Ecriture Féminine and Female Corporeality: A Reading of Marina Carr’s Woman and Scarecrow

Document Type : Original Article

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Department of English Language and Literature, Faculty of Arts, Alexandria University, Alexandria, Egypt

Abstract

According to the French writer and critic Hélène Cixous, language has been colonized by male logic so much so that it has become a masculine tool, hence failing to capture the essence of womanhood. In her essay “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1976), Cixous coins the term écriture féminine (women’s writing), which is a kind of writing that is not stabilized, or bogged down with male tradition and logic. It is an eruptive and torrential form of language that is in keeping with the powerful essence of woman’s nature. The aim of this essay is to read Marina Carr’s play Woman and Scarecrow (2006) in the light of écriture féminine. At the beginning, the nameless but so called Woman, the heroine of the play, is reluctant to reveal her true feelings. However, being on her deathbed and urged by Scarecrow, her alter ego, to vent, she is finally willing to speak her own mind and give vent to her innermost feelings. Her confessions challenge male logic and reveal her true feelings towards her unfaithful husband in particular, and her repressive Irish society at large. Through a Cixousian lens, the research traces how the heroine of the play is ultimately able to express herself by defying male-oriented discourse, and write her own being as well as her corporeality à l’écriture féminine.

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