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Russian Formalism UGC NET - TH.F1

Both American and Russian Formalists were concerned to examine what was specifically literary about a text. As has been noted in the Introduction to the present volume, defining ‘literariness’ has proved to be virtually impossible,both because its attributes are not unique and because statements which are true about all literary works are not, on the whole, very useful. Early Formalism developed quite independently in America and Russia but it was Russian Formalism, which flourished during the pre- and post-revolutionary period in Russia, that had the more far-reaching effects. As the name suggests, formalism, and especially Russian Formalism, was more interested in analysis of form, the structure of a text and its use of language, than in the content. Formalists wanted to establish a scientific basis for the study of literature. The credo of the early Russian Formalists was an extreme one: they believed that the human emotions and ideas expressed in a work of literature were of secondary concern and provided the context only for the implementation of literary devices. Unlike the New Criticism in America, they were not interested in the cultural and moral significance of literature, but wished to explore how various literary devices produced certain aesthetic effects.

THE SECOND S*X: A GENERAL OVERVIEW

(‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’)

The Second S*x is divided into two volumes: the first is entitled Facts and Myths; the second, Woman’s Life Today, although a philosophically correct translation of the latter would be Lived Experience, reflecting Beauvoir’s phenomenological approach. Overall, it focuses on how femininity has been conceptualized and how women ‘become’ relative beings in a patriarchal society. Its main argument is that, throughout history, ‘woman’ has been constructed as man’s Other and denied access to an autonomous existence. Men have positioned themselves as uniquely responsible for all aspects of public life and correspondingly women have been confined to a marginalized position in society according to which they are made to support male interests. Beauvoir argues that man has assumed the position of universal subject, and woman is positioned as relative ‘Other’, or object of male consciousness. Society is consequently structured to perpetuate patriarchal ideology and women are maintained in an inferior position. This persistence of patriarchal ideology throughout history has enabled men to assume that they have a right to maintain women in a subordinate state and women have internalised and adapted to this oppressed state. Beauvoir argues that both men and women perpetuate patriarchy, which is why it is able to continue.

S*xual oppression continues because, according to Beauvoir, gender roles are learned from the very earliest age and reinforced perpetually. The famous phrase that opens the second volume of The Second S*x, ‘One is not born, but rather becomes, a woman’, means that there is no pre-established female nature or essence. Here, Beauvoir adapts existentialism’s notion of ‘existence precedes essence’ to the ways in which gender identity is experienced. There only appear to be distinct and determining male or female identities because society has traditionally organized itself according to a sexual apartheid or segregation, rooted in men’s and women’s different biological make-up and reproductive
roles. For example, the fact that, to a lesser or greater degree in the world, patriarchal societies traditionally value women’s reproductive capacity more than her intellectual development or autonomy, means that laws, institutions and belief systems reflect this view of women’s role in society. Beauvoir accepts that there are certain minor physiological and
biological differences between women and men. A common misreading of The Second S*x is that she does not recognise sexual difference and thinks that women should become like men in their quest for freedom. In fact, Beauvoir recognises sexual difference, but does not accept that the valuing of these differences between women and men should justify the oppression of women and their traditional status as second-class citizens in patriarchal society. For Beauvoir, society is organised in such a way as to favour male projects and aspirations. The obvious question which arises is: How did such a system come into being? In The Second S*x, Beauvoir provides a thorough survey of the origins and perpetuation of the patriarchal oppression of women. She explains that, since the beginning of social organisation, men, as physically stronger beings, were better adapted to heavy manual work involved in hunting, fishing and defending the tribe. Women were involved in domestic work and raising children. Men consequently had more freedom to invent systems of thought and social and political organisation because they did not bear children. These conceptual, social and political systems then developed to favour male interests rather than society’s interests as a whole. Women have been obliged to adapt to this patriarchal system, which maintains them in a subordinate position. Beauvoir argues that women have been assimilated to their body and sexed identity and traditionally confined to the roles of wife and mother. Marriage and motherhood have consequently been artificially promoted as the most important roles for women in society and this has been inscribed in the laws, customs, beliefs and culture of society. As a result, women have been traditionally prevented from working outside the home and, hence, have been obliged to attach themselves to a male breadwinner to ensure their survival and that of their children. Women have adapted to this state of affairs in a variety of ways which encourage ‘inauthenticity’ to a lesser or greater extent. Beauvoir argues that the way forward for women is to pursue economic independence through independent work and through a socialist organisation of society, which would favour women’s emancipation and autonomy.

Dialogic/monologic: Terms that the Russian critic Mikhail Bakhtin used to distinguish works that are controlled by a single, authorial voice (monologic) from works in which no single voice predominates (dialogic or polyphonic). Bakhtin takes Leo Tolstoy and Fyodor Dostoevsky as examples of monologic and dialogic writing, respectively.

Diachronic/synchronic: Terms that Ferdinand de Saussure used to describe two different approaches to language. The diachronic approach looks at language as a historical process and examines the ways in which it has changed over time. The synchronic approach looks at language at a particular moment in time, without reference to history. Saussure’s structuralist
approach is synchronic, for it studies language as a system of interrelated signs that have no reference to anything (such as history) outside of the system.