlights that the male-based authority and power structure are
responsible for oppression and inequality. Socialist Feminism explores the Marxist
ideas on exploitation, oppression, and labor. Ecofeminism demonstrates the power dynamics
behind a gynocentric connection with the natural environment.
“Feminism is a system of ideas
and political practices based on the principle that women are human beings
equal to men. As a system of ideas, feminism includes several alternative
discourses – liberal, cultural, materialist or socialist, radical, psychoanalytic,
womanist, and postmodernist.” (Ritzer and Ryan)
“A major interest of feminist
critics in English-speaking countries has been to reconstitute the ways we deal
with literature in order to do justice to female points of view, concerns, and
values. One emphasis has been to alter the way a woman reads the literature of
the past so as to make her not an acquiescent, but (in the title of Judith
Fetterley’s book published in 1978) The Resisting Reader; that is, one who
resists the author’s intentions and design in order, by a “revisionary rereading,”
to bring to light and to counter the covert sexual biases written into a
literary work.” (Abrams and Harpham)
PHALLOCENTRICISM AND GYNOCENTRICISM
Feminist literary criticism is
literary criticism enlightened by feminist theory, or by the politics of
feminism. It uses the principles and ideology of feminism to critique the
language of literature. Feminist literary criticism was born on the debates of
second-wave feminism. Feminists brought to literature a suspicion of
established ideas which made the approach truly revolutionary. They were
interested in Literature as a powerful means of creating and perpetuating
belief systems.
PHALLOCENTRIC CRITICISM
Phallocentric criticism worked
to establish a recurring pattern of imagery and language use that would
demonstrate concealed attitudes to femininity, and it effectively created a new
understanding of seemingly coincidental motifs. Popular feminist writers such
as Germaine Greer illustrated the male chauvinism. In her polemical text, The
Female Eunuch, she examined literature as a product of its patriarchal
culture and was particularly innovative in its reverent juxtaposition of high
and low art.
GYNOCENTRICISM
Phallocentric criticism opened
up the literary canon to a new and revolutionary field of literary criticism,
exposing the sexual politics informing all the text and paving the way for
psychoanalysis to enter the literary field. As alternative female-centered
criticism was developed to address this need, and because of its preoccupation
with the female voice, it came to be known as 'gynocritricism'. It examined how
female experience was reflected in literature by women, and sought to place
women's literature in the context of female experience. (Waugh)
The term first appeared in the essay “Towards
a Feminist Poetics”. ‘A Literature of Their Own’ (1977) is a work of Elaine
Showalter who pioneered gynocriticism. Gynocriticism involves three major
aspects. The first aspect is the ‘Feminine’ aspect which examines the female
writers and their place in literary history where it was observed that the
female writers often using the male pseudonyms for the publication of their
writings. The second, ‘feminist’ phase is the consideration of the treatment of
female characters in books by both male and female writers. The third and most
important aspect of gynocriticism in ‘female’ phase is the discovery and
exploration of a canon of literature written by women; gynocriticism seeks to
appropriate a female literary tradition.
FRANKENSTEIN AND GYNOCENTRICISM
Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’
is an account of a masculine creation where the creature’s difference from the
“universal shape” is rejected and brings devastation not only to the creator
but also to his family. Despite of the three male narrators, the woman’s voice
is operating within the narrative. None of the three seems to achieve the lead
position from the text but all the three is revolving around the women centered
beliefs. Shelley’s focus of presenting the plot in the unique narrative
technique itself is an illustration of challenging the patriarchal domains.
With the three male voices at the center the layer is inaugurated with a
female’s curiosity as for example, Margaret Seville who is as much as outside
the narrative structure is much more the insider of the narrative.
“In spite of my malignity, it softened and attracted me. For a few moments I gazed with
delight on her dark eyes, fringed by deep lashes, and her lovely lips; but
presently my rage returned; I remembered that I was forever deprived of the
delights that such beautiful creatures would bestow; and that she whose
resemblance I contemplated would in regarding me, have changed that air of
benignity to one expressive of disgust and affright.” (Shelley 252-253).
Shelley, through the creature’s
feelings reveal the inner mentality of a man who is in deep need of a woman
where the pure words resembles the contrast with patriarchal narratives. In her
reading of ‘Frankenstein’s Circumvention of the Maternal’, Margaret Homans
rightly observes-
“The novel is about the
collision between androcentric and gynocentric theories of creation, a
collision that results in the denigration of maternal child bearing through its
circumvention by male creation. The novel presents Mary Shelley’s response to
the expectation, manifested in such poems as Alastor and Paradise Lost, that
women embody yet not embody male fantasies. At the same time, it expresses a
woman’s knowledge of the irrefutable independence of the body, both her own and
those of the children that she produces, from projective male fantasy.”
The absence of a female
companion is also presented in the Monster’s recollection of Felix’s longing
for Safie: “He was always the saddest of the groupe; and, even to my
unpractised senses, he appeared to have suffered more deeply than his friends”
(Shelley 192).
Shelley herself in her novel
demonstrates how a motherless child can feel and with a projection of Victor
Frankenstein excluding women from the process of reproduction with the help of the science which turns out as a failure leading him to hate his self is itself a
challenging narrative of Shelley against all the patriarchal narratives.
In short, Shelley’s work
‘Frankenstein’ can be assumed as a strong rejection of woman against the
misogynistic perceptions of ‘Paradise Lost’.
THE JOYS OF MOTHERHOOD AND PHALLOCENTRICISM
The Nigerian narrative of ‘The
Joys of Motherhood’ shares experiences of Nnu Ego and her objectified body
where she passes through the severely painful process for more than eight times
as well as her body is used as a medium or source to prove man’s manliness so
the novel from a surface level seems gynocentric but it is phallocentric.
Right from the beginning it was
observed that how things can give happiness to a woman who gets ready to
sacrifice her belongings, her life, her emotions, and her career. Nnu Ego is a woman who gets happiness in
sacrificing herself and being an angel. Her body is objectified as is used as a
mere source to prove that Nnu is a woman who should remain submissive,
powerless and obedient to a man or husband. In this novel, the heroine Nnu Ego
is unable to respect her husband Nnaife, who unlike the man in her village is
lowered so far as to be proud of washing his mistresses’ smalls and has to go
off finally to fight the war to defend her country. Her character is a
representation of possessions of patriarchy. In phallocratic society motherhood
and childbearing are the oppressive effect of patriarchal domination or sexism.
The title of the novel itself
contains ironical implications where one can find the joys of fatherhood
instead of the joys of being a mother. The essence of the plot lies in how an
image of a father is constructed at the cost of a woman’s body. Buchi Emcheta’s use of ‘motherhood’ in the
title is actually the depiction of fatherhood as because Nnu Ego has to bear
children for her husband. The narrative is so deep that the reader can realize
how Nnu surrenders completely to her husband to prove her submissiveness and
her husband’s manliness. Her husband enters into her body completely like she
is his and his masculinity has a right to do that.
“The
Joys of Motherhood the novelist constantly re-interprets Nnu Ego‘s life and
brings out Nnu Ego‘s failure as a mother and woman.”
The story of Nnu Ego’s mother
is contrast where the novelist syas that she has a considerable control over
her body. Hence, the narration is completely phallocentric where the Nnu Ego’s
bosy os completely seen as a product for reproductive functions.
“Ona‘s belief that Nnu Ego can
be a woman, and at the same time have a life of her own, a husband if she
wants one‘, suggests the fluidity in definitions of womanhood that contradict
any sense of a fixed and homogenous value system.”
(Emecheta,
The Joys of Motherhood 17)
The protagonist’s life brings out her failure as a mother
and as a woman.
CONCLUSION
In a nutshell, it is proved, to
some extent, that Mary Shelley’s ‘Frankenstein’ is a rebellious work where
being a woman belonging to romantic age or 19th century as well as
due to the patriarchal surroundings, she couldn’t write about women directly so
she has used male in the center to describe the feelings of a female. On the
another side, Buchi Emcheta’s ‘The Joys of Motherhood’ looks simply a gynocentric
narrative but is actually a phallocentric discourse where a woman is subjugated
for proving the heroism of her man.
WORKS CITED
1. Abrams, M. H. and Geoffrey Galt Harpham. A
Glossary of Literary Terms. 11th. Delhi: Cengage Learning India Private
Limited, 2015.
2. Emecheta, Buchi. The joys of motherhood. Vol. 227.
Heinemann, 1994.
3. Feminist Approaches to Literature by Kate O'Connor at
http://writersinspire.org/content/feminist-approaches-literature. Accessed on
Sunday, March 08, 2020.
4. Greer, Germaine, and Andrew Inglis. The female eunuch.
London: Paladin, 1971.
5. Nazlıpınar, Muzaffer Derya Subaşı. "A NON-PHALLOCENTRIC
FEMININE WRITING PRACTICE IN VIRGINIA WOOLF AND ERENDİZ ATASÜ THROUGH THE
‘ALL-ENCOMPASSING FEMALE LANGUAGE’." İdil Sanat ve Dil Dergisi 6.33
(2017): 1443-1459.
6. Ritzer, George, and J. Michael
Ryan, eds. The concise encyclopedia of sociology. John Wiley & Sons, 2010.
7. Shelley, Mary. frankenstein.
Broadview Press, 2012.
8. Showalter, Elaine. A
literature of their own: British women novelists from Brontë to Lessing.
Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1977.
9. Showalter, Elaine.
"Towards Feministic Poetics." Women writing and writing about women.
Londres: Croom Helm (1979): 22-41.
10. Walters, Margaret. Feminism: A
very short introduction. Vol. 141. Oxford University Press, 2005.
11. Waugh, Patricia. Literary Theory and Criticism An Oxford
Guide. New York: Oxford University Press, 2006.
Thank you.
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