Andre Gide

1
Andre Gides LImmoraliste

• A Feminist and Psychoanalytic Reading

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What does feminist criticism do?

• deconstructs predominantly male cultural
  paradigms (models)
• reconstructs a female perspective and experience,
  in order to change the tradition that has
  oppressed, marginalised or silenced women
• Feminist Literary Criticism (Gayle Greene and
  Coppelia Kahn 1985, p.1)

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First type of feminist criticism

• critiques male-authored texts
• sees canonical male-authored literature as
  discourse in collusion with patriarchal ideology
• Examines the images and stereotypes of women in
  literature, the omissions and misconceptions
  about women in criticism, and the fissures in
  male-constructed literary history (Elaine
  Showalter,Towards a Feminist Poetics 1979, p.25)

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Second type of feminist criticism

• gynocriticism focuses on the woman as writer
• explores the themes and structures of womens
  literature
• looks at the relationship between the established
  male literary tradition and womens writing
• this reading belongs to first type, focuses on
  character Marceline, male writer Gide, and male
  first person narrator Michel. A feminist, but not
  a gynocritical reading.

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Psychoanalytic literary criticism

• grew out of writings of Sigmund Freud (1856-1939)
  on the human psyche
• traditionally analyses either the unconscious
  traits of the author, or of the central
  character(s)
• since 1970s, tends to analyse the structural
  (formal, linguistic) properties of the literary
  text, based on dictum The unconscious is
  structured like a language (Jacques Lacan)
• this is traditional reading of unconscious
  desire of narrator character Michel to destroy
  his wife (two aspects)

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Narcissus and Echo (Segal 1988) 1

• explores treatment of women characters in 15
  male-authored, male-narrated French confessional
  récits
• argues a relationship exists between male author,
  male narrator and implied male reader ( reader
  invited/expected by text)
• maintains that frame narrative told to other
  men constructs an implied reader in a similar
  position to the narrators audience

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Narcissus and Echo 2

• récits Segal analyses usually recount failed male
  life to other men in frame narrative (failure is
  reason for telling)
• woman is involved in mans failure and also dies.
  He is haunted by and tells her story with his
  own.
• woman is marginalised and silenced
• woman fails narrator as mother-mirror, and dies

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Narcissus and Echo 3

• Narcissus is a closed, bisexed unit,
  suicidally complete (p.9). Echo is the
  detached part of an inconceivable whole, having
  neither life nor, finally, death (p.9)
• Michel (Narcissus) seeks out (male) doubles to
  act as mirrors to his (unconsummated) homosexual
  desire.
• He also seeks, unconsciously, to makes Marceline
  into a mirroring other. He fails in this, but
  destroys her in the process.

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Michels male doubles

• Bachir (Biskra), introduced by Marceline (164)
• Moktir, who steals Marcelines scissors (165)
• Coach driver, his desire for whom is transferred
  to Marceline in single consummation of his
  marriage (165-6)
• Charles at La Morinière (Marceline is pregnant
  and ignored) (166)
• Ménalque (Marceline miscarries when Michel spends
  night away with him) (167-9)
• 2nd coach driver delicious as a fruit, whom
  Michel kisses (172)

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Conclusion 1

• Michel slips passively into sex with woman
  provided by Moktir (again, desire is mediated)
  while Marceline vomits blood
• Neither destruction of Marceline nor telling her
  story (with his) brings Michel any release from
  narcissistic desire

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Conclusion 2 Segals reading

• Clearly sets out how an apparent tale of heroic
  male self-discovery is actually a complex account
  of male narcissism, exploitation and misogyny
• Doesnt fully explain nature of link between
  Marcelines decline and death and Michels
  unconscious pursuit of homosexual love objects.