Cixous's Auto-Fictional Mother and Father

Author(s): Claudine G. Fisher

Source: Pacific Coast Philology, Vol. 38 (2003), pp. 60-76
Published by: Penn State University Press on behalf of the Pacific Ancient and Modern
Language Association (PAMLA)
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Cixous's Auto-Fictional Mother and Father
Claudine G. Fisher
Portland State University

Auto-Fiction?

Not so long ago, the trend in literary criticism shied away from no
tobiographical ramifications in writers' texts. Biographical readin
viewed as an outmoded form of analysis. More recently, however, the
ment seems to have reversed itself and critics delve again into writers'
pasts within their oeuvres in order to rehabilitate auto-fiction. In the
the French writer Helene Cixous, this effort is almost necessary b
the last few years, she has written fiction that is increasingly and mor
autobiographical. Yet, from the start, most critics have ignored the b
cal aspects of her earlier stories in order to stress her theoretical stan

Cixous rarely alludes to the process of auto-representation in he

instead she often discusses the importance of different perspectives i
or the representation of writing within her texts. Even if she accepts
life is indirectly mirrored in her work, she may prefer to offer an int
resistance to the autobiographical pact. The verisimilitude criteria
in autobiography would probably limit Cixous' freedom of express
she is mostly interested in representing existential reflections. Throu
malist views, introspective elements and a highly selective language, t
thor emphasizes, not a re-creation of a past self, but rather a "becom
the self.

Maired Handrahan, who has called Cixous' particular brand of

"altofiction," demonstrates how pervasive the autobiography ha
Cixous' writing, and comments justly on Cixous' refusal of this genre

What is so interesting in Cixous' case is the combination of the autobiographi-

cal references and the resolute refusal [... . of the genre of autobiography
itself [.. ..] What, then, motivates her aversion to this particular form? And
what are its implications for her practice of autobiography? (283)

Handrahan's appropriate answer is that Cixous offers "a version of a v

of herself"(293) when she says "I." I concur with Handrahan in thinki
Cixous offers her reader a version of the author herself, once or seve
removed. But in presenting various kinds of "I," Cixous (I assum
rather stress her versatile selves within a whole being than validate t
fied" vision usually presented through biography. By appearing to de

60
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Cirous s Auto-Fictional Mother and Father 61

size her life story, she gets the reader to focus on the way she constructs
ous levels of her fictional identity while the book constructs itself.

But in giving herself the stylistic freedom that she desires, Cixous see
refuse too vehemently any real value to autobiography, or to minimiz
power of the genre to such an extent that it arouses suspicion, at least on
part. Does Cixous reject autobiography because she finds that the gen
based on facile material? Or is it because autobiography seems incomp
with theoretical narratives? Why the insistence on calling her first novel
man" (fiction) on the cover of each book, a practice that was abandoned in
feminist period? Cixous passed up the opportunity to prove, in any explic
theoretical way, that it is possible to reach a happy medium between
types of writing. But her personal history did not confine her. On the cont
it allowed her to expand onto new vistas, and her oeuvres perfectly illust
that autobiography and innovative formal explorations can coexist in
mony.

In the early works, all personal narratives were buried under what app
to be more important layers of meaning. But concealed autobiographical r
erences were, in fact, alluded to all along through numerous puns, sem
signals, literary parallels and textual devices. In her fiction of the ninetie
up to the present, Cixous has come to discard her previous supposed avers
to autobiography. She explicitly expresses the source of her construct by
cusing on the question of origins. Delving into her own history with
framework of HISTORY, she clearly exposes her personal path. Thus,
late sixties and seventies, with texts such as Dedans (Inside, 1969), Le Troi
Corps (The Third Body, 1970), Les Commencements (Beginnings, 1970), "U
Jardin" ("A True Garden," 1971), and Portrait du Soleil(Portrait ofthe Sun,
the images of the mother and father require analysis to uncover the evol
of Cixous' autobiographical engagement. In 1997 Cixous turns to explic
tobiography in OR, les lettres de mon pere (GOLD, myfather's letters), w
continues the exploration of the paternal image started thirty years befo
Moreover, with Osnabrfick, in 1999, the mother's image supersedes that
father, establishing the perfect equilibrium between the two parents. Co
ing her earlier period to her newest one reveals in her tales an omnip
though hidden autobiographical organization. Through the years, C
moved from a submerged auto-fictive representation to an open use of au
biography. This essay will expose this hidden autobiographical archite
by means of Cixous' inside/outside concept and will link it to N
Abraham's cryptonymy principle, particularly regarding the father. The
will explore the concept of birth, origins and roots connected to the mot
figure, also an integral part of Cixous' stories.

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 62 Claudine G. Fisher

The Father

The father was a central factor for ontological reflection in Cixous

essays and fiction from 1967 forward, almost to the detriment of th
figure. In the first texts, the father appears as a metaphor much mo
real person, though he has a positive role throughout Cixous' texts as
spiration and integral source for the writing. In real life, Dr. George
died of consumption when H616ne was ten years old. The paternal fig
mained very present in Cixous' heart and in recollection, judgin
narrator's words in the 1969 fiction Dedans (Inside). There the little g
her father metaphorically as her "inner Orient" (20), a god, spouse an

Dans ma joie de l'avoir trouv4, je puise une force gaie renouvelde chaqu
matin. L'inattendu et l'attendu s'epousent comme lui et moi, il fait jour dedan
ma nuit, je perds l'espoir ia force de satisfaction, peu 'i peu j'annexe le futur
g notre intensit6, il etait drj' tout et que j'ktais lui et qu'il tait moi. Le passe
ne cache plus qu'il a ete ma prison. (77)

[In my happiness to have found him, I draw a joyous strength, renewed daily
The unexpected and expected espouse each other as he and I, it is daylight in
my night, I lose hope by sheer force of satisfaction, gradually I adjoin th
future to our intensity, he was already everything and I was him and he wa
me. The past no longer hides that he was my prison.]

The ideal relationship created around the father's image brings h

yond the paternal grave in the same way as the little girl brings
father when he is alive. Even beyond death, his memory eternalizes t
biotic relationship. The secret father wearing his white sandals, r
Mercury (47), is hidden within the daughter's psyche. As the winged
ger, he transmits his taste for literature to his daughter. He helps h
secure place of her own within the self. His winged steps give her a
flight by developing her imagination. He teaches her to recognize mo
intimations of immortality. His life brings to her this feeling of ete
they mutually enjoy even when they are taking a walk:

En ce temps 1l, je connaissais mon plre mieux que tout etre au monde, e
mieux, j'en etais stire, qu'aucun etre avait jamais connu un etre autre que soi
ou bien s'il y avait eu un etre aussi connu, personne ne l'avait jamais dit;
n'avais pas tout lu mais mon pere ne m'a jamais contredite. C'est ainsi que
dois a ma memoire l'experience de mon eternit&: sans l'imminence du jou
j'aurai dormi sans etre, sans memoire, sans avenir, d'un sommeil d'os et d
terre. (83-84)

[At that time, I knew my father better than any being in the world, and I was
sure, better than any being was able to know another person than oneself, or
else if there had been another person as well known, nobody then had said
so; I had not read everything but my father never contradicted me. Thus it is

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Cirous's Auto-Fictional Mother and Father 63

to this memory that I owe the experience of my eternity

nence of the day, I would have slept without existing, wi
out future, in a slumber of bones and earth.]

The death of the father is associated with immense

loss of her twin. From the moment of his death
daughter is forever locked out of the world of ord
finds herself outside. Her grief, loss of innocen
(both from the father's world and from the Al
throughout the text ofDedans:

Un mimosa en fleurs. Le douze fivrier. Odeur vague

metres. En forme de saule pleureur.
Palmes d'odeurs fortes comme des mains d'amoureu
Gravillons rouge brique, bric, crib. (143)

[A blooming mimosa-tree. The twelfth of February. A v

yards away. In the shape of a weeping willow. Strong-
like lovers' hands thirty yards away. Brick-red pebbles,

On a short return trip to Algeria in 1968, twenty y

and six years after the independence of Algeria, th
land, her own motherland. By the French and Eng
crib," the brick-red pebbles of the path directly r
suggested by the flowers and the shape of the b
turns into a weeping willow, and they remind the
as it turns into a weeping willow.

The quest for the father, triggered by the "outsi

heightened in the short story "Un Vrai Jardin"
father's absence while the child waits patiently but
the onset, it is only when the child moves outside
side" experience of the garden can be discovered. T
occurs within the protection of the gate railings. T
the real and symbolic garden seals the fate of th
meaning of "inside." The explosion that destroys
thing including the child. The destroyed garden st
child, who finally comprehends the inevitability o
nally, this perceived abandonment had met with re

Un moment plus tard une bombe tomba la oiu j'avais cru

sautai. Autrefois j'aurai eu peur. Mais maintenant je sa
jardin. J'6tais le jardin, j'etais dedans, j'6tais fait de di
n'avais pas de nom. Terre, Terre, criai-je. (34)

[One moment later a bomb fell there where I thought

ploded. In the past, I would have been frightened. But n

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64 Claudine G. Fisher

garden. I was the garden.

I had no name. "Earth, Ear

A second symbol, the ch

link to the mother, shif
the genetic and visceral
the impact of the pain. I
is the tangible proof of
signature for death. As
reversal of birth.

With Le Troisidme Corps

the third person, thus an
two bodies are the fema
intercessor in the quest.
impossible situation. The
merges with his homolo
and heal the protagonist

Et mon pere? II tait long

des autres, maitre des mo
taciturne, il m'incitait A ac
pour voir ce qu'elles conte
allait tout droit et A l'hori

[And my father? He was lo

healer of others, master o
therapist, taciturn, he inc
axe/H to see what they c
senger. He went straight

Likened to the dragon s

Jensen's Gradiva, the fa
ter of her name, "H",
are French homonyms.)

Offering mental streng

a positive outlook throu
to make sense of his d
occurs in her life. Thu
piece by piece, and word
healing stage. When grie
edy or even fate. Inevita
invoke the desire for a
start of new voyages, th
solace. Although Cixous
portrait, of course, rath

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Cixous s A uto-Fictional Mother and Father 65

Portrait du Soleil, the only factual characterization of the father happens

in Le Troisidme Corps:

Mon p're
Age: trente-huit ans. Grand corps svelte dou6 d'une l16gance naturelle,
cheveux noirs, visage tres semblable au mien, constitution faible, ver de
bibliotheque, marcheur non sportif, temperament autoritaire, castigateur,
taciturne, pince-sans-rire, origine: fronti&re entre proletariat et petite bour-
geoisie, autodidacte, doue pour les arts, extreme sensibilit6, confiant, liberal.
Destin: mort jeune. (81

[My father
Age: thirty-eight years old. Tall, slender figure with natural elegance, dark
haired, face very similar to mine, weak constitution, bookworm, loved to
walk but non-athletic, authoritarian, castigator, silent, a man of dry humor;
origin: between the working class and middle class, autodidact, artistically
gifted, extreme sensitivity, confident, liberal. Fate: died young.]

Clearly, father and daughter share a physical resemblance and mental com-
patibility. She can appreciate his "lightness of being" as a figure that she can
tailor to her mood. In Limonade tout 6tait si infini (Lemon soda, all was so inftnite,
1982), the father's memory is associated with summer joy. He can offer his
"lightness of being" through his absent presence, in the same way as, once,
the father offered, on a hot day, the effervescence of a "lemon soda" to his little
girl in order to quench her thirst.

Only in 1997, almost a quarter of a century later, with OR, les lettres de mon
pere, is the father figure revisited and given a fuller dimension within one
single book. This time, because of the crystal clear biographical line, the father
appears in a concentrated form. Still he remains a highly symbolic father, the
real father seen only through flashes of childhood and young adulthood memo-
ries. As a result the reader can perceive the daughter's evolution in all its
gradations: identification with the father reflecting the idea of sameness; loss
creating a feeling of abandonment and separation; emotional and physical
exile compensated by the paternal figure as intercessor; finally, the father's
internalized presence within the daughter leading to her calling as a writer.
Even the title of the book carries layers meanings. It plays on the English "or"
(either/or) in capital letters and the French homonyms of "gold," "and yet,
therefore" and "outside" (hors), making for an awkward translation: Or/and
yet/GOLD/outside, my father's letters. The word "gold" can be associated, for
example, with Cixous' previous puns on her birthplace of Oran, Algeria, with
Or/ange/je, meaning all at once orange, gold, angel, and I. The recurring so-
lar theme associated with the father is incorporated in the gold and the orange
as early as Portrait du Solel (Portrait ofthe Sun). It is explicated biographically
in some passages of fours de l'an (New Year's Eves), published in 1990. It clari-
fies also Cixous' use of the color orange and the symbol of the fruit, the pun on

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 66 Claudine G. Fisher

Iran/Oran and the me

poetical and political tra
the father is gold and a
than a man, ever prese

In her critical work L'

ies the sun-father imag
of the father" paradi
Lacanian and Derridean
reconstructed away fr
her "feminist" writings
the patronymic identit
of the "pater familias
unconsciously, may be
liberation, and a stimul
women writers to tack
the context of a patriar
woman to disintegrat
within her own continu

However, beyond Steve

Cixous's first texts ar
ral" center, describing a
to me that Cixous' theo
1970's. Her early texts,
and poetical concerns, w
ity in order to bury he
to the patient reader re
the theory of cryptony

According to Nicolas A
possess within ourselv
from them by distanc
back in the offspring's
ries, in a conscious or u
so prevalent in Cixous'
the self vis a vis both
dant/writer/narrator t
while deeply "burying"
tion for her privacy Th
elements; then, they gr
nally create a unity wh
together.

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Cixous's Auto-Fictional Mother and Father 67

Disparate elements come together as the whole.

the inside/outside motifs, which give the book In
elaboration of moments of joy, loss or exile in
With the instance of the Cixousian father and his
"out "into an unknown world, after the warm in
expresses the realization that the narrator's adora
father may have become a prison (inside). Eve
allows herself to search (outside) beyond the fa
ries. "How can a living person live with a dead
peut-il vivre avec un mort?) (197). She is then "ex
figure idea. Now she is left with his memory
"white as doves' necks"(les os de mon amour so
colombes) (140). Above all, she has succeeded in
would always have my hand and myself" (j'aur
(203). From inside the heart, the story of the fath
eventually pushed out in order for the descen
tion" of the ghost/father. Otherwise, one coul
rested, as in a psychological jail. Or the feeling
constantly living within one's own space. The tre
nally received in exchange for her paternal loss i

The Mother

On the real and symbolic levels, there are important narrative articu
in the mother's relationship to her daughter and her environment. Firs
representation of the mother embodies the source of life, as well as of
hood, affirming true corporeality. Secondly, the mother offers solidarit
the daughter in spite of their differences, a solidarity leading to reconci
And thirdly, she is the transmitter of the family history, passing on th
sage of ancestral origins. All these elements are worked out in th
Osnabracck. This novel typifies Cixous's style of the nineties, with an e
vision about women. The book has greater legibility and is written f
evident biographical stance. The clarity or transparency in personal des
tions reflects one of the mother's most important traits of character:
rectness toward life. Because of its straightforward approach, this book
seen as a simpler key to many of the incidents described in previou
which tend to have more symbolic overtones with numerous stylistic a
guistic effects.

First, if the imaginary and creative representation of the father is go

the internalized mother image is portrayed in Osnabri'ck as a "pag
Oriental temple, but "not god," with the bilingual pun pagode/pas g

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 68 Claudine G. Fisher

analysis of the mother

father's. At first glanc
quite apparent: he is go
is, in fact, less and less
writing.

Cixous presents the mother as alternately symbolic or too real. In the role
of the traditional giver of life, she takes on the symbolic weight of the source.
On the other hand, being steeped in daily reality, she acquires a "common
place" status by her own corporeality. Thus, the mother cannot be idolized
because her presence is too tangible. She overflows the confines of reality. Be-
ing too "alive," she is set apart from the imaginative realm reserved for the
father. For example, after the father has passed away, she plays the castigating
part usually attributed to the patriarchal side. In that situation, the mother is
forced to become an instrument of the "law" when obedience is demanded

from the offspring. Her reality is linked to the directness of her character. When
she is present, she becomes a true "event" or "a happening," because "Eve
never lies," according to the Cixousian pun "ev6nement/Eve ne ment," from
the book Les Commencements (Beginnings, 1970):

Evenement: le problkme est le suivant: Eve est simple, d'une monstrueuse

simplicit6, d'une simplicit6 coupable, intolerable, el'gante, excavatrice,
venteuse, pleine, inamovible. Imaginez un oeuf couve pourvu de racines?
Imaginez une maison fortifibe sans portes. (81)

[Event/Eve doesn't lie: the problem is the following: Eve is simple, of a mon-
strous simplicity, of a guilty, elegant, excavating, windswept, full, irremov-
able simplicity. Imagine a hatched egg covered with roots? Imagine a forti-
fied house without doors.]

Second, the forcefulness of the mother's character, implied in the vocabu-

lary, illustrates both admiration and ambivalence in the young daughter's ap-
prehension of her mother and thus in the narrator's tale. By underlining Eve's
incapacity to lie, the linguistic game indirectly implies for the reader that the
daughter may have to lie to her mother out of fear of reprisal. Perhaps a full-
blown and "long-winded" scene from the mother hen, with a "digging up" of
the past and a sense of "guilt" from the daughter, could ensue.

The lesson from the mother is invaluable and lends its support to multiple
patterns of "beginnings" and "deliverance." Again, the first name of Cixous'
mother, Eve, seems to embody a certain predestined message associated with
the Fall in the Bible, and thus can represent one facet of the Christian and
historical "doomed" womanhood, against which Cixous rebels very strongly.
Eve carries great meaning, as explained in Le Troisime Corps (The Third Body,
1970):

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Cirous's Auto-Fictional Mother and Father 69

Ma mere a un prenom important. Ce nom est Eve. Ma

primordiale, elle est inoubliable. Elle est parfois ma file
vetements qui sont un peu trop longs et trop 6troits pour
Jadis je priais pour qu'elle se lve et m'dclaire. Sa mer
E'va. (113)

[My mother has an important first name. This name is Eve. My mother sur-
vives. She is primordial; she is unforgettable. She is my daughter at times;
then she slips into my clothes that are too long and too narrow for her. She
has that kind of smile: In the old days I prayed for her to get up and light my
way. Her mother calls her Eva, Eva, E'va.]

In direct association with the egg, birth, and motherhood, Eve embodies a
multi-faceted maternal metaphor, as opposed to a singular human being whose
name happens to have a Biblical reference. Eve is presented as H lene Cixous'
mother, but also as Omi's daughter, and has filiations with other women. For
example, at the time the book is written, the real Eve is also a grandmother
and great-grandmother in real life. Moreover, she had a career as a mid-wife.
In her profession, she is represented as a wise woman ("sage-femme"/mid-
wife,"femme sage"/wise woman, in a Cixousian play on words). She is trans-
formed through her daughter's writing into a liberated Eve without the guilt
of original sin. So, while Eve still remains the private mother of the writer
who stands as the "mid-wife" incarnate, she may have transmitted to HIlne,
in a humorous twist, her figurative title of "wise woman" and "midwife of the
unconscious."

Third, while Osnabrfick seems to combine all the writer's previous themes
centered on the mother with the symbolic developments of birth, anguis
death and love, from the egg to the grave and from the personal to the genera
it is, at the same time, a direct praise and pre-eulogy of her real mother, Eve
Cixous. Beyond the different nuances of the mother figure, moreover, this auto
fictional work evokes the whole female line through four generations o
women. Cixous explores many arenas of womanhood in her dialogue with
her reader and in her questioning of relationships with the Other. It is withi
the mother/daughter relationship, however, that the gender exploration be-
gins. A strong sameness exists between women, but at the same time, a great
"otherness." That sameness/otherness of women in general is made evide
in the succession of generations. In the remainder of this section, I intend to
explore this phenomenon in Osnabrzick.

The novel begins with a preface from the Larousse dictionary identifying
the town of Osnabriick, in Hanover, as the source of Cixous' maternal roo
and as giving the book its title. It is followed by a prologue in italics describ-
ing one of the first (perceived) disappearances of the mother, on the first of
October 1941, in Oran, when H4l1ne was a child: "At the age of three and

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70 Claudine G. Fisher

half, I lost my mothe

Then, the first chapt
SHOULD BEGIN IN TH
(CE LIVRE DEVRAIT C
pensais-je [... .) (15). Th
and yet again with the
implying that it is not s
mencing her book.

It underscores the fact

describes an incident w
Her mother had, in fact
currence of childhood
knowledges that a book
it is too late, before th
Cixous' mother is alread
of memory landmarks
voice linked to the narr
The mother recounts h
are bits of memories sn
ing to the radio; they
and goings of daily lif
and closing of doors. T
with doors, tombs an
flashbacks starting at t
incident recalled by the
ing and opening of doo
of her Jewish materna
in another country. Th
then from Algeria to Fr
fate in their family.

The role of memory c

The incident of aband
Osnabriick repeats, wit
ond World War in Oran
a half years of age. The
death. The child break
rectly to Cixous' "ins
dialectics. The abandonm
time of the father's de
child, three years old,
dor. This cousin, whos

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Cixous s Auto-Fictional Mother and Father 71

the contrary of a rescuer. The little girl experiences

her mother and the reality of the forced silence of
is like a sleep-induced death for the little girl (26
introduce death in Osnabriick. The wish for oblivio
in French), expressed at the beginning of the novel
this book ensconced in memories and the desire nev
life points to the need of remembrances of things

This autobiographical novel ends as it started, wit

links the fiction's beginning and its end. The moth
nings in Germany and its conclusion as she nears th
exhibit the same circular model as the daughter's st
story is inscribed. The end of the text shows Eve, C
the kitchen, looking forward with happiness to a p
roots in Osnabriick. Here the roles are reversed. Th
self as the "elder," "l'ainde" (229). There are several
perception: first, because of the mother's age an
The mother had her initial cancer operation Januar
because of the mother's child-like joy and anticipatio
probably never took place (229); finally, because of
- she is an "eternal young lady" (cette jeune file
terre) (47). Energetic, decisive, well grounded, she t
In contrast, the narrator falls prey to wavering, su

Je ne peux pas commencer ce livre. Ni commencer ni fin

Nous voila toutes les deux dans la cuisine avec Omi notre
Eve 4pluche les oignons et je verse un torrent de larme

[I cannot write this book. Neither to begin nor to end. N

both of us in the kitchen with Omi our mother in the st
and I shed a flood of tears.]

The narrative condenses three generations: Omi is

tions also as mother to the granddaughter, Hele
Omi. Omi seems the "true" mother also because E
her daughter" (75). This concentration of three gen
fourth generation. Indeed, youthful eighty-eight y
forty, seems to be the sister of Helene's daughter:

Il y a longtemps qu'Eve ne vieillit pas. Il n'y a pas d'exp

une imitation. C'est une acceptation. La famille se tour
nous l'affirmons, elle a toujours encore quarante an
quarante-huit ans elle avait decide de rester ' jamai
Maintenant c'est ma fille qui est aussi sa soeur. (75)

[Eve has not aged in a long time. There is no explanation

tion. It is an acceptance. The family turns toward her, an

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 72 Claudine G. Fisher

still always forty. As if f

ever her daughter's daugh

The scene telescopes the

ever young, most often
full of tears, as when s
telescopic link between
guish of the present m

The stable Eve represen

She seems to be the re
When life "happens,"
ties." For example, livin
ing. She is thus the opp

INUTILITE DU TEXTE P
du the. Je lve les yeux de
calmes [...] Rien ne nous
celle qui ecrit &crit.
J'ai toujours &crit de face

[USELESSNESS OF THE TE
ing me tea. I look up fro
eyes [...] Nothing separat
the one who writes writes
turned back.]

Mother and daughter are different not only in attitudes but in their very es-
sences. The mother, Eve, implies that Hel~ne resembles the father. Eve realizes
that the father image takes up a lot of space in the daughter's psyche and
therefore in her writing. The mother's life is a perfect example of a constant
presence in her daughter's life. So much so that everyday life makes her an
absent presence, as recorded in Le Troisidme Corps.: "la presence de ma mere
etait une absence" (149).

The father, as a dreamer and a far away memory, fueled his daughter's
imagination. Eve's character appears in sheer contrast to that of the father. She
embodies true gumption and the desire for sheer survival. There are many
examples of this. She survived her father, who was killed as a soldier in Ger-
many in World War I. Later, she left Nazi Germany with her widowed mother
and survived the death of her husband in Algiers in 1948, when Helene was
ten years old. Then, mother and daughter left Algeria after its independence
from the French. In an almost irrational accusation, Eve complains that the
men of the family deserted their women. Indeed, having lost both father and
husband, Eve seems to accuse the dead men of a desire for glory in participat-
ing in wars, in her eyes a kind of treason toward their women. For example,
Eve talks about her father, Michael Klein, the dead soldier, and Cixous reports

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Cixous's Auto-Fictional Mother and Father 73

that her mother exclaims: "I hate glory, my mot

his wife and two children [. ..]" (199). Then Eve co
tion through the death of her idealistic consump
who exhausted himself to become a medical docto
Unknown" (Tonpire l'Illustre Inconnu) (201). The e
with capital letters and a linkage in the one word
mother's reproach. Cixous succeeds in portray
woman who had no other choice but to be resour
writer-narrator empathizes with her orphaned
underscoring the fact that her family history re
an "inaugural cemetery" (205). Life becomes a s
like a paradise, a life truly deserved that can be n

Cixous presents the process of detachment from

the experience of the writer who, reaching the en
must let go of the manuscript. It is a birth, a co
mother would with her infant and then with her
followed by the arriving/coming outcome reach
ing towards selfless love. This movement is ex
Promethean process of corporeality, love and cre
feminist construct:

La mere preparait le premier lange, elle le pliait en pointe, elle m'annonqait.

Ainsi j'allais naitre! Moi-meme ma mere, mon enfant. Tmniditus. Premiere
nouvelle. / La voir bouger. Etre bien venue. Se voir envelopper dans une
grande feuille de papier. Moi l' trang're, l'expulsbe, me faire une telle grace!
Naitre! On n'oublie pas. Quand on a appris a naitre, c'est comme pour la
nage, la naissance reste A jamais dans ton corps comme la trace d'une puis-
sance toujours prite A se faire sentir. (25)

[The mother was preparing the first diaper, she folded it in a point; she was
announcing me. So I was going to be born! Myself my mother, my child. Shy-
ness. First news. Seeing her move. To have come out well. Seeing oneself
being wrapped in a large sheet of paper. I, the alien, the expelled, to be given
such a grace! To be born! one does not forget. When one has learned to be
born, it is like swimming; birth remains forever within your body as the mark
of a power always ready to be felt.]

To be one's own mother, a recurring Cixousian idea, involves also the art of
being good to the self and of loving oneself in order to be able to love others.
It is, then, essential to keep one's history through the chain of women in the
family: the first one to tell the story of the German line of the family on the
shores of Algeria is Omi, the "additional or extra mother" (ma mere de
supplement) (Osnabrtc"ck 179). With her "flax-blue eyes" (aux yeux fleurs de
lin) (150), the maternal grandmother, Omi, is the one who lived the German
exodus, but she has transmitted only a few stories about the family history to

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 74 Claudine G. Fisher

Eve (128). However, Eve remember

and in turn can evoke the ancestor
histories. Hle'ne, who is, at first,
ceptacle of the stories. She become
"EVE IS A PYTHIA WITHOUT A CAVE" (EVE EST UNE PYTHIE SANS
GROTTE) (131). It seems essential to grasp the various links in the chain of
one's origins. One does have to pass on to the next generation the figures of
"absence" (l'absentement) (27) or, to be totally faithful to the French expres-
sion, to pass on "absenceness." If the dead can cause suffering by their disap-
pearance, they can also provide the essential impetus to familial and personal
interconnectedness. The dead are intermediaries pointing to solidarity and
wishing for reconciliation. That is why the female narrator in Cixous' novel
accepts her role as memory transmitter and storyteller:

JE NE PEUX PAS ECRIRE DE MAMERE VIVANTE. Morte non plus. Mais ne

pas &crire maman, me dis-je depuis des dizaines d'annees, c'est tuer maman
dans l'ceuf, c'est la cacher sous le lit de papa sous la tombe [.. .] comment ne
pas la trahir, il n'y a que trahison. [...] (161)

[I CANNOT WRITE OF MY LIVE MOTHER. Neither dead. But not writing

mummy, Ihave told myself for dozens of years, is killing mummy in the egg,
it is hiding her under daddy's bed, under the grave [.. .] how not to betray
her, there exists treason only. [...]

The fact of writing about Mother underscores the difficulty of writing about
mother and especially about "mummy." Within the various thematics of birth,
love and death, Cixous has played with the possibility of explaining the im-
possible: the mystery of the egg, the importance of her mother and father, and
the need for the passing on of roots through the generations.

Other and Ecriture

On the personal level, Osnabriick and OR, letters to my father have

the story of Cixous' parents into perspective. On the symbolic level, th
took on an important role in Cixous' texts from early on. The samenes
father led to the exploration of the sameness/otherness in the mother
other women figures. The parents, in these two recent books, can be s
bringing a clearer explanation to Cixous' previous fiction. The author,
capacity of critic, no doubt, retouched a few of her own biographical e
as she went along and as time elapsed. For example, what used to
purposely diffused or occulted in the first texts is now rendered tran
Or, what was once more negative is rendered positive, particularly
pects of the mother figure. Is it possible that the real daughter, Hlk~ne,
to soften some of her previous commentaries, because she better under

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Cixous 's Auto-Fictional Mother and Father 75

her mother as she revisited memories in writing years later? Is it also po

that the mother figure herself, because of her advanced age, would so
part of a cryptonymic vision?

Both novels stand as a hymn to Cixous' mother and father in all their
manity. For Cixous, the writer, both parents have been the source of mu
motifs and representations. If one excludes the theoretical aspects, not tr
here, Cixous' inspiration has come, in part, from experience. Thus this ba
ground allows the author to recognize the importance of connectedness in
beings: with the father, the connectedness begins with the self and move
writing; with the mother the link allows for an interpretation of the im
tance of womanhood and of Otherness.

With the support of memories, the creative process is stimulated and kept
alive. One could surmise that, with the mother idea, the writing comes, ar-
rives as an infant would be born. With the father idea, the writing comes again.
Following the cryptonymy principle, it comes back as a ghost would return
(revenant in French means "coming back" and "ghost"). This image of the
father associated with the book appears again and again as a "chain," a clos-
ing or an opening with its ever-renewable memory key.

The act of writing, symbolized by the pen, from its etymology "feather,"
binds this essential triad of the ethereal father, the realistic mother (being fa-
ther also), and the memory-laden love of words. Cixous' act of writing almost
always occupies center stage, as would a true main character. The pen can be
at times a feather as in Angst, at other times an egg, or sometimes a ghost
according to her fancy. The symbolic representations of the mother and father,
like Cixous' theoretical depiction of masculine and feminine libidinal econo-
mies, are encapsulated in the feather-like touch of her pen and her use of free
associations. When Ian Blyth interviewed Cixous about her concept of lan-
guage for Paragraph, she answered:

To write is to make a language foreign. I don't even like to say make, rather to
foretgn the language. I can't imagine that I write French, or that I am a French
writer: usually I refer to my practice in language as not French, but Free-
ench. (338)

Cixous' pun perfectly illustrates the originality of her free-flowing writing in

the "Free-ench" language.

Notes

All quotations from H6lne Cixous have been translated from French to E
author, unless the work is listed in Works Cited as also published in English.

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 76 Claudine G. Fisher

Works Cited

Abraham, Nicolas. Le Verbier de l'Homme aux Loups. Cryptonymie. Paris:

Flammarion, 1976. The WolfMan s Magic Word: A_Cryptonymy. Trans.
las Rand. Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 1986.

Blyth, Ian. "An Interview with H6lne Cixous." Paragraph, A Journal ofM
Critical Theory 23.3 (2000): 338-43.

Cixous, Helne. Ananki. Paris: Des Femmes, 1979.

. Dedans. Grasset, 1969; re-edited Paris: Des Femmes, 1986.

. Jours de l'An. Paris: Des Femmes, 1990.

. Les Commencements. Paris: Grasset, 1970.

. Le Troisiedme Corps. Grasset, 1970; re-published Paris: Des Fem

1999.

. Limonade tout Rtait si infini. Paris: Des Femmes, 1982.

. Portrait du Soleil. Denoel, 1973; re-published Paris: Des Femmes, 1999.

. OR, les letters de mon pere. Paris: Des femmes, 1997.

. Osnabriick. Paris: Des Femmes, 1999.

. "Un Vrai Jardin." UHeme, 1973; re-published Paris: Des Femmes,

1999; "A True Garden." Trans. Claudine Fisher. Paragraph, A Journal ofMod-
ern Critical Theory 23.3 (2000). 252-57.

. Vivre l'Orange/To Live the Orange. Paris: Des Femmes, 1979.

Hanrahan, Mairead. "Of Altobiography." Paragraph, A Journal ofModern Criti-

cal Theory 23.3 (2000):. 282-95.

Stevens, Christa. L 'criture solaire d'Hltne Cixous, travail du texte et histoires du

sujet dans "Portrait du Soleil. " Amsterdam and Atlanta, GA: Rodopi, 1999.

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