Reading Response 23

Cixous – “The Laugh of the Medusa”

Summary
In her article, “The Laugh of the Medusa,” Cixous attempts to show how women need to be more assertive in their writing, and show that they need to be more feminist and use their female side. She asserts that male-centered writing has jaded many female writers to use male ideals.

Synthesis

This article is similar to Flynn’s work on writing on female writing, but it is much more accusatory than Flynn’s piece was. Another thing to note is that there was a lot lost in Cixous’ article due to translation

QD

1. This piece didn’t make me uncomfortable, although it appeared that that was part of the intention of the author to do so. Her arguments were out dated compared to the society that I’ve grown up in, so it wasn’t as shocking as it was intended to be.

2. She is imploring them to put their personal identity into their writings, not societies identity of themselves into their writings. She wants women to find their own identity separate from that of androcentric society and to incorporate it into their writing.

Thoughts

It was very long, and a little confusing, but it was a lot more because of the poor translation than because of the content. I also think that a lot of the power behind her story was lost in translation.