A constant journey: the fiction of Monique Wittig

Abstract

From creation of a neuter pronoun in her earliest work, L Opoponax, confusion of genres in her most recent fiction, Virgile, non, Wittig uses literary subversion and invention to accomplish what Erika Ostrovsky appropriately defines as renversement, the annihilation of existing literary canons and creation of highly innovative constructs.Erika Ostrovsky explores those aspects of Wittig s work that best illustrate her literary approach. Among countless revolutionary devices that Wittig uses to achieve renversement are feminization of masculine gender names, reorganization of myth patterns, and replacement of traditional punctuation with her own system of grammatical emphasis and separation. It is unexpected quantity and quality of such literary devices that make reading Monique Wittig s fiction a fresh and rewarding experience. Such literary devices have earned Wittig acclaim of her critics and peersMarguerite Duras, Mary McCarthy, Alain Robbe-Grillet, Nathalie Sarraute, and Claude Simon, to name a few.While analyzing intrinsic value of each of Wittig s fictions separately, Erika Ostrovsky traces progressive development of Wittig s major literary devices as they appear and reappear in her fictions. Ostrovsky maintains that seeds of those innovations that appear in Wittig s most recent texts can be found as far back as L Opoponax. This evidence of progression supports Ostrovsky s theory that clues to Wittig s future endeavors can be found in her past.