"Transcending gynocentric space”: Spatial metaphorics in feminist theory and criticism

Abstract

Across the disciplines, feminist critics appear to be obsessed with spatial imagery. What is the nature of these spatial metaphors, and why are they so ubiquitous? This paper purports to raise, but not to resolve, these questions. It casts an interdisciplinary look at (primarily American) feminist theory and criticism and presents an exploration of the omnipresent spatial metaphorics in a survey which highlights the centrality of the spatial metaphors in conceptualizations of women's “inner” and “outer” spaces and in the linking of those spheres, by feminist literary critics, to women's literary expressions.