Lets look at Books

Sometimes I am struck by the nature of the texts we read as students of a liberal college. There are many novels we meet through our studies, and more we discover through our own exploration of books. As a gender and sexuality studies minor, I tend to find problems in many of these books. More recent texts sometimes try to subtly address the virgin/whore dichotomy, which has remained a staple of literary criticism and theory for a while now. While this theory is described in different forms and given unique backgrounds, the conclusion remains that society (tends to) divide femininity into a binary of "good" virgin and "bad" temptress. We iconicize (is that a words?) this in our ideas of the Virgin Mary and the Temptress Eve. 

So we read texts where authors attempt to undermine these theories. They create dynamic females, and try to give strong literary heroes. But of course, they do this within the Judeo-Christian enculturated structures of gender. Which mean that often times these "dynamic" female characters are such a joke. 

After class, I went back to my apartment, and thought about how wonderful unique contributions of experience could be to our understandings of morality. We could allow Gilligan to impact this idea. Men tend to favor the justice perspective - so having a female perspective allows a deeper understanding of care. Or we can recall the ideals discussed by Benhabib. This would mean recognizing that moral philosophy often excludes women in their privatization of women's experiences. Since this conceptualizes the relevant other as male, we as participants in a "moral" society need to criticize universalistic moral theory.

Using Benhabib - we can complicate many works within the literary world. Leah hints to this in her precis for class:

 "Benhabib finishes by bringing up the “generalized other” and the “concrete other” to further illustrate these moral perspectives. The generalized other is focused on rights, formal equality, and reciprocity, while similarity constitutes moral dignity. On the other hand, the concrete other is focused on each individual’s needs, equity, and complementary reciprocity, while difference constitutes moral dignity. Benhabib states that Kohlberg and Rawls find it important to put yourself into someone else’s shoes in order to maintain moral reciprocity; however, their veil of ignorance about social conditions causes moral philosophers to ignore the ways that others are different from themselves. Benhabib suggests the use of a communicative model of need interpretations, where moral agents communicate with each other in order to understand each other better when developing morality."

So I challenge you to criticize one of the many texts within English Literature using Benhabib. Analyze A Tale of Two Cities. Create a counter argument for Pride and Prejudice. Flip through the Great Gatsby. Or use one of your own favorite novels. I adore Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita. But holy mercy, this work can be so messed up. Bulgakov presents Margarita as a current day Eve through the elements of fertility, passion, and nudity. Then he portrays her as a temptress through articulating both her passionate nature and resulting nudity. But Bulgakov’s writing DOES STEM from a place of culturally engrained ideas. And without the impact of other experiences, his writing is locked within a place of patriarchy and ethno-centrism.

Try it out yourself. No worries if you're not an English major. I sure as heck am not.