Ok guys, now that you were given some information about ecriture feminine, its finally time to do

some practical work. So what were going to do now is go away from theory and scrutinize the text
which hopefully lies in front of you, as a potential example for ecriture feminine in the way the
notion was coined by Helene Cixous. These four pages, starting with Id have to get a nice pair of
red slippers...
Before we start, i will you give you some background information. These four pages are an excerpt
from chapter 18, the final chapter or episode of Ulysses by James Joyce. The story takes place in
Dublin, in Catholic Ireland in 1904 and encompasses only one single day in the life the protagonist
Leopold Bloom. I think the novel is quite famous and well known, at least to some people i hope,
unfortunately excluding me.....so who stumbled across the novel.... hands up.
Its not necessary to go into detail here, but what you actually should know is that the person who is
talking here is Molly Bloom, the wife of the protagonist Leopold Bloom and right now she is lying
in bed with her husband while hes asleep and while she tries to fall asleep shes having some
thoughts.....she is now in a state between being half awake and trying to fall asleep.
So lets start reading. One more thing, you will notice within the first words that grammatical
punctuation is missing here. So when reading you should try to read slowly and find your own
rythm and make pauses when you think a pause is needed. In addition, try to make emphasizes, if
necessary. So what you should avoid is something like this kind of reading......(lies vor wie es nicht
sein sollte)
Ok fine, thank you. hm i have to ask you this....what we have just read, is this content easy to
grasp or rather hard?
And why? The grammar is completely ignored, no commas, no punctuation.
Does anybody know how this stylistic device is called. Its called stream of consciousness.
The stream of consciousness attempts to give the written equivalent of the charac ter's thought processes,
here on the basis of an interior monologue. So let your imagination run wild, let your thoughts flow,
dont stop, dont hide anything.
Lets do some brainstorming. Keep in mind, these are Mollys thoughts. How is Molly depicted here.
When thinking about this, you should remember what Tamara and Natalie just said about ecriture
feminine.

Joyce expresses the needs and desires of everywoman, here its Molly and supports a
radical transformation of the feminine psyche (Pseiki).

I think you should know ecriture feminine has something to do with a movement for
freedom, free yourself from the patriarchal modes that prescribe and organize roles .in a male
domestic society. So these modes are discrediting any kind of emotional or intuitive experience.
And i ask you now what do we have here? ...excatly, shes definitely not mincing her words.

So what else is contributing to ecriture feminine. I will help you, listen to this excerpt of
The Laugh of Medusa by Helene Cixous: Woman must write herself: must write about women
and bring women to writing, from which they have beem driven away as violently as from their
bodies because their sexual pleasure has been repressed and denied.

So what is Molly doing here? She absoutely frank about her sexuality. I mean she is so
heavily frank that even I (a guy living in 21st century) was like: Wow...Joyce is really making some
kind of statement about women.

Keep in mind that , according to Cixous, a woman must write herself, must put
herself into the text. Here is another quote of Cixous: Write, let no one hold you
back, let nothing stop you: not man; not the imbecilic(schwachsinnig) capitalist
machinery, in which the publishing houses are the crafty, obsequious relayers
of imperatives handed down by an economy that works against us and off our

backs; not yourself. Smug-faced readers, managing editors, and big bosses
don't like the true texts of women- female-sexed texts. That kind scares them
So Cixous is making an appeal to every single woman who is out there. And Molly is definetly
sticking to her appeal.
Molly does not discount the physical as inferior, for the physical makes her real. So the vitality of
the human body receives an emphasis, with all its functions and forms.
The needs, the desires, the dreams, the imaginations of all women that patriarchal modes seek to
diminish are here frankly revelead by Molly. By removing all boundaries of sex, she is not longer a
woman, she begins to live as a person, as an individual being that embodies all nuances of
feminist theory.
Perhaps lets talk a bit about the passage when Mollys is thinking about the religious content. I will
read it. (!!!Stelle markiert im Text!!!)
So what is this all about. Is Molly a highly religious person? Obviously not, she is making some
heavy criticism here, on organized religion. And she is doing it because the Catholic Church rests
heavily on the patriarchal tradition, they go hand in hand. A woman who indulges in her sexuality is
absolutely a no-go. She should do the trick when her function as a mother is needed, but she is not
allowed to run free in sexual desire.
But Molly says: Whats the idea making us like that with a big hole in the middle of us [] and
shes wondering wether this is a nice invention they made for women for him to get all the pleasure.
So Molly here is seeing through the hypocrisy of organized religion and she is is not willing to take
part in that.
Good, my part was to introduce you to an example of ecriture feminine, and i think its clear now
why this example was used. Then I am actually at the end, and the rest is up Mr. Klger.