Note: This was an assignment for Death and the Maiden
I struggled with this week’s readings as I disagreed so much with that Cixous and her musings about women writers. Women have most likely written about themselves and for themselves for at least as long as women have known how to put pen to paper. In the Heian Period (794–1185) in Japan, women diarists recorded their innermost thoughts. For instance, The Kagerō Diary details a woman’s faltering relationship with her husband and her feelings about it (Arntzen, 2015). Another young woman, Anne Frank, wrote about her innermost feelings in what is perhaps the most famous diary in the world. She wrote about her burgeoning womanhood, the frustration of being cooped up in the Annex, and the fear she and her family felt (Anne Frank House, n.d.). Cixous exhorted women to write for themselves and to not write in secret (Cixous, Cohen, & Cohen, 1976). What Cixous failed to mention in her missive, was that women often had to write in secret because their was no outlet for their writing or that in a male-centered universe a women sharing her deepest thoughts would not be heard.
As I further reflect on Cixous, I realize that at the time she wrote “Laugh of the Medusa”, the world was in the midst of several social movements including the sexual revolution and women’s liberation, which were forever changing the role of women in the world. Women were earning their place in the workforce and on the page (Escoffier, 2015). Women and our musings have come a long way since 1972. Women now feel free to write in their own voices about a variety of subjects and women’s writings about death and the dead range from the eloquent to the hysterical. Blogger and hospice nurse Gabriella Elise Jimenez eloquently writes, “You are right, I witness a lot of death, too many last breaths to count, and so many goodbyes. I think people assume I hide in a dark cloud of sadness most of the time, which makes sense to me, but it is so far from my truth. Death has taught me to pay closer attention to life. Each last breath that I am present for shocks me because I realize the finality of it, as well as how truly fragile we are as humans, and how blessed we are to have breath, and life” (Jimenez, 2022).
On the other end of the spectrum is Mary Roach whose rollicking book STIFF: THE CURIOUS LIVES OF HUMAN CADAVERS, details in hilarious prose the indignities human bodies suffer when they are no longer occupied. For instance, she starts writing about heads used by plastic surgeons by saying, “The human head is of the same approximate size and weight as a roaster chicken. I have never before had occasion to make the comparison, for never before today have I seen a head in a roasting pan” (Roach, 2003, p. 19). It should be noted that Roach clarifies she does not find anything funny about death and that the death of a loved one is sad and profound. It is only the bodies we leave behind that she writes about in a less than serious way.
Women are not the only ones who have write eloquently about death and feelings as there are men who write quite tenderly about those they have lost. In The Carry Home: Lessons From the American Wilderness, Gary Ferguson writes eloquently abouthis journey to scatter the ashes of his wife who died in a canoeing accident (Fergeson, 2015). Similarly in Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times Hardcover, Katherine May writes about her need to rest and retreat after a period of difficulties (May, 2020). Although their voices are different, both Ferguson and May write with an intimacy that invites readers into their pain and I believe these differences are individual and not due to gender.
References
Anne Frank House. (n.d.). The Diary. Retrieved from Anne Frank House: https://www.annefrank.org/en/anne-frank/diary/
Arntzen, S. (2015). Histories of the Self: Women’s Diaries from Japan’s Heian Period (794–1185). Retrieved from Education About Asia: Online Archives: https://www.asianstudies.org/publications/eaa/archives/histories-of-the-self-womens-diaries-from-japans-heian-period-794-1185/
Cixous, H., Cohen, K., & Cohen, P. (1976). The Laugh of the Medusa. Signs, 875-893.
Escoffier, J. (2015). The Sexual Revolution, 1960-1980. Retrieved from GLBTQ: http://www.glbtqarchive.com/ssh/sexual_revolution_S.pdf
Fergeson, G. (2015). The Carry Home: Lessons from the American Wilderness. Berkeley: Counterpoint.
Jimenez, G. E. (2022, September 24). What Would Gabby Say? Retrieved from The Hospice Heart: https://www.thehospiceheart.net/post/what-would-gabby-say
May, K. (2020). Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times. New York: Riverhead Books.
Roach, M. (2003). Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.