HÉLÉNE CIXOUS'S ÉCRITURE FÉMININE AS THE THEATRE OF THE IMPOSSIBLE

Abstract

This thesis demonstrates the necessity of writing Helene Cixous's feminine in theatre.

It is in its writing that an-other understanding of what it means to be human comes through. This is not a question of humanism. For Cixous, to be human is to realize that the human self is both determined by and, at the same time, is itself other. To be human is to be more faithful to what humanity is made from, and that is difference. This re-discovery of one's humanity is to be found in (Cixous's) theatre whose possibility is dependent on the impossible figure of Cixous's ''feminine." In exploring feminine, Cixous' s writings, and her plays Portrait de Dora and L'Histoire Terrible mais lnachevee de Norodum Sihanouk. Roi du Cambodge will be examined. This exploration shows that the strategies that Cixous employs in theatre constantly undermine the law, which is the totalizing and reductive systemization of all differences. These strategies open up a space in the theatre that allows for an encounter with an other. This encounter is possible because feminine incarnates itself as the body in the theatre of the impossible. This thesis will thus, demonstrate that Cixous has turned the question of an other into a rhetoric that opens up the possibility of an encounter with an other. There are two main parts in this thesis. The first part, "Writing (as) The Impossible," consists of two chapters. "Double (in) Framing" (Chapter One) deals with the with the notions of space and time in representation and how absence governs representation on the theatrical stage. It shows that it is the frame that enforces this absence by the very act of making present the body. "Other (as) Stage" (Chapter Two) shows that it is on the theatrical body where the impossibilities are played out. The body's relationship to time is shown to be integral in its constitution, revealing that alterite is bodily. The second part, "Reading (as) The Impossible," also consists of two chapters. "Painting (in) Excess" (Chapter Three) examines Cixous's painting of a portrait of.feminine that shows how Cixous's ecriture continues to write beyond itself through the intervention of the body. "Incarnation (breaking) l-listoire" (Chapter Four) shows that Cixous engages directly with histoire in Sihanouk. Reading histoire in Sihanouk reveals the relationship between the masculine law and.feminine in terms of the political condition as a possibility only through the poetical, and that the poetical is demonstrated through the political. Thus, reading Cixous's feminine in her writings and plays will reveal that she has turned the question of alterite in the theatre of the impossible into a rhetoric that opens up the possibility of an engagement and encounter with an other.