Sorties: Lacking Propre Desire

One can no more speak of ‘woman’ than of ‘man’ without being trapped within an ideological theater where the proliferation of representations, images, reflections, myths,

identifications, transform, deform, constantly change everyone’s Imaginary and invalidate in advance any conceptualization.

Hélène Cixous

This paper argues that Hélène Cixous rewrites féminine in écriture féminine (”writing feminine” as opposed to the traditional translation, ”feminine writing”), beyond the boundaries of cultural representation, and in fact beyond representation into that which makes all writing possible. For Cixous, ”Writing makes love other. It is itself this love. Other-Love is writing’s first name” (”Sorties” 99) [1]. Other-Love makes writing possible. For Cixous, this is feminine. Écriture féminine unveils the illusion of masculine discourse, which excludes and represses this element of feminine in writing. Reading Cixous in translation – in fact, the very act of translation – brings feminine to bear. Translation reveals how the oppressive masculine law can be undermined, and allows for an encounter with Other-ness. Contrary to some readings of Cixous, this paper argues that Cixous’ writings do not generate a law of feminine or feminine as thing/essence that can exist without the masculine discourse. Rather, it argues that the masculine law is necessary for feminine to be demonstrated in the first place, but in this very act of demonstration, gives gaps from which we can enter in the between of any laws at work, thereby re-visioning differences in the relationship between écriture and féminine. Jacques Lacan, in drawing on Ferdinand de Saussure’s linguistic theory to account for his development and revision of Freudian psychoanalysis, emphasizes the importance of the symbolic language system in the constitution of subjectivity. In beginning with Lacan’s formulation of subjectivity in language, we can see how Cixous re-writes the notions of writing and feminine. For Lacan, the subject stems from the ”mirror stage”, when the child realizes its separation from its mother. The child then ”identifies himself with the visual Gestalt of his own body... [and to the child,] it represents an ideal unity, a salutory imago” (Lacan Ecrits 19). Lacan calls this a méconnaissance (”mis-recognition”), a fantasy of a unified image which conceals the fragmentary nature of the child’s existence and generates a false sense of wholeness. What this shows is that it is in the other that the subject is born. Subjectivity is dependent on the separation of the mother and the external image of itself. The emergence of the subject is necessarily structured by a lack as it is at once itself and the other, although the other is rejected in its assertion for self. 

For Lacan, the articulation of this identity occurs only in the Symbolic Order. Lacan’s Symbolic Order is based on Saussurean linguistics, a referential system that refers to categories and terms (signs) within its own context and nothing beyond it. A sign is constituted by two elements, the signifier (e.g. the word ‘cat’) and the signified (the concept of cat). The relationship between these two elements is arbitrary (there is no physical or necessary relation between signifier and signified), and meaning between signs are constituted through difference. Thus, we derive the meaning of ‘cat’ because the word ‘cat’ is different from other words, like ‘dog’ or ‘cow’ (Saussure 65 –70). An existence in such a language system always implicates the other. As Lacan writes, ”The subject is born insofar as the signifier emerges in the field of the Other. But by that very fact, this subject – which was previously nothing if not a subject coming into being – solidifies into a signifier” ( The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis   199). This means that the subject takes its form in language as ”I”, which creates the illusion of stability and unity. However, this ”I” in language is the least stable of signifiers as its meaning is a function of the moment of enunciation. Emil Benveniste makes this clear in his distinction between é nonce andénonciation. This means that the ”I” in language is also split, into the subject of enunciation and the enunciating subject. The example of the statement ”I am lying” shows that there are two subjects, one lying, one not. Thus, ”I” is an unstable signifier that shifts its position when the enunciating subject changes. The split within the ”I” in language mirrors and reflects the split subject in language (Benveniste 223 – 30). Language itself is structured by a lack because it is there to stand in the place of the thing. According to Lacan, ”the unity of signification... proves never to be resolved into pure indication of the real, but always refers back to another signification”, and ”[no] signification can be sustained other than by reference to another signification...” ( Ecrits 126, 150). In other words, the meaning of any signification is derived only from the absence and exclusion of another. This lack of the signified leads only to a constant shift along a chain of unstable signifiers without a centre, just as the signifier is itself without a centre and empty until we invest it with meaning. Lacan goes on to say that ”it is the connection between signifier and signified... that permits the elision in which the signifier installs the lack-of-being in the object relation, using the value of reference back possessed by signification ... to invest it with desire aimed at the very lack it supports” (164). This means that language is structured by a lack that creates desire. Desire is expressed in language and addressed to an other. This implies that the subject sees the other as a site of knowledge and certainty which appears to hold the truth of the subject, as well as the site that makes good its loss. However, demand ”in itself bears on something other than the satisfactions which it calls for...” (Lacan ”The Meaning of the Phallus” 80). This is because the original object is lost. Lacan describes this insatiable desire as the shift of the signifier along an endless chain of

signifiers. The other becomes the site in which the lack/desire is a created, projected and sustained because of the lost object that results in symbolization. Desire is actually ”the desire of the Other” (Lacan Ecrits 264). Since it is from the Other that everything else takes its relation, we can conclude that the heart of the Symbolic Order is lack/desire. This lack/desire is the Law of the Father, the structuring principle of language. However, this Law that structures language creates only the desire to fill the gap, without fulfillment or pleasure. The Law of prohibition willfully sustains and desires lack. Desire becomes an endless process of difference and absence in the movement of signifiers along the chain of signifiers. For Lacan, ”it is situated in dependence on demand – which, by being articulated in signifiers, leaves a metonymic remainder that runs under it... an element necessarily lacking, unsatisfied, impossible, misconstrued... ” ( The Four Fundamental Concepts of Psycho-analysis   154, italics mine). The perpetual effect of symbolic articulation is a desire that is essentially excessive and insatiable, and the fulfillment of such a lack in this way is an impossibility that will continue as long as language is used. Like Freud, it is simply ”desire” for Lacan because he believed that there was no libido other than the masculine. Thus, any concept of subjectivity, the ”I”, is necessarily masculine. In this way, writing and subjectivity cannot be separated, and masculine inscription is possible only in the exclusion of feminine. This is where many feminist psychoanalytic critics begin in their criticisms of Lacan. Cixous departs from a similar sortie (”exit”).It is important to see Cixous’ écriture féminine as a text that has to be read. This is because her boundaries between theory and fiction are fluid, making her theory read like fiction and vice versa. This is how she plays with difference while maintaining them. In reading Cixous, it is always ” tous les deux ” (Cixous Rootprints 25), which translates as ”all of the two”, or more literally, ”all the twos”. Thus, accusations by Cixous’ critics, like Domma Stanton who says that for Cixous, ”the devalued term in phallologic becomes the superior value but the system of binary oppositions remain the same... [and so, reproduces] the dichotomy between male rationality and female materiality, corporeality and sexuality” (167), are misconstrued. While Cixous uses these binary oppositions, it cannot be said that she plays into the masculine trap. Cixous begins with traditionally established dichotomies as springboards to demonstrate écriture féminine by first re-valourizing the subjugated term in binary-systems, before going on to redefining these poles to mean something altogether, thereby creating a new relationship (exchange) between the two. This is what she does in rewriting desire. For Cixous, there is feminine, other desire. Cixous writes that when woman is rejected to become the other, she is objectified to become ”the principle of consistency... everyday and eternal”, that makes the ”I” possible. At the same time, she is ”in the suspense, in what will soon be, always differed” (”Sorties” 67). What this implies is

that Cixous identifies the metonymic remainder, the excess that shifts from signifier to signifier as the feminine. Feminine as the metonymic remainder means that it is the necessary in articulation, but in itself cannot be articulated because the Symbolic Order functions on grounds of the propre (signifier to signified), and this excess belongs to the realm of the non- propre (signifier to signifier in an endless chain). Betsy Wing translates ” propre” in Cixous’ texts as ”selfsame” which usefully draws the connection between language (translation) and identity. In translating ” propre” this way, we can see how problematic it is in constituting an identity in language. It leaves out connotations of ownership, appropriation and property in ” propre”, and the economic and political overtones are important in understanding Cixous’ strategy of beginning with sexual difference, but aiming at any form of difference. The sexual and the economical-political come together when we read propre as ”clean” or ”tidy”. As Wing puts it, women are often expected to care for values of cleanliness and propriety, ”deeply involved with what is propre, but is... never quite propre herself” (167). Thus, feminine desire can only be demonstrated through unveiling of the propre through play and translation. It is no longer about representation (the propre) as it moves beyond economy (necessary for representation) into the realm of the gift/love that is writing. In shifting from the propre to the non- propre, Cixous opens the field of self-sameness up to otherness ( altérité) that ”cannot be theorized... [but] escapes... is elsewhere, outside: absolutely other” (”Sorties” 71). Seen in this light, feminine is the impossible because it cannot be represented. However, this is an impossibility that can be demonstrated in translation, the act that unveils the body-voice of the other and this must be examined in terms of jouissance.