The Specul(aris)ation of “I”
Abstract
In this article, the main aim is to analyze Samuel Beckett’s short absurd play “Not I” (written as a dramatic monologue in 1972) through speculation/specul(aris)ation concepts of Luce Irigaray including also a Lacanian perspective. Under the light of the Irigarayian concept of specul(ariz)ation, the invisible and unknown nature of the dark hollow (vagina)/ Mouth as a reflection of the female self and sexuality will be explained. Irigaray herself defines the concept as a process of alienation because she thinks the “absence of the subject from its own image” gives specularization a “de-realizing power”. In other words, because women are defamiliarised to their own self as a result of not seeing their own image, they are invisible. Likewise, the Mouth (as a fragment) in Beckett’s play becomes alienated to her unrepresented body.
Keywords
References
- Brater, Enoch. (1974). “The ‘I’ in Beckett’s Not I”, Twentieth Century Literature, 20/3 pp.189-200.
- Beckett, Samuel. (1973). “Not I”, (London: Faber&Faber).
- Bryson, Norman. (1988). “The Gaze in the Expanded Field,” in Hal Foster (ed.), Vision and Visuality (New York: The New Press).
- Catanzaro, Mary. (2011). “Recontextualising the Self: the Voice as Subject in Beckett’s ‘Not I’’, South Central Review, 7/1 pp.36-49.
- Gross, Elizabeth. (1986). “Irigaray and Sexual Difference,” Australian Feminist Studies, 1/2 pp.63-78.
- Irigaray, Luce (1985). The Sex Which is not One [translated by Catherine Porter] (New York: Cornell University Press.)
- Tubridy, Derval. (2000). “Words Pronouncing Me Alive: Beckett and Incarnation”, in Marius Buning (ed.), Samuel Beckett Today (Amsterdam: Rodopi B.V.).
- O’Gorman, Kathleen. “So that People Would Stare’: the Gaze and the Glance in Beckett’s “Not I”’. Modern Language Studies, 2/3 pp.32-44.
Details
Primary Language
Turkish
Subjects
-
Journal Section
Research Article
Authors
Publication Date
February 1, 2012
Submission Date
February 1, 2014
Acceptance Date
-
Published in Issue
Year 2012 Volume: 9 Number: 1