The Female Body, Technology, and Memory in “Penelope”

Abstract

Abstract My Reading Of The Female body in “Penelope” starts in fact with the last, unanswered, question of “Ith aca”: “Where?” Providing a transition of sorts to Molly’s monologue, this suspended question problematizes the discursive location of the female body. Indeed, where is she when she is at home—seemingly in the most familiar and intimate space? Where is the meaning of the female body, and by extension, of sexual difference to be found? In what discursive space? An inquiry into the discursive position of the female body in the context of modernity involves rethinking not only the public and private distinction but also the problem of a specific rhetoric through which this distinction is expressed. My reading of “Penelope” focuses on the contrast between the private space, intertwined with the pronounced rhetoric of organicism, and the public space, associated with the equally compelling, though much less frequently discussed, rhetoric of mechanical reproduction.