Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/75155
Title: Escaping through the undecidable : the suspending of phallogocentric discourse in four novels by Christine Brooke-Rose
Authors: Grech, Marija
Keywords: Brooke-Rose, Christine, 1923-2012
Criticism, Textual
Derrida, Jacques, 1930-2004
Phallicism in literature
Issue Date: 2007
Citation: Grech, M. (2007). Escaping through the undecidable : the suspending of phallogocentric discourse in four novels by Christine Brooke-Rose (Master's dissertation).
Abstract: This dissertation attempts to trace the considerable influence that the deconstructive texts by Jacques Derrida have had on the work of Christine Brooke-Rosa. Linking four of this writer's novels to texts of poststructuralist theory, the following chapters explore how the playful nature of these novels subverts and deconstructs phallogocentric discourse. The Introduction to the following chapters provides a generic overview of Brooke-Rose's work to date and a brief outline of the influence that 1960s and '70s French poststructuralist theory had on the novels from this period Chapter One presents Brooke-Rose's novel Between as a writerly text that is inherently 'other' to logocentric discourse. Discussing the notion of undecidability and the hymen, this chapter argues that the multiplicity and ambiguity inherent to this novel suspends any logocentric or metaphysical unveiling of univocal truth and meaning in the text. The second chapter links the notion of logocentrism to that of phallocentrism and argues that the same playfulness at work in Between operates in Amalgamemnon and Thru to subvert this discourse. Referring to Luce Irigaray's Speculum and Brooke Rose's Amalgamemnon, the first section exposes the phallogocentric stigmatisation and effacing of woman. Exploring the motif of reflection utilised in Irigaray' s text and Brooke-Rose's Thru, the final sections of the chapter discuss how the playful nature of this novel may be said to shatter the phallogocentric 'rear-view' mirror that attempts to efface woman.
Description: M.A.ENGLISH
URI: https://www.um.edu.mt/library/oar/handle/123456789/75155
Appears in Collections:Dissertations - FacArt - 1999-2010
Dissertations - FacArtEng - 1965-2010

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