Writing is the delicate, difficult, and dangerous means of succeeding in avowing the unavowable.
Helene CixousRead
By writing her self, woman will return to the body which has been more than confiscated from her, which has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display - the ailing or dead figure, which so often turns out to be the nasty companion, the cause and location of inhibitions. Censor the body and you censor breath and speech at the same time. _x000D_ Write your self. Your body must be heard. Only then will the immense resources of the unconscious spring forth.
Interpretation
What this quote means
Cixous emphasizes the importance of women expressing themselves through writing, reclaiming their identity and bodily autonomy.
Helene Cixous asserts that writing is a means for women to reclaim their bodies and voices, which society has often marginalized or censored. By urging women to 'write their selves,' Cixous encourages a profound connection between the body and expression, suggesting that true self-discovery and liberation stem from overcoming internal and societal inhibitions.
Themes
WritingBodyIdentitySelf-ExpressionFeminismConsciousness
In practice
Example use cases
An author discussing women's literature in a panel might quote Cixous to emphasize the importance of self-expression.
More from Helene Cixous
All quotes →You only have to look at the Medusa straight on to see her. And she's not deadly. She's beautiful and she's laughing.
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Only when you are lost can love find itself in you without losing its way.
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We must kill the false woman who is preventing the live one from breathing.
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If my desire is possible, it means the system is already letting something else through.
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Women must write through their bodies, they must invent the impregnable language that will wreck partitions, classes, and rhetorics, regulations and codes, they must submerge, cut through, get beyond the ultimate reverse-discourse, including the one that laughs at the very idea of pronouncing the word "silence"...In one another we will never be lacking.
Helene CixousRead
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