Duras, Marguerite - Suzanne Chester (essay date 1992)

Suzanne Chester (essay date 1992)

SOURCE: “Writing the Subject: Exoticism/Eroticism in Marguerite Duras's ‘The Lover’ and ‘The Sea Wall,’” in De/Colonizing the Subject: The Politics of Gender in Women's Autobiography, edited by Sidonie Smith and Julie Watson, University of Minnesota Press, 1992, pp. 436-58.

[In the following essay, Chester examines colonialism and autobiographical representation in The Lover and The Sea Wall.]

Until now, the main body of critical work on Duras has explored the relationship between her writing and the category of the feminine—defined variously in cultural, linguistic, and psychoanalytic terms.1 However, the colonial aspect of Duras's work has been largely ignored and is, I argue, crucial to a reading of sexual difference and the construction of a gendered writing subject. Therefore, my essay will focus on Duras's representation of the particular power relations emerging from...

[The entire page is 11566 words long]

Join eNotes

The above is a free excerpt. Get total access to this content with the:

eNotes Pass