CRITICISM

Durham, Carolyn A. “Introduction.” In The Contexture of Feminism: Marie Cardinal and Multicultural Literacy, pp. 1-8. Urbana, Ill.: University of Illinois Press, 1992.

Durham analyzes Cardinal's writing within the context of the similarities and differences between Anglophone and Francophone feminist writing.

Haigh, Samantha. “Between Irigaray and Cardinal: Reinventing Maternal Genealogies.” Modern Language Review 89, no. 1 (January 1994): 61-70.

Haigh explores how Cardinal and Luce Irigaray both address themes of self-identity through the analysis of mother-daughter and father-daughter relationships.

Hall, Colette T. “L'Ecriture féminine and the Search for the Mother in the Works of Violette Leduc and Marie Cardinal.” In Women in French Literature, edited by Michel Guggenheim, pp. 231-38. Saratoga, Calif.: ANMA LIBRI, 1988.

Hall studies the dynamics of mother-daughter relationships as represented in the works of Violette Leduc and Cardinal.

———. “‘She Is Me More than I’: Writing and the Search for Identity in the Works of Marie Cardinal.” In Redefining Autobiography in Twentieth-Century Women's Fiction: An Essay Collection, edited by Janice Morgan and Colette T. Hall, pp. 57-71. New York, N.Y.: Garland Publishing, Inc., 1991.

Hall contends that, through the female protagonists of her novels, Cardinal provides excellent examples of the autobiographical aspects of women's writing.

Hoft-March, Eilene. “Cardinal's The Words to Say It: The Words to Reproduce Mother.” Studies in Twentieth Century Literature 21, no. 2 (summer 1997): 433-48.

Hoft-March traces the protagonist's journey from adolescence through adulthood in The Words to Say It.

Matthews, Jeanne K. “Christ as Madwoman: Images of Redemptive Hope in Marie Cardinal's The Words to Say It.” Literature and Theology 9, no. 4 (December 1995): 431-38.

Matthews suggests that The Words to Say It can be analyzed using Freudian psychoanalytic theories, if the reader substitutes the Catholic Church and the male-dominated medical profession for the role of the parents.

Thomas, Lyn, and Emma Webb. “Writing from Experience: The Place of the Personal in French Feminist Writing.” Feminist Review 61 (spring 1999): 27-48.

Thomas focuses on the similarities between the autobiographical writings of Cardinal and author Annie Ernaux, noting the differences in both author's class and background.

Additional coverage of Cardinal's life and career is contained in the following sources published by the Gale Group: Contemporary Authors, Vol. 177; Contemporary World Writers, Ed. 2; Dictionary of Literary Biography, Vol. 83; Feminist Writers; and Literature Resource Center.