SOURCE: Elliot, Patricia. “In the Eye of Abjection: Marie Cardinal's The Words to Say It.” Mosaic 20, no. 4 (fall 1987): 71-81.

In the following essay, Elliot expounds on the autobiographical elements in The Words to Say It, focusing on Cardinal's tumultuous relationship with her mother and the impact of that relationship on Cardinal's mental state.

While contemplating words, the tools of our trade so often taken for granted, I am reminded of an obscure poem which ends with the phrase, “words: charms unknown to animals.” Perhaps the delight I took in the idea that words could charm followed from the contrary knowledge that words can wound. In any case, the emphasis Freud places on the spoken word and that Lacan places on the speaking being reminds us of the centrality of language in the constitution of human subjectivity. Words articulated in the course of analytic treatment are not merely the...