Writing the Pregnant Body in Marie Darrieussecq's Le Pays (2005).
In the early 1990s, a number of commercially and critically successful French writers began examining the lived experiences of the female reproductive body, tapping them for both creative inspiration and critical reflection, while expressing them through the voice of the reproductive subject. Previo...
| Publicado en: | Neophilologus Vol. 99; no. 1; pp. 29 - 46 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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Springer Nature
Jan2015
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=100240358&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 100240358 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00282677 OK9 jtl: Neophilologus issn: 00282677 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Jan2015 vid: 99 iid: 1 pid: 237 pub: Springer Nature artinfo: ui: 100240358 10.1007/s11061-014-9396-2 ppf: 29 ppct: 17 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 261KB tig: atl: Writing the Pregnant Body in Marie Darrieussecq's Le Pays (2005). aug: au: Jensen, Jessica affil: University of Southern Indiana, Evansville USA su: Le Pays (Book) Darrieussecq, Marie Genitalia in literature Fiction sug: subj: Le Pays (Book) Darrieussecq, Marie Genitalia in literature Fiction keyword: French women writers Hysterography Marie Darrieussecq Pregnancy narratives ab: In the early 1990s, a number of commercially and critically successful French writers began examining the lived experiences of the female reproductive body, tapping them for both creative inspiration and critical reflection, while expressing them through the voice of the reproductive subject. Previously, narratives of reproduction recounted from the first-person narrator's perspective had been few in French fiction and works centrally concerned with these experiences were rare. This paper first identifies some key works within this ever-growing corpus that I refer to as 'hysterographies' (writings of the womb). With this term, I unite first-person narratives that capture women's perceptions of their bodies during reproductive or sterile experiences as they innovate, reflect on their writing, and engage with the contemporary medical establishment. The authors engaging in such works include quite recognizable names from Marie Redonnet, Christine Angot, and Louise Lambrichs to Justine Lévy, Marie NDiaye, and Annie Ernaux-just to name a few. Next, this paper takes a closer look at the narrative techniques and formal experimentation that one hysterography, Marie Darrieussecq's Le Pays (), employs to articulate the experiences of the narrator's shifting relationship to her pregnant body. Structurally, the narrative is recounted from two alternating perspectives-one in the third-person observing the protagonist's life (external focalization), and the other in first-person interior monologue (internal focalization) visually illustrated with boldface print. The two layers of this work intertwine and diverge exposing a variety of relationships between the body and the world in which it lives. Darrieussecq uses the consistent alternation of these points of view, combined with an innovative fusion of genres highlighting sounds (poetic couplets, transcribed music, onomatopoeia), to communicate the experience of pregnancy. Just as a sonogram reveals a fetus, the two perspectives project sounds that chart both an inner and outer geography of the pregnant body, while exploring its experiences and (pro)creative possibilities. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Neophilologus is a copyright of Springer, 2015. All Rights Reserved. item: Neophilologus holder: Springer Nature dt: @attributes: year: 2015 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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