SOURCE: Lane, Nancy. “Duras and Cardinal: Writing the (M)Other.¹” French Forum 24, no. 2 (May 1999): 215-32.

In the following essay, Lane utilizes the feminist and psychoanalytical theories of Julia Kristeva and Jessica Benjamin to analyze how both Cardinal and Marguerite Duras depict mother-daughter relationships.

Qu'est-ce aimer, pour une femme, la même chose qu'écrire. Rire. Impossible. Flash sur l'innommable, tissages d'abstractions à déchirer. Qu'un corps s'aventure enfin hors de son abri, s'y risque en sens sous voile de mots. VERBE FLESH. De l'un à l'autre, éternellement, visions morcelées, métaphores de l'invisible.²

Once we begin to accept the idea that infants do not begin life as part of an undifferentiated unity, the issue is not only how we separate from oneness, but also how we connect to and recognize other; the issue is not how we become free of the other, but how we actively engage and make...