Feminist Literary theory presentation

According to Sarah Gamble in his essay gender and Transgender criticism, “Gender is
considered a behaviour, a learned and conditioned response to a society’s view of how
men and women should act.

Feminist literary theory

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History of Feminist Literary Theory
Beginning?
It is linked to the history of feminism; the origin of FLT is related to the second wave of
feminism.
 1949 Simone de Beauvoir published “The Second sex” pioneering work of
modern feminism movement
 1986 Mary Ellmann “Thinking About Women”

1) First-wave of feminism: 1900-1959 focussing on women suffrage, property rights

and political agency.
2) Second-wave of feminism: 1960-1980 focusing on reducing inequalities in sex,
family, workplace, reproductive rights and legal inequalities
3) Third-wave of feminism:1910-2008 focusing on embracing individualism and
diversity.
4) Fourth-wave of feminism: 2008 combating sexual harassment, assault and
misogyny

Feminist literary theories

 are not prescriptive, they do not tell you what to do, write or think but
 offer possibilities of approach what you could do think or read
The only prescriptions of TLF are:
 Not forgetting to be politiced in the joys of reading differently
 And offering a commitment to reality and to real women’s life
1. Phase FLT: Image criticism, first wave of feminism movemenst
1. It began by looking the image criticism of women in literary texts written by male
authors:
 They wrote unrealistically about women; they were stereotypically represented
as ideal or monstrous
 They produced and reproduced these images to enforce their own ideals of
femininity on women
 Marginalisation of female characters by male novelist

2. This approach is based on

 the revolutionary assumption the reader of the text is a woman not a man
which attack the presupposition of a male reader
 and the collapse of the binary opposition between the stereotypes (devil-
angel) supported by masculine egos collapses by subversive effect
Main exponents
V.Woolf. A Room of One’s Own 1929
Marry Ellman Thinking about Women 1968
Kate Millet Sexual, Politics 1969
Germaine Greer, The Female Eunuch 1970
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2. Phase FLT: Gynocritics . second wave feminist movements 1960
According to E.S the focus shifted towards Gynocritics toward woman as writers
(Elaine Showalter 1979,1986)
1. Women are not only considered consumers but producers of literary texts
Examination of female writers and their place in literature
2. and is taken into account their relation to the practical issues of writing:
education, publishers, spaces of writing and language
o Demonstrate the structural inequalities between male and female
writers, their opportunities to publish, their critical reception,
o Demonstrate the possibility to find literary valued works beyond the male
dominated tradition
3. Treatment of female characters by male and female writers
 4. Discovery of and exploitation of a new female literary canon
o New places to look for literature
o New project to rediscovery and republish women literary works
o New female tradition of literature equal to the great literary male
tradition
5. Main exponents
Showalter (1977) A literature of their own, Ginocriticism
Sandra Gilbert and Susan Cubar 1977 The Madwoman in the Attic, repressed
creative power of women caused a psychological self-destructive behaviour and
subversive actions
analysis of women poetry and how it fits in the FLcanon
They have in common, try
to expand the canon
to rethink literary tradition as a whole
other movements like Black literary criticism 1970

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3. Phase FLT. French feminism
1980 French scholars introduced psychoanalysis discourse in their works influenced by
Freud and Lacan
Hélene Cixous and Catherin Clement, The Newly Born Woman
Luce Irigaray This Sex Which is Not One
Julia Kristeva.
1980 French scholars introduced psychoanalysis discourse in their works influenced by
Freud and Lacan.
Main aim to get to know feminine anxieties and how are reflection in texts
In 1980 emerged the postcolonial criticism movement
It was a response to a feminism that focuses only on women of Western culture

4. New phase late 1990

Judith butler
1990,1993
 Diana fuss
1989
1. Re-visitates of the question what a woman is
2. Rejects the common sense biologist view known as a woman
3. sex as gender is consider culturally constructed,
4. sexual identity is a performance as the reading of texts so the there is a
multiple identity in readers
5. Alignment for the feminist thinking with queer thinking
6. Intersection of race and other feminist concerns
7. Examination of universal image of women in textsuniversal unconscious of
women

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1. There is not a unified theory

2. It has not a unified corpus of works
3. There is not a central figure like Marx or Freud whose works define it
4. It is adaptable to different contexts
5. It makes few assumptions about the nature of the issue
6. It has no absolutist political purpose
7. Anyone can apply it to any text

Feminist literary theories

1. Are ongoing series of interventions in reading practices
2. Are interventions that pursue a politics of reading
3. Presume that reading practices can make some difference to our experiences of
the world.
Feminist literary theories are based on 3 propositions:
1. The word and the world are related
2. Words and the world are politically related
 3. Feminist theories focus on women relation to the politics of word and the politics
of the world

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1.1 The word and the world are related

Feminist literary theories affirm that
1. there is a relation between words and the world, texts and the reality in which
they are based are related although
2. this relation may not be direct but it does exist
3. Literature is part of reality
 It reflects the real
(but this reflection can be distortive or defective)
 It creates the real
(it makes us believe in the fictional worlds or suggesting that we might behave in
a particular way)
 It offers alternatives to the real
Thanks to the critique of the reality we live in or by imagining alternative ways of
being

4. According to feminist, Marxist, historicist and materialist approaches theories,

texts:
- are the result of of a specific reality bounded to a time, a place and a mode of
production
- must be understood in relation to historic and geographic specificity in the
moment of writing and reading

5. female subjectivity can be very different depending on the moment we study a

text.
Text analysis:
The god of small things:
 This novel was published in 1997.
The god of small things narrates some events distanced from the present narrative
in 1993 back to 1969.
It is set in a real Indian village Ayemenem
There is also a different in the names of the character:
 Mammachi is called upon the role of wife and mother that she accepts
And Baby kochamma is called upon her father or family name.
They accept the oppressive female role that they do not consider oppressive but
they accept patriarchy and perpetuate it. Mammachi finds pride in suffering the
violence of his husband
 Ammu and Rahel are not called by the name of role or a husband but they
are named by their own

Baby Kochamma Mammchi Ammu

Displaying a stubborn single-
mindedness (which in a young
girl in those days was considered
as bad as a physical deformity–
harelip perhaps, or a clubfoot),
Baby Kochamma defied her
father’s wishes and became a
Roman Catholic. With special
dispensation from the Vatican,
she took her vows and entered a
convent in Madras as a trainee
novice. She hoped somehow that
this would provide her with
legitimate occasion to be with
Father Mulligan. She pictured
them together, in dark sepulchral
rooms with heavy velvet drapes,
discussing theology. That was
all she wanted. All she ever
dared to hope for. Just to be near
him. Close enough to smell his
beard. To see the coarse weave
of his cassock. To love him just
by looking at him.
Very quickly she realized the
futility of this endeavor. She
found that the senior sisters
monopolized the priests and
bishops with biblical doubts
more sophisticated than hers
Mammachi had started making
pickles commercially soon after
Pappachi retired from
Government... Pappachi, for his
part, was having trouble coping
with the ignominy of retirement.
He was seventeen years older
than Mammachi, and realized
with a shock that he was an old
man when his wife was still in
her prime.
Though Mammachi had conical
corneas and was already
practically blind, Pappachi
would not help her with the
pickle-making because he did not
consider pickle-making a him,
suitable job for a highranking ex-
Government official. He had
always been a jealous man, so he
greatly resented the attention his
wife was suddenly getting...
Every night he beat her with a
brass flower vase. The beatings
weren’t new. What was new was
only the frequency with which
they took place. One night
Pappachi broke the bow of
Mammachi’s violin and threw it
When Ammu and her husband
moved to Assam, Ammu,
beautiful, young and cheeky,
became the toast of the Planters’
Club. She wore backless blouses
with her saris and carried a silver
lam‚ purse on a chain. She
smoked long cigarettes in a
silver cigarette holder and
learned to blow perfect smoke
rings. Her husband turned out to
be not just a heavy drinker but a
full-blown alcoholic with all an
alcoholic’s deviousness and
tragic charm. There were things
about him that Ammu never
understood. Long after she left
she never stopped
wondering why he lied so
outrageously when he didn’t
need to....
Ammu was eight months
pregnant when war broke out
with China. It was October of
1962. Planters’ wives and
children were evacuated from
Assam. Ammu, too pregnant to
travel, remained on the estate. In
November, after a hair-raising,
bumpy bus ride to Shillong,
would ever be, and that it might in the river. amidst rumors of Chinese
be years before she got occupation and India’s
anywhere near Father Mulligan. Then Chacko came home for a impending defeat, Estha and
She grew restless and unhappy summer vacation from Rahel were born. By
in the convent. She developed a Oxford...A week after he arrived candlelight. In a hospital with
stubborn allergic rash on her he found Pappachi beating the windows blacked out.( 40)
scalp from the constant chafing Mammachi in the study. Chacko
of her wimple. She felt she spoke strode into the room, caught
much better English than Pappachi’s vase-hand and
everybody else. This made her twisted it around his back.
lonelier than ever. (24)
“I never want this to happen
again,” he told his father. “Ever.”

Female characters at a point in history that do not challenge the Female characters at a different
traditional role of women such as Mammachi and Baby Kochama point in history that are
These characters reflect a distance time from the present narrative challenging the social
perspective that goes back and forward. expectation of femininity such
as Ammu and Rahel
In Mammachi we find the acceptance of the duties of marriage and These characters are employed
motherhood. to critique reality and to offer an
Her function in life is to take care of her children and of her husband, alternative to reality.
she does not complain when her husband broke her violin or when They are the product of a
her son displaced from her business. specific historic and geographic
reality
Baby Kochamma rebels in some away against her father will when This date was an important date
in the Sino Indian War. By the
she fell in love with father Mulligan but because of love not because 24 October 1962 Chinese forces
she wanted to get some agency. In Ammu we find a desire not only entered Indian territory and
attacked Assam.
to simply be by herself but a desire to act which is a reflect of the
new generations in India.

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2.2 Words and the world are politically related

1. Texts and worlds are political, they are related with power
Texts and the read that we do of them
 can be coercive: they represent our behaviour and system of belief
and feeling
 ca be subversive: they can attack the prevalent ways of thought and
offer alternative ways of thinking and living
2. Texts have the power to change things
 The centre of feminist literary theories is the political agency, a specific way of
thinking, reading and writing that can change things
(related to Marxist approach to literature)
Politics of a text can be not easy to see and not acceptable either
FLT should point out exclusion and inclusion and the connection that the texts repress.
The female characters that we find in GST belongs to middle class. Their relation with
power is represented by their political position.
Mammachi and Baby Kochamma are very class conscious and discrimination is a way to
maintain their position. They are anglophile, part of the powerful upper-middle class
and against Marxism and any liberal movement.
There is an under representation of low class women or other caste women in TGT, we
only find Kochu Maria this can be an element of disclosure or disguise. Kochu Maria is
reduced into a minor figure, this politic of representation may be exclusionary.

Kochu Maria, the cook, still wore the thick gold earrings that had disfigured her earlobes
forever. She enjoyed the WWF Wrestling Mania shows, where Hulk Hogan and Mr.
Perfect, whose necks were wider than their heads, wore spangled Lycra leggings and beat
each other up brutally. Kochu Maria’s laugh had that slightly cruel ring to it that young
children’s sometimes, have.

All day they sat in the drawing room, Baby Kochamma on the long-armed planter’s chair
or the chaise longue (depending on the condition of her feet), Kochu Maria next to her on
the floor (channel surfing when she could), locked together in a noisy television silence.
One’s hair snow white, the other’s dyed coal black. They entered all the contests, availed
themselves of all the discounts that were advertised and had, on two occasions, won a T-
shirt and a thermos flask that Baby Kochamma kept locked away in her cupboard…

She was frightened by the BBC famines and television wars that she encountered while
she channel surfed. Her old fears of the Revolution and the Marxist-Leninist menace
had been rekindled by new television worries about the growing numbers of desperate
and dispossessed people. She viewed ethnic cleansing, famine and genocide as direct
threats to her furniture.

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 2.3 Feminist theories focus on women relation to the politics of word and the politics
of the world
1. The focus is on women
Women is a term that disguise the differences between individual women
2. Feminist theories affirm that women are formed by structures that build on
economic subjection and physical repression
These are structures of oppression because of the social and psychic inequalities of
gender
3. FLT identify these structures of oppression as Patriarchy:
1. Social deprivation to specific women
Poor access to education or well paid work
2. Physiological oppression due to female body
Consider that bearing and rearing children is a woman work
Women weaker physically than men
Subjected to violence and rape
3. Cultural oppression
Considered devaluated as cultural objects by other and by themselves
4. Psychological oppression
Women are denied masculine status
Belief that they are inferior because their lack of masculine body or mind

4.Patriarchy is universalit can be found everywhere in any structure in society: at

home, work, religion, state, law, culture, education and even in women
Feminism:
concentrates on the effects of these structures of oppression on women because they
have more effect in them than in men
5.FLT is a way to undercover these oppression structures to identify, challenge and try
to change these structural inequalities.

In the God of Small Things, we can identify these structures of oppression of patriarchy:
1.This novel denounces a structural failing in the education system, Education is for men
but not for women who are not going to marry because knowledge is something
dangerous.
Baby Kochamma gets an education because there is no harm in it.
what she is comes from herself and for external circumstances such as her frustrated
love for father Mulligan. She rebels against her father will because of love not because
she is against it.
Ammu is not sent to the university but her brother Chacko was sent to Oxford.
The comparison between their access to education must be understood as gender
inflected.
Pappachi is an educated character but he beats his wife and his children and he is a
hypocritical character, his education has made no difference to that. He does take
responsibility for his own failings like the issue of the moth’s name.
Roy emphasized the idea that Chacko has an education but he has not been provided
with any practical education.
2.We can identify another structure of oppression, female body
Male Violence is highlighted in this novel as structure of oppression
Pappachi beats Mammachi, she accepts the patriarchal system and perpetuates it.
Baba beats Ammu, she rebels against it and fights it.
The women of the old generation are figures with undeveloped subjectivity while the
women in the new generations are presented as women with a strong subjectivity
determined to challenge the patriarchal system although they are punished for it.
Ammu is considered a sexual object by the Planters in the the Club
3. Structure of oppression: work.
Ammu was
Baby kochamma is displaced of her business by Chacko when her husband died
Workers in the pickles factory are sexually harassed by Chacko
Ammu is fired because she gets pregnant.
4.Marriage and family are identified as a structure of psychological oppression.
Women are meant to get a man; they have two options their family or their husband.
Ammu is not what a woman ought to be according to Baby Kochamma and Mammachi
because she rebels against the imposed role of wife and mother. Marriage is presented
as a trap and an impediment to the development of women subjectivity.

Cited works.
Wolfrey, Julian. Introducing Literaries theories: A guide Glosary. “Will the real feminist
theory please stand up?” Ruth Robbins (47, 63). Edimburgh University Press. 2001.

Roy, Arundhati. The God of Small Things. 4th State. London. 2017