Elaine Showalter’s Feminist Criticism in the
Wilderness is a significant work in the field of literary criticism. In fact
women are surviving and struggling to make their identity in the society. The writing
of the women reflect their own experience and position in the society where they
exist as an individual and as a female as well. Showalter’s essay is a specimen
to her struggles to find a concept that can suggest the feminine to escape from
its stereotypical associations with inferiority. Showalter has focused on the
concept of Gynocriticism to prove her opinion.
Feminist critical theory and practice is the
product of the Feminist Movement that took place during the 1960s and 1970s. It
is a critique of the patriarchal mode of thinking and its political approach
towards literature and literary criticism. The patriarchal mode of thinking
subordinates women to men in familial, religious, political, economic, social,
legal and artistic domains. This patriarchal ideology teaches women to
internalize these concepts in the process of their socialization. Among those eminent
feminist critics Elaine Showalter is an
influential American literary critic, feminist, and writer on cultural and
social issues. She is one of the founders of feminist literary criticism in United
States academia, developing the concept and practice of gynocritics. Gynocriticism
concerned with the specificity of women’s experience and women’s writing.
The essay primarily highlights the need for feminist
theories to work out a framework they can share. She shows that by stating "An
early obstacle to constructing a theoretical framework for feminist criticism was
the unwillingness of many women to limit or bound an expressive and dynamic enterprise"
To Showalter, the real obstacle of not forming theoretical framework for
feminist criticism was because many women are unwilling to establish that and
they limited themselves to the expressive and dynamic style.
She argues that woman must work both inside and
outside the male tradition simultaneously. Showalter says the most constrictive
approach to future feminist theory and criticism lies in the focus on nurturing
a new feminine cultural perspective within a feminist tradition that at the same
time exist within the male tradition, but no which it is not dependent and to
which it is not answerable. Showalter continues to argue that there are
essentially two kinds of feminist theories. The first concerns itself with the women
as a reader and may be called feminist critic. The second concerns itself with
the women as a writer and may be called Gynocritics. It deals with the women as
the producer of the textural meaning. Showalter suggests gynocritics theories
which are centered on the experience of women as writers.
Gynocriticism is a term coined in the seventies
by Elian Showalter to describe a new literary project intended to construct
"a framework for the analysis of woman literature". By expanding the
historical study of woman writers as a distinct literary tradition. Gynocritics
sought to develop new models based on the study of flame experience to the
replace male of literary criticisms. gynocriticim was designed as a "second
phase" in feminist criticism. Turning to force on, and interrogation of
female authorship, images, the feminine experience and ideology and the history
development of the female literary tradition.
Gynocriticism also examines the female struggle
for identity and the social construct of gender. According to Elian Showalter, genocritics
is the study on not only the female as a gender status but also the internalized
consciousness of the female. Comprising recognition
of a distinct female canon where a female identity is sought free from the masculine
definition and opposition.
Gynocriticism accordingly challenged the Freudian
psychoanalytic perspective whereby the female inherently suffers envy of men
and feeling of an adequacy and injustice, combined of feeling of intellectual inferiority.
Gynocriticism stressed that this
prejudice has concealed the female literary tradition to the point of imitating
the masculine.
She continues to show that the critics seem
to be still wandering in the wilderness since there is still disinterestedness
of the theory of criticism. Moreover, the situation of criticism is still bound
exclusively to the masculine domain. She states that clearly by saying:
“But if, in the 1980s, feminist literary
critics are still wandering in the wilderness, we are in good
company; for, as Geoffrey Hartman tells us,
all criticism is in the wilderness. Feminist critics may be startled to find
ourselves in this band of theoretical pioneers, since in the American literary
tradition the wilderness has been an exclusively masculine domain.
This quote shows what Showalter aims at by
saying " we too must make our home", she states here that feminist
criticism should not continue to be in the wilderness. They should make their
own theoretical views of criticism. “Women have no wilderness in them, they are
provident instead, content in the tight hot cell of their hearts, to eat dusty bread”.
She is of the view that the feminist critic’s
assignment of interpretation of works has to be satisfied with Pluralism. This
aspect of her essay concludes with the message to the readers that, feminist criticism
is supposed to possess its own subject, lay the foundation of its own system and
the most is its own voice. She goes on to show feminist criticism lacks
"theoretical basis". She states that till the time there has not been
any theoretical manifesto for feminist criticism. She states that clearly as: “Until
very recently, feminist criticism has not had a theoretical basis; it has been
an empirical orphan in the theoretical storm. In 1975, I was persuaded that no theoretical
manifesto could adequately account for varied methodologies and ideologies
which called themselves feminist reading or writing.”
Showalter, then, moves further to show real
examples of feminist critics by commenting on Virginia Woolf who, to Showalter,
devoted herself to expressive style. She shows that Virginia Woolf in her essay
represented her life experience, and how she didn't allow to the library. Her writing
style is" reflexive". By showing this example Showalter asks the other
female writers to change the style of writing. To make ourselves as equal to
the masculine domain. What Showalter condemns in Virginia Woolf's essay is the
reflexive personal writing and presentation of her own
personal experiences rather than bringing up new
critical views to improve feminist criticism. Hence, Woolf has made such presentation
of the essay in personal reflection, Showalter considered this not to be a real
contribution to the development of feminist criticism. To Showalter feminist criticism
does not need any personal reflections rather it needs to a set of rules and
views to structure a way of judgment to feminist discourse.
As far as Showalter is concerned, feminist criticism has become an act of resistance
to theory since the women feminist critics themselves have cared on the reflexive
style and the dynamicity of asserting self-authority. Therefore, Showlater
states: “criticism was an act of resistance to theory, a confrontation with
existing canons and judgments, what Josephine Donovan calls 'a mode of negation
within a fundamental dialectic'. Showalter thinks that women have been too much
dominated with male critical theory. Feminist critics have sought to modify it.
Elaine Showalter’s three phases
of feminism: the “feminine” (women writers imitate men), the “feminist” (women
advocated minority rights and protested), and the “female” (the focus is now on
women’s texts as opposed to merely uncovering misogyny in men’s texts).
The
"Feminine" Phase:
During this phase, women writers predominantly
imitated the styles and themes of male authors, often conforming to traditional
literary norms and expectations.
An example of this phase is the work of Mary
Wollstonecraft, an 18th-century writer and philosopher. While Wollstonecraft's
seminal work "A Vindication of the Rights of Woman" (1792) laid
important groundwork for feminist theory, her literary style and approach were
largely influenced by the male-dominated intellectual landscape of her time.
Another example is George Eliot (the pen name of
Mary Ann Evans), a Victorian novelist known for her realist fiction. Eliot's
works, such as "Middlemarch," often explored social and psychological
themes traditionally associated with male authors, albeit with a keen awareness
of women's experiences.
The "Feminist" Phase:
In this phase, women began advocating for their
rights and protesting against patriarchal structures, both within literature
and society at large.
An example from this phase is Virginia Woolf, a key
figure in the early feminist movement and a prominent writer of the early 20th
century. Woolf's essay "A Room of One's Own" (1929) is a seminal
feminist text that explores the ways in which women writers have been
historically marginalized and denied access to literary spaces.
Another example is the second-wave feminist
movement of the 1960s and 1970s, which produced influential texts such as Betty
Friedan's "The Feminine Mystique" (1963) and Kate Millett's
"Sexual Politics" (1970). These works critiqued traditional gender roles
and called for social and political change.
The "Female" Phase:
In this phase, the focus shifts from imitating or
critiquing male-authored texts to celebrating and analyzing women's writing on
its own terms.
An example of this phase is the emergence of
writers like Toni Morrison, whose novels such as "Beloved" (1987) and
"Sula" (1973) center on the experiences of African American women and
explore themes of race, gender, and identity from a distinctly female
perspective.
Additionally, the rise of literary criticism
focused on women's texts, such as Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar's "The
Madwoman in the Attic" (1979), exemplifies the shift towards analyzing
literature through a feminist lens that prioritizes women's voices and
experiences.
