POR:rRAIT OF OORA

Am E. Larabee

Subnitted to the Graduate C:Ollege of Bowling Green

State University in partial fulfillment of
the requirenents for the degree of
~OFAKrS

August 1985

Approved:

5u£ Eft,,./+r4fMvisor
~l-f-~/

No. 4576
 The ?Jil>OSe of this stuiy was to explore the theoretical tnier-

pimings of ~lene Cixous' play, Putttait of Dora (1978). This was

ac~lished throogh an examination of French feminist criticism ard

its relationship to psycmanal.ysis. The study used teclmiq.ies of both

practical criticism ard literary theory.

The existing literature revealed a need for the application of

new theory to worlcs, like this play, which crul.d mt be analyzed using

the old critical metb:xis. Literature relating to psychoanalysis,

theater, ard contenporary French philosophy were explored.

This st:uiy focused on hysteria ard its link to the creation of

a feminine language. n:>ra' s hysteria ,es viewed as an unavoidable

political act against a suppressive, on:lerecl, masculine language. 'Ihe

psycmanal.ytic theories ard practices of Fraxl ard Lacan came uooer

particular scrutiny.

'!he study was written to reflect the developnent of a new ard

different language. The very language of practical criticism required

alteration.
 I would like to thank my thesis advisor, Dr. Sue Ellen C,aq,bell for

her fine canb and steady hard. Dr. V. Patraka provided fragmented advice

on nultiple levels. I am imebted to both of them for their strength,

conviction and encouragement. My mther provided financial support: she

is the First C.ause. David Larabee proofread man;y drafts. Finally, my

gratitu:le exterds to N.M. Kurtz for his inspiration.

 TABiE OF CDNIENrS

Page
Lacan am~ Feminist 'Iheory. • 1
New 'llleater ard Femi.nine Language • • •••••••••••••• 7

Fran's Vision am Dora's Rebellion 12

Dora's M:>ther am the Threat of Sensuality 17

The 'lhresoold of DremI6 am the Rational Ecoocmy 20

Cic>oclusion ............................ 23
Fnlnotes. • • • • • • a • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • • 25
 There is wamn only as exclwed by the nature of things

~ch is the nature of wros, am it has to be said that

if there is one thing they themselves are cooplaining

about eoough at the nonent, it is well am ti'uly that

-only they don't koow \Ott they are saying, which is

1
all the difference between them aIXI me.

In this cocky, tlm.Jsting speech, lacan, the charismatic TeVivalist

of Freulian psycooanal.ysis, was begging on his knees for us to tell him

abcut our jouissance: our sexual pleasure, our bliss, the rapture of

St. Theresa. Bored am dissatisfied with the clooded vaginal/clitoral

debate, lacan came cru:rting to get us to unravel, Dllke visible, our

great mystery, our connaissm¥:e (koowledge, conscioosness; pm on

cunt, French--con). Ti.red of fucking anon in shallow affairs, he

tried to net us by reading us a love letter: "At this point I am

going to allow myself a break by reading you sanething I wrote a \idle

back-on \ftlt?-sin1)ly fran ~ it might be possible to speak of love."

2

Aroorow; am coy, nearly irresistable in his intellectual persistel'D!,

lacan gave a little am wanted everything in exchange. If we had

answered his proposal with ''yes"-he didn't hear an;ything else-married

cnrselves into his order am bani ourselves to his text, then we
would have serveci a signi.fying chain, psycooanal.ytic discrurse, which

was foun:led on our suppression. Psychoanalysis was erected on the cure

 -2-

of hysteria: wanen's lxxlies an::l speech were re-sutured to the masculine

ecorony an::l \\U\1erl decoratively into a text of case histories.

To avoid this appIOpriation-=-this bJurgeois marriage--wanen are mw

working on psychoanalysis outside of Lacan: they are e>c-<entric. This

is rot to say that they have placed themselves in oppositicn to his

visicn, for this wrul.d be arother kird of birding definition according

to the old order. Rather, they perceive themselves as differeree, divest-

ed of the false rank, privilege, an::l autoority of patriarchal language.

'Ibey speak fran a place of Otherness; HM~ Cixous writes of this

altered language in ''laugh of the Medusa":

Now~ return fran afar, fran always: fran "without,"

fran the heath ~ witches are kept alive; fran below,

fran beycnl ''culture''; fran their chilchxxl \\hi.ch men have

been trying desperately to make them forget, ccn:lenning

3
it to "etenl81. rest."

French fend.nists had begun the project of discovering a fend.nine

language \\'hi.le Lacan was still alive, rut he was peevish about this.

In fact, he seemed to igoore the real fennent he had caused. He asked

\01len analysts, \\ilo were part of his circle, to explain jooisSaJXe, rut

he igooted the poets. His vision was cockeyed. He payed lip service

to the possibility of a feminine language, because, as Jane Gallop says,

he wanted to be "cock of the walk. ,,4 lilt actually he wanted to den;y

that we had anything to say abrut curselves in the long run, beca,1se he

believed that language acquisiticn is phallic by nature. According to

Lacan, the child!s ent1:y into the synix:>lic, linguistic order has every-

thing to do with his/her realizatioo that Daddy has both the Law an::l the
 -3-

desirable Phallus. If language is always phallocentric, than row can

a wanan speak of herself? Can there be a speech proper t o ~ ?

Lacan allowed that we ''krow' a jouisSat¥:e, hit it is ootside of history

am wrapped in enigne. We carn>t speak of rurselves; we always masquer-

ade in a masculine lm,gu:ige.

1bt this is a question between F-ather Lacan am his feminist

daughters: an Oedipal question ~ch revolves anurl the stab.ls of the
Phallus. The discussion in1>lies that a waran's experierk:e is sanehJw

polarized in a realm of siler¥:e. 1ut existentially, l«JDeD. have always

spoken. There is m essential wanan, only a culturally enforced wanan-

hood based on linguistic nalel.s. '!he task has always been to sanehJw

grab the signifiers am subvert them. Rather than an:lming that we

nust play either a male role or a fenal.e one, we are better off

politically with a dual role. The bisexual configuration of a wanan's

Oedip.15 carplex is expedient; we can use it to rur advantage.

In the Oedipal situation, little girls never firmly fix their
object of desire on either parent; they never fix their own identity.
There is ab.Jays sanething of the IOOther am the pre-Oedipal 11DDent

that little girls never give up. Accoiding to Nan=y Ch>dorow, in the

Reproduction of M::>thering:

Girls canoot am do mt ''reject" their roother am wanen

in favor of their father aid men, hit nmdn in a bisexual

triangle throughrut childhood aid into p.1berty. They

usually make a sexual resolution in favor of men am their
5
father, hit retain an internal eJDtional tl:i.angle.

A "feminine" language, then, will also contain this element of

 -4-

bisel0.l8l.ity. It is a ~ \\in.ch recpi.res an erd to the defini.tioo

marl<ed out for wanen; the signifiers desire freedan fran their c.liains.

For ~laie Cixrus, therefore, a "feminine" language flows fran a thini

sch>ol wirl.ch is neither solidly nale nor female. The language of

difference, mi.ch is irrational ard witinlt authority, canes from

illa: he/her. Illa is rot the camivalescp.ie hennaphrodite tile> becanes

sexless in the joini~ of Jflysical parts. Nor is illa the ideal amro-
gyre of the transcen:lentalists, floati~ in rarefied heights of
abstraction. Rather, illa speaks all of the fragnented and nultitu-

dimus desires of the body, filled with a subversive sexual desire

beyord the basic fulfillment of need. This is the child, with full

belly, t.vl'x> still craves the breast. The language is exorbitant, over-

~elml.~ the erections of the rational; it is both the arrow springi~

fran the bow am the mark:

Besides, isn't it evident that the penis gets anud in

my texts, that I give it a place and appeal? Of course

I do. I want all.I want all of me with all of him.

6
Why sooul.d I deprive myself of part of us?

In Imia, many peq,le pay txJnage to the linga (mi.ch means "sign,"

mald..~ an intrigui~ link to semiotics). '1he Unga is a stone phallus,

wrshiped as a manifestatioo of Shiva. '1he sexual nature of this arti-

fact is in m way hickien or veiled, unlike that of our Westem Cllrlst

tile> hasn't revealed his penis si~e the Renaissaree. '1he ~ bears a

great weight of significance: it is history, filled by the chanti~

am story-telling of priests. Alain Kirlli, in ''Lingaistics," points

rut that there is a distinction between "dead" lingas, -nich interest

 ->

archeolog:l.sts, ani ''live" li~as, "1:ich are still in covenant with the
nasses. 7 The eooless reproduction of these artifacts suggests Fran's
ccn:ept of daJbling to ward off death.
Cultists comtl.D! with lingas by pruri~ milk aver them: milk is

the active element \\td.ch birds the bcxly of the worshipper to history,

to the "sign." Sexual union is also suggested by the yoni.linga: a

coobination of a shaft (li~a) with a base (yoni) ~ch represents the
feminine prireiple. Yonilingas can be 11Bde of a variety of naterials
incluilng rice, bread, clay, wood, am metal. The Indians have m

great regard for keepi~ these artifacts intact, arr:l let them chip
8
am decay as they will, throwi~ the pieces away as they disintegrate.

Cixous, -no has m coocem with eternity (she purposely ?lhlishes in

cheap editi~) am "*1o says she writes with milk, seems to be a

"camalingaist": an ani.nlltor of the bisexual. "sign," the yoni.linguistics.

There has been little evidence of a ymi.linguistics in the Westem

archive. We krow oow long we have been relegated to sileoce, camd.tted

to an asylun: "one wcmm writer for every twelve men."9 1kJt the desiring

speech of the h;ysteri.cs, iniani.table wanen, surfaces again ard again:

the repressed language of drea1l3 will mt be digested am turned into

a dead artifact. Cixous believes that the hysteric's discaJrSe nust

be freed fran the tyanny of the rational text, fran the appropriation

by masculine auth.>rity. The case histories \\'hi.ch have cane to us fran

the past nust be unraveled.

Frelnian analysts insisted that the relationship between doctor am

patient was a dialectical one between father am daughter. The hysteric

was expected to cooplete a transfer to work out the vestiges of the

Oedipal conflict. In their professional distaree, analysts igoored

their own cooplicity: the transfer of the patierc also relieved the

analyst's own castraticn anxiety. Her willing belief in am deperdeo=e

on his masculine authority gave him phallic pride. If daughters have

been depenient on their fathers to open doors into the symboiic order,
then fathers MVe been ecpally depement on their daughters for reinforce-

ment that they have the all-powerful Phallus.

Pemaps that is why the hysteric's discrurse occupied such a
priveleged position in the birth of psych:>analysis. The hysteric was

allowed to speak all of her threatening desire, am the analyst exerted

all of his reason to cure her, to channed the ch:>ked river of her

narrative into the proper order. Jbt in the case of Jbra, Frell:l could

rot exact a cure; !bra ~ t e d the operation. Fran's failure

-the ' ~ t " of a case history'' became an oddity. Men debated its

historicity am were entrarced by !bra's life after Fran: it was

everything they expected; she cooplained cootirually of ~tipation am

died of career of the colon. They glorified the case as a well-written

fiction, so self-conscious am ccn:erned with cohenmt l anguage. They

worried over the ethics of analyzing adolescents (always perceived as a

seduction), assuni.ng that Jbra, because of her sex ard youth, was a

victim of bed Freu:lian practices. A certain Dora became a spring

mechanism in a self-feeding discourse. She was apprnprlated into a

logocentric schenatic. "Ihe texts sp.m fmn the case of Ik>ra sinply

continled Freud's great mistake: they rationalized the irrational. For

these interpretive po.l ice, Dora renm.ned a mystery; hit others began to
listen to her.

Cixous am Catherine Clement, who has spoken in glowing tenns of

Lacan, began a debate abrut lbra in la jeune ~ , am sb:>rtly after, in

 -1-·

Februaey 1976, Portrait of Dora, Cixrus' play based al the case, opened
at the Petit Orsay theater in Paris urder the dil:ection of Siloone

Bemussa.
1
°Cixous' JX.01)03e is to give us the physical, tangible Dora,
~ e speech is set free ~ Freud's visial.

You !bra, you the imomitable, the poetic body, you are

the true ''mistress" of the Signifier. Before long your

efficacity will be seen at work men yrur speech is ro

longer suppressed, its point turned in against ya.tr

11
breast, rut written rut over against the other.

* * *
I am writing in an apptoptiated discourse; I am exploiting the

discrurse of Hel.me Cucous, for even as I site her, giving her legiti-
macy (the Name of the Father), I am placing her in the order of scholarly

tradition "1ere she is an unwilling partner. I am not even writing in

my own language, which wrul.d seem chaotic, bJt am adhering to the tenets

of my nesculine educators, who "cured" me of fragmented writing ard

placed me in the general ecorouy of language. I've becane a good

CC>pJla-tor.
I am rot an hysteric. I write in the language of the Father witln.it

being choked be him, as lbra was. I'm expected to be as deaf as a post

to my own desire. I live in the gh>st town \\bi.ch lx>ra challenged anl

fled, al the stage '\here it is abays necessary for a wanan to die in

12
order for the play to begin." 'Ibis is the place of suicide, for I've

had to kill sanething of myself to be here.

To be on the stage is to be of a certain stat:lm, to be as a statue,

 -8-

static, an object of vision. '1he first koot in the signify!~ chain is

the Latin~, ''to stan:i,'' ft:an which stage/statue/status are woven.

'1he Jilallic stam is linked to ecoron:l.c order, the installment of visioo

as the hierarch of the senses, an:1 perfection of form. The classical

stage is an erectioo of the text: a spectacle of the text \1ihich captures

the breath am holds it in the net of repetitioo. The neoorized recita-

tioo of lims relies only mf.ninlllly oo listeni~; the theater is an

echJ chanber. The classical stage has oothi~ of t.«llllen (unless they

are Ecoo), unless they serve as the guardians of male narcissism, mless
they are victims.

That i s ~ I stopped going to the theater; it was like

going to my own funeral, an:1 it does rot produce a living

t«)OBll or (am this is no accident) her body or even her

unconscioos. 13

In "Aller a la mer," Cixous talks about a new theater which will

go beyond the confines of the stage ard stress the aulit ory. She

speaks of the theater as a "body in labor," giving birth with infinite

patience.
14 But Portrait of Dora is a precursor; Cixous, in the "first

step of a long jrurney," has inserted an hysterical text into that

"Vieux Jeu"/''Vieux Je" (Old Hat/Old Gane/Old Ego) • 15 She makes tangible

the h}rsterlc 's associatioo with the theatrical, whi.ch Breuer discovered:

'Ihis girl [Anna q \\hl was h.lbbling over with intellectual

vitality, led an ext:renely UDOXanJS existeree :l.n her

puritanically-ml.med fani.ly. She embellished her life in

a mmer which probably infl~Erl her decisively in the

 -9-

direction of her illness, by irdul.ging in systenatic

16
day dreaml.ng, mi.ch she described as her "private theater."

Wardering al:'OI.Dl with Dora, wh) refuses to let her ''private theater"

be absorbed, is like exploring a gh:>st town or a banbsite, a dead ecooo-

my full of shades haunted by meaning am culture. The play begins with

an ''incessant roourning, '' a perpetual dirge. 'Ibis is the vision of the

Phallus, the patriarchal order \\bich resolutely believes in its own doan,

having absolute knowledge of Itself-the Signifier-the Boob. This is

the stage, channed by its own voice, fossili7.ed on a stratun of fossils,

doubling ard redoobling iself in the fort/da game to ward off abserv:e.
17

For lb:ra, a dreamer, it's a prison.

Reveries ard reflections during a roore or less mechanical

occupation, do rot in themselves inply a patoological

splitting of coociousness, since if they are interrupted

-if, for instaree, the subject is spoken to-the rmma1.

unity of consciousness is restored; mr, preSUDably is

18
any mmesia present.

Dora steals ~ breath, splits the text, fran ''ronml unity of

consciousness.'' Her reveries, which have becane ''patoological, '' or

recomected to feeling (pathos) , are a dangerous rebellion against

"mechanical occupation." Changing diapers for Frau K's children am

tea:ling the house (like her mther, the diseased ln.Jsewife) are TOitine

occupations \\bi.ch are regulated by a verbal contract. Dora, like the

maid who steals the good silvel."Ware to hly bread, begim to use language

as a means of saving herself fran the loss of her identity to the patri-
 -10-

archa1 order. She subverts the nm11et s of the middle class by nak:l.ng

the order of the capitalistic exchange of sexual favors explicit. Her

sexual desire, wich she reveals syrrptanatically, takes everyone's breath

away. She krows things that no p1oper ya.mg lady shoold be aware of.

She forces the members of the ttmi.ly business to listen to a wanan's

desire, ~ch is IJIJltiple, fragmented, am political:

OORA (in a pained, staccato voice)

Yoo don't love me!
Yoo think I don't see yru? Yoo're aberdoning me!
Yoo love her DDre than me! I want rothing, do you hear?
lb~.
Yoo disgust me.
19
Yru think you can h.ty me? You think you can sell me?

Fran, fran his position as analyst, cruld rot ''koow'' Dora (particu-
larly in the Biblical sense), am he did rot croose to really hear her,
rut he ''gave'' the hysterical voice a certain space, narked out a territo-

ry for it. lbt this gift-giving was rot outside of the bourgeois

ecornny: the gift, given by an "I," denan:is everything in retum.

A gift has to be like grace, it has to fall fran the sky.

If there are traces of origin of the! give, there is ro

g i f t - ~ is an I-give. \thich also signifies: say "thank

you," even if the other does rot ask you to say it. As soon
20
as we say thank you, we give back part or the ~le gift.

In Dora's history the cil."O.lit of gift exchange is a mesmerizing

perpetual mtion machine. \tbrds/pearls, boxes/keys, wanen/food all make

their way ara.ni am back. Dora gathers up her pearls am scatters them

across the floor, breaking the string ~ch oolds everything together:
 -11-

the SOlDl of pearls rolling across the stage jars the signifiers rut of

orbit.
'1he "I" wh:> gives the gifts in Dora is always veiled. Frau K picks
rut the gifts that Herr B gives Dora am her roother. ~tivations are
hidden behim the surface prattle of 1111ID!TS: word-gifts that demmd
the correct respa,se. Even ·t he names of the characters are veiled by

the Letter am the Title. It was I.acan \ft> said that in order for the
fflal.lus to be powerful, it 111JSt be veiled:

All these propositions merely vei.l over the fact that the
phallus can only play its role as veiled, that is, as in
itself the sign of the laterq with l«lich evecything is
struck as soon as it is raised (aufgehoben) to the function
of signifier. 21

The text of Dora, a syq>taI&tic language, the word made flesh am

repossessed by the living body, is naked. Dora's words are gifts fran
ootside the ego, fran the dream, the always-Other. 'Ihese ~nis wi.1.1
mt ackoowledge debt; Dora is never correct; she won't have her feet
bol.n:l; she won't have anything ~ooved down her throat. Her language
is excessive; it floods the DBYket. Her voice refuses to herd to IOOdula-
tion, but is drowsy, whispering, clear, violent, brusque, staccato,
yelling, numuri.ng, distant. She desires an amieree past the exchange

of needs, ~ will finally truly hear her withoot bramishing the Rlal.lus
~ as a post-over her.

Le Pottrait de Dora was the first step for me in a long

journey; it was a step that badly needed to be taken, so

 -12-

that a wanan's voice cruld be heL-.u for the first time, so

that she cruld cry out, "I'm rot the one wh> is c:blb. I
am silenced by yrur itllll'ility to hear. ,;i.
2

Words are pearls, irritating the flesh, lustra.Js behim the veil:

teeth glinmering beyond the lips. Dora mkes the iq>licit explicit,

resonating the voice box (her jewel case, her little red purse, her other

lips) for a full range of sourds. Her classic aphJnia, tirl.ch sanetimes

strikes her, is rot the inability to speak, h.Jt: a resisbn:e to the

exploitation of language: the exchange of words to uph:>ld st:arees of

dani.nation.

FMJ K's voice

'Ibey all take their gms. 'Ibey soower Dora with thrusams
of pearls to sh:,w she's stwnger than all of them canbined.
They prove this amidst a clOld of SIOOke.
When the SIOOke clears, we see Dora's ghost, the stroogest
of them all gathering t:hrusards of these small pearls in her
apron, \\'hi.ch she then releases over an opened atta~ case.
'lhat's in case they might be sh:>rt of amrunition.

(Dora 26)

* * *
In the Phallic Oider, vision has nastery over the sense of smell. In

I>Ol"lar scientific literature, brain researchers tell us that vision am

hearing are part of the ''new brain," developed on the inexorable path

of evolution. "Smelling" is sanething to be avoided at all costs; in

rur culture, wanen are consistently narlcecl as visual fetishes in adverti-

sing am in this cam1e1cial role preach the virtue of smelling clean. '!he

phallic folly of presenting a wamn as being both alluring am dry is that

she is unable to be penetrated. 2.'3 But this paragon, this icc:n, the erect
 -13-

statue on the screen, is not a wanan h.Jt a mas<JJerade: the veiled Phallus.
This conception of the imnaculate is a doubling of the Virgin Miry story:

the Tower of David, the Tower of Ivory, the Ml.rror of Justice.

The ttbther of God hangs heavily over Ik>ra.

FimJD

What is it that captured you in the painting?

OORA
The • • • Her • • •

(Dora 11)

!bra's adoraticn of the Madonna ~ n g in an art institution-an asylun

which sarctifies art am keeps it fran bei~ soiled by the masses-is
both a longi~ for the ~ p a l nonent an:l a fetishiz.ation. '!he

Ibal.lus behim the milky veils, <:ripe de chine, an:l inscrutable Madonna
smile is Frau K. She is the wanan wh:> successfully rrasquerades as the

veiled Phallus.

Paradoxical as this f01DW.ation might seem, I \\OUI.d say

that it is in order to be the Alal.lus, that is to say,
the signifier of the desire of the Other, that the wanan

will reject an essenti~ part of her femininity, notably

all its attributes throJgh mascperade. 24 '

Since Frau K has the love of !bra's father, a privileged place in

the ecorony of gift-gi.vi~, it is apparent that she is canfortable in

the middle class Older. Bei~ "without" is inteMely painful for Ik>ra;
the alienaticn of a diffenn:e which is socially unacceptable is alnDst

unbearable. She also knows that beh:iid the closed door of Frau K's
 -14-

bech:oom, her father is perfonning cunnilingus, an activity t«lich involves

love am appreciation of the vulva. Clrmilingus, in this l«>rld, is
the way for a ''man of m means'' (inp:>tent)~side of the ec<XDD}'

-to make love. Dora "'8Ilts to leam everything that Frau K knows: ''make
jam, make love, put on make-up, bake pastries, adopt babies, cook meat,
dress a bini" (Ibra 12). Dora wants to put on the ruses of the Madonna
\ilc> rejects guilt; she wishes to belortg. lht she is unable to suppress
her desire for Frau K, ant the relationship leads to betrayal: Frau K

betrays Ihra's krr:,wledge of illicit texts, which t¥:> decent girl would

read, to Herr K, ~ uses this to disparage Dora. 'Ibis is Herr K's

defense against l«Mlt he perceives as a threatening castration/rejection.

The problen for Freu:l is mt so nuch lbra's sexual preferences as

Ibra's glinpse of the fflallus behin:l the mask of Frau K. It is Ibra's

desire for power ard control over her situation that threatem the

dani.naree/subnission architecture of the analytic scene. There is a

repressed desire, too, behind the seven veils of Freu:l: he hides hinlJelf

in the characters of Herr K ard Herr B. Freui' s own shif ing nature

causes the transference to go awry: a transferexe can only occur onto

the father: the steady stance of authority. lht Ik>ra realizes the

absumity of that; she kmws, because Frau K taught her, that Freud has

a penis ard that he desires her: he suggests her own desire.

OORA

I'm on time. Why are yru looking at me that way?

Persistently.

mEIJD

I'm t¥:>t looking at you persistently.

 -15-

OORA

Why not?

FRE1JD

No, no. time of this. Yoo kn,w I'm an institution.

(Dora 23)

Freud is in love with !bra just as Lacan is in love with us, deman:li.ng

to kmw, to incorporate, the dream am the inexplicable.

Like the Ma.dornl, Dora's roother has no smell: Freud carn:>t smell
her rut. She is imnacul.ate, obsessively cleaning (the Hausfrau's

disease) , trying to stave off the always eo:roaching disorder. She has

ro kmwledge of her children's "aspiratioos." She S\.Ckl.ed Dora in the

pre-Oedipal utopia of smell, taste, and ~ h . !bra meaKm; of her when
she PJ].ls the earlobe of her brother (perhaps suggesting, ''Listen to
me!") \lirl.le sucking her thunb. Although lD8I1¥ canoentators on the Dora

case have pointed out Freud's renarkable silence about: Dora's 11Dther,
~ leaves her to oblivion: the fetishimtic:n of the 11Dther/child
relatiooship is a congress of pl81.luses: the child pl81.lus (our

penisneid) meets the masq.ierade.

It is not Dora's roother, the M>ther, YlO has been suppressed and
denied; it is !bra's desire, her body, her language. As she makes

obvirus to us by her syq>tan, a swollen ankle, she is always pregnant with

desire.

FREDD

So you don't let him finish. Ywr ankle swells up.

You gf..ve birth.Nine roonths after the ireident by the
lake. 'lhlS, yru still manage to have a child by Herr K.
(Dora 30)

[.
 -16-

\h!n I was pregnant, the smell of anything hJrning coopletely

nauseated me. Cigarettes, burnt food, woodsrooke, all sent me ruming

for the bathroan .. Because of icy hyper-amremss of smells, I knew I
was expecting. My lUJsban:i was a "passionate srooker."

OORA

Ll.ke you, Herr K 800 my father were catptlsive snd<ers.

I also SnDked at the lake. He had rolled me a cigarette. He
smelled like cigarette srooke. I hate the smell of srooke.
(~S)

Freui' s smell gives him away. As a vision, sm:>ke is a screen. As

a sme11, sm:>ke is an identifier: it gets behin:I the mask.

It was a genuine ''negative hallucinatioo" of the kim ~ch

has so often been produced e,cperimentally. In the errl he

succeeded in breaking through it by blowing srooke in her

[Ama O'~ face. She su:ldenly saw a s ~ e r before her,

rushed to the door to take away the key 800 fell tn:ooscioos
to the ground. 26

Herr B/Herr K/Freld are krotted together by a srooke screen. Their

collective snell of srooke erases their surface differentiation; they are
all identified as lovers/fathers/analysts of Dora, wielding keys to unlock
her oox. Crafty Freu:l, imagining himself a thief, calls his analytic
tools ''pickl.ocks." Sin:e he can't get it up in the analytic scene, he
needs artificial meth:xis to ''open'' Dora-a skeleton key. h smells him
rut; she wants to kill him; he's a very bad thie.f; he leaves too many
clues. He never manages to steal Dora's secrets, because the "cops of the

signifier'' always call: him back to prison: he's locked into a certain
 -17-

kim of l~ge.

'lheft is always the theft of speech or text, of a trace.

The theft of a possession does not becane a theft tnl.ess

the thing stolen is a poss$sion, unless it has acquired

meaning an:l value through, at least, the consecration of a

27
vc,w DBde in discourse.

FrelXi TK>t only wants to steal Dora's dream text, ,irl.ch is Dora's

possession in the econany of her "private theater," he wants to steal

the show. He's a ham actor; he wants the ~le stage; he wants to be
~ ' every character. Dora snells a few. wim mi.ch disgusts her

because of its i.nplications. She doesn't want to be invaded an:i locked

in the i rcuit of exchange.

Flowers, with their feminine am delicate smell, are also part of
the gift-giving operation; perfune is part of Frau K's masq.ieracie. Ima

takes Frau K's fl~rs; she smells the perfune of Frau K mingling with
the srooke. Smells, men rot repressed, are subjected to a system. Every-
thing of the body is denied ard sublinated, raised up to the level of

"I" gift.

HElm B

'!he ~ girl insisted that he go pick up a bol.quet of

those 1irl.te flowers growing on the other side of the lake.
HERR K

She hated the white f l ~ growi~ on the other side of

the lake, they gave off too bitter a scent.

(Dora 19)

* * *
 -18-

OORA

I am sitting at the table next to my gxmdrothers.

They're happily eating cake. A low drone anrnmces the
wedding processicn. I am shocked, sad ard ashamed; I
realize there's ro looger enoogh cake. I ate several pieces,
rut of nervousness, I gorged myst!lf, oorrible embarrassment
at the idea that I ate other people's cake.
(Dora 16)

Excess/constraint. Orality is excessive; there is never enoogh

sucking to satisfy the craving, the desire, that canes nan the rranent
between birth am the erecticn of the Oedipal caq:,lex: a scene before

the realimtion of death am semantics: fluid, unrestricted, ruzzling:

the abays open mJUth sliding against the breast, gurgling, cooing like

a bird: \.Ull.imf.ted access. 1be milk surges to the nipples at the sourd of

any baby's cry: the lactating breasts do not kmw possessicn. 1be child

possesses mthing: there is no Other.

In 1919, a Dr. Galant published, urder the title of ''Das

wtscherli," the coofession of a grown-up girl wh> had never

given up this infantile sexual activity am tile represents the

satisfacticn to be gained fran sucking as sanething coopletely

analogrus to sexual satisfacticn particularly~ this is

obtained nan a lover's kiss: ''?bt every kiss is equal to a
28
''Lutscherli"-ro, ro, not by an;y means! •••

1be "little suck" (-li is the Austrian dimirutive) soan becanes the

Big Suck, a way of ''sucking up'' to cuny favor. Sensual sucking is a

threR.tening abyss to masculine auth>rlty; it YIUSt be absorbed, digested,

econanized, tamed, hidden. Oral sex is severely questioned am called

coopensaticn for a ''man with no means.'' Only the gullible get ''sucked
 -19-

in"; only the subservient ''lap it up."

But always there is a great longi~ past Jitysical need, a desire to

use the lips an:l toogue, the voice box, the throat. Taste is the mst

danesticated of all the senses. Eating is the roost ritualized of all

events. All social contracts are celebrated with a feast.

OORA

I'll go ask my three grardoothers how to divide the cake

evenly. '1.bey're dyi~ of laughter, DnJths full, they've
eaten everythi~.
(Dora 16)

An::>rex:f..a is an exclusive disease of wanen; it is a nani.festation of

the desire for the mas~ade-a loogi.~ for the power an:I ccntrol gained

by appearl~ as the veiled Phallus. Excessive orality places Ibra in

the space of debt am guilt; it is not within the comtraints of rituali-

z.ation. But it is also a COtu::eticn, a cc:mrml.ity, between wanen: a

natriarchal, historical lirid.ng.

I then hired a director to do inprovisations with ne am

discovered thra.Jgh my imagination am through~ existential

experience of reprcx:b:ing her [Ama O' ~ synptans, that

t:heJ are not bizarre nor are the meani~s ~sterlous as mst

of the psychoanalytic literture claims. At one point she is

sucking ard orange, ard as I rec.~ted this, I had a fahJl.rus

29
erotic sensaticn ••• exactly like breast feeding.

When Cbcous says she writes with "sane of that good 11Dther' s milk,"

she is talki.~ aboot a language mi.ch is liquid, surgi.~ against the dan

am destroyi~ archeological ruim, welling up against prohibition. This

 -20-

excessive language is life giving. nstead of bei~ the static replica-

tion of the fictitious 1:xxly, "feminine" language teems with life fn:m

the fecurn sea. 'lbe aim of the writer is rot to hoanl or stockpile wonis.

'!be sad ard stately dance of Ik>ra is a grievi~ at the suwression

of this life giving 1 ~ , at the prohibitj.on against using the lips

for pleasure. 'lbe lake is dried up; the scene is full of violence ard

despair.

FREIJD's voice

In a b.Irst of silence, she goes up am dcMl Linz' s

scorching streets, slowly, hm:dened by a fatal nnmrl.ng.
&lie says nothi~. She feels mi.rute. A speck of dust. She
knows the h:>rror of sorrow nuch mre intense than desire.

(Dora 21)

* * *
OORA
(Fantasized tales-as if the vision possessed, dreamed,
Ik>ra)

'lbere is a door in Vienna tlttough which everyone can go

except me. I often dream that I get to this door, it opens,
I could enter. Sate young men am watel crow thrrugh it, I
could step in aroong the crolid, rut I do rot, still, I canrx,t
roove away fran this door forever, I go by it
(Dora 4)

Dora/door: there are IIBI1}' thresoolds to be crossed: cervi.s, hymen,

lips, the threshold of dreams, the door of the lnlse. Dora rovers at the

door; she is opened and closed like a sensitive door; she feels intensely

the weight of Herr K against the hymen/epiglottis/door.

\ilether a girl be "opened'' or "closed" is not a fact to be

 -21-

lightly dismissed. We krDW mi.ch key '1llOrlts in this case.

(Dora 15)

The fetale genitals are catprlsed of two lips caressi~ each other:
30
wooen have an autoeroticism web ro one can forbid them. To be
"closed" is rot to be withalt sexual feeli~; it is to be in coostant
interior ccntact with a.irselves. ''Openi~," especially the first tearing
of the hymen, is a violatioo of this imer dialogue between lips. The
metaphorical coexistence between speech am sexual feeling is part of

Ibra's actute awareness of her culture. Her choki~ is a synptan of

her feeling that Herr K is choki~ off her speech with his phallus.
Perceiving the loss of virginity as an em to selfhood, \ODE!n enter

into a rn..in:l of "openi~" 8IYl "closi~" mich IIBkes them objects of

rcen' s desires. They are very seldan, if ever, able to speak of their

own lxxlies within this specular ecmany. It's not the penis, or camunion

with a man, that Dora fears. She is not an asexual being, afraid of

sexuality: she plays with her little purse, taking it \\berever she goes.

\.bell she dreams her sex as a jewel case, she dreams her entrance into

the capitalistic charade of gift-giving. Desire for a man often places

a wooan in carptanise in the sexual ecmany. &it, as wee T:igi.ray says,
"the force an:i contiruity of her desire are capable of n.Jrturi:~ all the
'feminine' mascperades that are expected of her for a long time."
31

Rebellious Dora feels the Death Phallus at the door-death to her femini-
nity-her objectification as a bemJtiful corpse.

She reacts to violeree with violeree: always a danger in deali~

with the warri~, death-enaroorecl civilb.ation. She dremts of wi.eldi~

the knife like a Kali.

 -22-

OORA (voice sanetimes clear, sanetimes drowsy)

• • • the fictitious flesh t h a t ~ at the door disgusts

ne. I rrust kill. It's a law. It's a key. 1he one wh:> nust
kill the other Ji> kills the one wh:> wants to kill whJ wants
to be killed? I want to kill him. He krows that. He wants
to kill ne. I krow that.
(Dora 8)

Is this real or inBgi.ned? 1he classic.al distin=tion, opposition,

between reality ard imagination is arbitrary. We might re-name reality

as "that which exists along with that \\bi.ch is imagined to exist." The

hysterics teach us, through Freud, that fiction is as real a IOOtivation

as actual event. 'Ibey physicali~ their dreams ard fantasies: they are

dream bodies. But it has always been the temr of classical reason to

coooenn ard incarcerate the imagination, am the mad. Freul, llih<> imagines
that he unlocks the dream box with his skeleton ltey, tries to nBinstream

the rmny unnavigable rivers of the hysteric's discourse. He opens the

private theater to the public ard streanlines the play for the consuner.

Dora, never cured of her privacy, her two lips tooching, is a

private stage mi.ch has its own eccn:my of dreams ard real ty: the

errpirical and the imaginable ax-e intertwined in the body. Writing of

Joyce, Cixous describes a type of private theater:

You yourself are a stage where yru meet yourself moong others
through tilan flash the th:Jughts of mJ¥OOe like yru. What is
32
iq>licit is explicit. ~ t is nute speaks.

'!be imer stage is a revoluticn against classical reason: the

phallogocentric prl.losophy \fflich has finally CCJ11>letely manifested itself

as the Banh. 1he inner s~..age is a process of t.rMrl.ling. The outer stage,
 -23-

cooprised of an asylun set, llllSt be sub'1erted am disturbed: the fossils

of the Phallicene era exposed for their brittleness and intractibility,

their far rem:,ve fran the l i ~ sea.

This old stage, highly decoratiw ard veiled with curtains, is a

fetish: the object of vicariOCE scoptophilic lcqµng. On the stage of

Portrait of !bra, the incident by the lake is projected on a scrim, a

piece of cloth, a veil. 'Ibis irx:ident is the locus of events, when Herr

K's atterrpted seduction reveals his dislike for wanen: ''My wife means
mthing to me." At this point, 1bra senses that Herr K is treating her
like a governess, a servant, a ''piece of ass." The incident by the

lake reveals to fura her true cooplicity in the sexual market, behim

the veil of secrecy. On the scrim, she is reduced to an object for

visual electation; on the stage, ~ she acts rut her dreams, she is

living' breathing body.

\hmn fin:l JOOre pleasure in touch than in sight and her entrance

into a dani.nant scopic ecorony signifies, once again, her rele-

gation to passivity: she will be the beautiful object • • •

33
her sex organ represents the h.:,x tor of having nothing to see.

OORA

Yoo talk too nuch. I like to reach ard touch yru in your
sileo:es.
(Dora 14)

* * *
Perhaps, ~ men have freed us n:an their vision, we will tell them

of our jruissaree, but until then we probably will speak only aroong our-

selves. Entering their vision generally ch>kes us; we are not the types
 -24-

of birds ~ sing in our cages. Right row, we are thieves, spiriting

the breath am the language away for our CM\ ems. Mmy of us have

stolen the keys ard walked out of the case.

A tttopian vision has generally been either silly or dangerom.

Male utopias have alWtys been ruled~ the mark of the Law; or men inagi.ne

the free exchange of wanen am cattle. 'lhese utopias censor talk of

desire or the oody-they float in the air with those useless am dead-

beat gods.
OJr utopia can be no pillar of rlghterusness am ~traint,
because we are a Ill.11.titude ard we are nultiplicity. We need a space

lilere we have freecbn to speak, to fantasize, to invent the inp>ssible.

'!his requires that we regain rur bodies.

The Doras have taught us that our dreams are real: dreams speak

through rur synptonBtic bodies. To place oorselves in history, \\bere

we can actiVRte change, we will have to take control of the signifiers

ard make them rur own. We need to rename rurselves. Cixous, ard others:,

have begun this project of naming, ard that is cause for hope.
 1
Jacques Iacan, ''Gcxi am the Joui.ssance of ~ \bmn," in
Femi.nine Sexuau.s,
fbrtcn, 1982>, 1 •
ed. Jacqueline Rose aiit Juliet Mitchell (New York:

. 2i.acan, "A Love Letter (Une Lettre D' Annlr)," in Femi.nine Sexuality,
154.

~lene Cixous, ''T augh of the Medusa,'' trans. Keith Cooen & Paula
Cohen, in New French Feminism;: Im Anth>lo;, ed. Elaine Marks am
Isabelle de ch.irtlvron CAiiiierst: Univ. ofssachlsetts Press, 1980), 247.
4
Jane Gallop, The ~ · s Seduction: Feminism ard Psych:>anal.Ysis,
(Ithaca: ~11 Univ. ss, 1982).

~ ChodorCM, The ~ t i . o n o f ~ ~ : ~ i s ard

the Sociology of Gerder CBerkeeyi Univ. of ~ m i a ~ 78), 140.
6
Cixous, ''Laugh of the Medusa," 262.
7
Alain Kirili, "Lingaistics," Art in America Miy 1982: 127.

8i«r1u 123.

Ti.llie Olsen, ''One OJt of 'Iwelve: ~

9
\tile Are Writers in <AlI'
Cattury," in World.t.!
It nit: 23 WritsifaArtists, Scientists, am Scmlars
Talk Aboot 1beir ves aiil Work, ed. Ruddie aiil Pamela Daniels (New
York: Pantheon, 1911>, 325.
10
1.e Portrait de Dora was first produced as a radio play in 1972.
In 1976, after its deb.it at the Petit Orsay theater, it was plblished in
&:ii.ti~ des Femes. SiJOOne Bemus~ directed an ~lish versioo, trans-
lated by Aht.ta ~ (Bemussa Directs, lordoo: John Calder am Dallas:
Rivernn Press, 1979), at the New bit Theatre in union in 1979. Critical
articles on the play ireluie:

~ , Martha tbel.. ''Pottrait of Dora: Fre.li's Case Hi.story as

Reviewed by HAlem Cixous. '' Sub-stan:e 36 ( 1982) : 64-71.

F&al, Josette. ''Writing am Displacement: \h'nen in 'lheatre."

Trans. Barbara Kerslake. M:>dem Drama 4 {1984): 549 -.

Gallop, Jane. ''Keys to Dora." In 1he Daughter's Seduction.

11
Cixous, ''laugh of the Medusa,'' 257.
 -2&-

12Cixous, "Aller a la mer," trans. Barbara Kerslake, Mx1ern Drama 4

(1984), 546.
13
Cixous, "Aller a la mer," 546.
14
Cixous, "Aller a la mer," 547.
15
Cixous, "Aller a la mer," 547~
16
J. Breuer' s case history of Anna O in ''Studies on H;ysteria," in
The Stardani Edi.titian of the ~lete ~ c a l Wri~ of Fran,
trans. aiil eel. lames stracbey, vols. :Hogarth~s, 1953-74) ,
22.
17
1he fort/da (there/gone) game was played by Fran's grardson \\'h>
threw a cotton spool am then brought it back. Freud surmised that every
child realiz.es the possibility of his/her own death or abseo=e through
these games.
1~ , 42.
19
A11 further referer¥:es to this play will be in:licated by Dora.
~lene Cixous, Portrait of Dora, trans. Sarah lbm, Diacritics r"rnpring
1983), 18.
2
~lene Cixous, Interview with Verena Amennatt Conley, in ~ l b
Cilcous: Writl;! the Femi.nine, by Verena Amermatt Conley (Li.n::oln: Univ.
of Nebraska ess, 1984), 159.
2
1tacan, ''1be Meaning of the Pha.11~," in Femi.nine Sexuality, 82.
22
Cixous, "Aller a la mer," 547.
23A full discussion of this ~ t ard its relation to the Dora case
can be fourd in the film, ~ F r e u d ' s Dora: A case of Mistaken Iden-
~ , by Antmrl}' M::Call, Clain! jaczkoska, Arifrew 'ryrilalt, aiil Jane
'Qe!iistock, 1979.
24
1.acan, ''The Meaning of the Phall~," 85.
25
Cixous, ''Laugh of the Medusa," 261.
26
Breuer, 27.
27
Jacques Derrida, ''La parole 51:Uffl&!," in Writi~ am Diffe~,
trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: Univ. of Chicago Press, 19,, 175.
2
~ , SE VII, 181.
29
Meli.rda Jo Guttman, Interview with Kat:he%}'0 Kovalcik-\thite, ''I.be
Story of Anna 0: Performing a Case History,'' Wanen & Perfoi:maree 1
(1984), 75.
 -27-

3C\.uce Irlgiray, ''Ce sexe <pe n'en pas un, '' trans. Claulia Reeder,
in New French Feminisms) 100.
31Irigiray, 102.
3~1e1e c~, "At Circe's, or the Self~," trans. Carol~,
lb.mary 2 3 (Winter 1975), 388.
33Irigiray, 102.