The Other Woman: Feminism and Feminity in the Work of Marguerite Duras by Trista Selous

Abstract

Book Re v iew s the most probing comments reveal the temptation of responding to and interpreting Duras’s characters as other than mere conduits. Could it be that the readers’ and/or spec­ tators’ desire to find themselves in the “mirror” of the stage is so redoubtable that even Duras can erect only partial barriers between the audience and the characters, enticing her public, instead, into a new form of identification? J udith G. M iller University of Wisconsin-Madison Trista Selous. T he O ther W om an: Feminism and Femininity in the Work of Marguerite D uras. New Haven & London: Yale University Press, 1988. Pp. 260. Price: $30.00. Marguerite Duras’ writing has been called feminine because of the central place of the woman character in each work; and feminist ever since Lacan claimed her writing as the emblematic literary expression of his psychoanalytical theory. This view was upheld by some followers: the orthodox Montrelay, or the dissident Irigaray, writing explicitly as a feminist, claiming that women’s plural sexuality generates a multiple language, which deconstructs the logical grids of the reader-writer. In a study divided into two parts, Trista Selous looks at Duras as a purported feminist writer. She first sums up Freud’s and Lacan’s theories on femaleness and femininity. Given the biological and sociological difference of woman, the Other, the mOther, can one agree with Lacan that the woman, excluded from the nature of things, is excluded from the nature of words, and “does not know what she is saying”? Selous then reads Duras, in a chronological order, pitting the psychoanalysts against her own interpretation. She emphasizes Moderato Cantabile and subsequent works where Duras’ idiosyncrasies can best be traced. Selous takes up the oft discussed function of the “blanks,” the missing links in Duras’ text. Contrary to the feminist contention, Selous does not see the “blanks” as “the place of woman.” Although one can call them points of “nonsense,” as Montrelay claims, they are not specifically “feminine,” anymore than other rhetorical figures. Selous agrees with Duras’ critics that the “blanks” produce “jouissance” for the reader who is spared the “castration” of a finite knowledge. While Selous finds the psychoanalytical grid useful, she distances herself from the feminists. She sees the characterization and position of women as incompatible with the feminist credo. Although Duras’woman is constructed as other, she is portrayed, not as the subject, but as the object of desire of the male subject. Whenever the woman is depicted as subject, her sexual desire can only be inferred by the reader as a desire for her own annihila­ tion. With few exceptions, in Duras’ women, Selous sees masochism coupled with passivity in relation to men. Selous further opposes the feminist claims to Duras, on grounds that there is little diver­ sity in characterization of women, and that she places little emphasis on women’s relation to one another. Duras does not allow for interaction and difference between women, nor for conflicted meanings at the level of language. Consequently there is little political com­ mitment on Duras’part. Although in Duras, women’s silence, ambiguity, and madness can be read as forms of rebellion (as suggested by Marini, Irigaray, Lemoine-Luccioni and Montrelay), Duras is not a hard-line feminist, either as a writer or as a filmmaker. Selous’ discussion of the psychoanalytical grids is readable and aptly applied to specific aspects of the work. Feminists will want to address her claim to and interpretation of the pervasive masochism in Duras’ woman object. What emerges intact is the secret of Duras’ seduction. A more stylistic and linguistic grid, such as the one invited by Irigaray, would shed more light on the question of Duras’ femininity and feminism. A nnie-C laude D obbs Sarah Lawrence Coliege ...