Mirrors in Russian Women's Autobiographical Writing: The Self Reflected in Works by Alla Demidova and Vera Luknitskaia.
In autobiographical writing, the mirror is not only a privileged metaphor for the genre as a whole; it also functions as a primary administrator of boundaries, demarcating the space of the self from the foreign, the chaotic, and the unknown. The mirror metaphor is not gender neutral: in Western elit...
| Publicado en: | Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature Vol. 34; no. 2; pp. 259 - 282 |
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| Formato: | Literary Criticism |
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Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature
Summer2010
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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=67265793&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 67265793 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 15557839 18AF jtl: Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature issn: 15557839 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Summer2010 vid: 34 iid: 2 pid: 16415 pub: Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature artinfo: ui: 67265793 10.4148/2334-4415.1732 ppf: 259 ppct: 23 formats: fmt: @attributes: type: P size: 1.2MB tig: atl: Mirrors in Russian Women's Autobiographical Writing: The Self Reflected in Works by Alla Demidova and Vera Luknitskaia. aug: au: Sarsenov, Karin affil: University of Lund, Sweden su: Women in literature Autobiography Metaphor Binary principle (Linguistics) Resemblance (Philosophy) sug: subj: Women in literature Autobiography Metaphor Binary principle (Linguistics) Resemblance (Philosophy) ab: In autobiographical writing, the mirror is not only a privileged metaphor for the genre as a whole; it also functions as a primary administrator of boundaries, demarcating the space of the self from the foreign, the chaotic, and the unknown. The mirror metaphor is not gender neutral: in Western elite culture the mirror has served to reinforce the patriarchal dichotomy between man/mind and woman/ body, prompting Luce Irigaray's view of the mirror as "a male-directed instrument of literal objectification." This article examines two women-authored texts in which the mirror motif is fundamental to the construction of the autobiographical self: the actress Alla Dernidova's The Flying Line of Memory (2000) and the literary scholar Vera Luknitskaia's Ego Echo (2003). A close reading of the texts maps out the operations performed by the mirror and locates the boundaries delineated. The reading shows that the two authors are united by the fervency with which they affirm their social identity as members of the intelligentsia. Their gendered identity is expressed in terms oivulnerability, implicitly in Demidova, by the omission of all intimate detail, and explicitly in Luknitskaia, in reports of sexual assault. However, both have omitted one of the most frequently encountered uses of the mirror motif in European culture-to connote female vanity. In their work, the inirror is a productive literary device, affirming the feminine self. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Literary Criticism src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature is the property of Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature holder: Studies in 20th & 21st Century Literature dt: @attributes: year: 2010 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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