Adrienne Rich and Nancy Sommers are both adult females authors, that in “ When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision ” and “ Between the Drafts ” severally, are fighting to place themselves as authors through the alteration of their ain work. In both texts we can follow their travel in yesteryear through which they recognize and analyze all those things that influenced them and formed their writing manner. They are both confronting the same fright. They do non compose as themselves. For different grounds and each with her ain position they are seeking to interrupt free from the bond that holds them in “ another authors places ” .
Adrienne Rich chiefly bases her text on the fact that literature and poesy where created by work forces, whose position of adult female became a tradition in authorship. She defines alteration as “ the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of come ining an old text from a new critical way ” 1. For a author she claims that this is an “ act of endurance ” . Literature until late gave us a position of how life is, how we see ourselves or how we would wish others to see us.
She recognizes a form in the bulk of texts and verse forms. Womans are considered a luxury for a adult male. They are animals of grace and beauty. Silent, yet powerful a adult female is a “ dream and a panic ” 2 for work forces, in the words of Jane Harrison. Always distant and with about ne’er emotional outbreaks the historically image of a adult female is that of a “ Muse, theoretical account, nurse, cook, sympathizer, a carrier of his seedsaˆ¦ ” 3. Her inevitable destiny is to endure for love.
The author sees herself as a prisoner of that image. For a really long clip she has been composing for adult females, as a adult male would. At first, in order to delight and seek credence from her male parent, to whom she owed her instruction, so her professor, her wise man, followed by her fellow authors and the authorship community, besides male dominated. Similar to Adrienne Rich, Nacny Sommers besides finds herself to compose in a stereotype manner. However she claims her influences came from the manner she was brought up and more specifically from her parents. She does non set so much weight on her gender as a author but she instead identifies the job as non being able to unite academic and personal authorship. Like there is an authorization ordering the bounds of personal and academic authorship which she must non traverse. This sense of authorization is besides something she inherited from her parents.
Nancy Sommers came from German Jew Family that escaped Nazi Germany in 1939, moved to the United States where the kids were brought up. She mentions illustrations of her household life, as grounds of parental authorization. Her parents, even though they were talking German fluently, bought tapes that instructed the linguistic communication to their kids, alternatively of speaking to them. A specific rite was followed for every lesson. The chairs at the same topographic point, rigorous organic structure position and the voice of a German professor would for Nancy Sommes ‘ parents guarantee the “ right manner to larn ” . Following the same rule of the “ right manner ” to make anything her parents used a usher for their traveling, following purely the instructions given, passing no more or no less clip at each locale, doing no extra Michigans. As if they did non hold a voice of their ain, as if they could non take for themselves what to make or non to make, or even how to make it. Her parents gave her the universe of two options: the right manner or the incorrect manner.
So, both our authors are influenced from authorization. Rich, on the one manus, from the authorization of work forces authors in a adult male dominated society, and on the other manus Sommers influenced from parental authorization. When Sommer as a parent herself subconsciously embraced that same rule and projected it to her ain kid, she found out that, perversely to her, her girl had a voice of her ain.
Nancy Sommer had disguised herself and conceal behind the rubric “ Researcher ” , reading and revising, researching the cognition of other authors. But she kept herself out of her ain authorship, being absent from her ain work.
Merely like her parents hid behind the tapes and the ushers and excluded themselves from their lives, making and populating person else ‘s experiences, she hid behind the authorization of a “ research worker ” and used other people ‘s work to warrant her statements. Never one time did she utilize her personal experiences to back up her statements.
Another similarity between Rich and Sommers prevarications within their place on the function of the author in regard to tradition. Rich is confronting artistic tradition, of the manner authors write about adult females, their image and how she as author is able to hook with all her functions: that of a traditional female and of a author. As a married woman and a female parent Rich found it difficult to happen free clip, to believe, to inquiry, to conceive of ; free clip that traditionally adult females ne’er have as they are chiefly loaded with the responsibilities of raising kids and caring for the household. But following the traditional manner of executing female responsibilities is in direct struggle with the chief component of authorship: imaginativeness. Daily responsibilities, put aside any inventive activity, that can be put in words. Adrienne Rich felt the struggle between these two functions. She thought herself as a author or as a female parent. The pick of “ either ” and “ or ” was subsequently replace by “ and ” . She sought ways to encompass both parts of her life, the originative one and the maternal 1.
Likewise Sommers faces once more tradition, yet of another sort. Academic tradition is full with either/or sentences: the pupils are either taught to compose academic or personal essays. This tradition seems to make a certainty, an semblance of control to the academic community. Everyone knows their exact function and what they are supposed to make. But Nancy Sommers identifies the fact that pupils carry their ain experiences, their ain voices and if encouraged they could utilize these experiences as grounds to back up their ain statements, therefore making a new brooding manner of authorship.
In both texts, tradition is questioned, whether artistic or academic as a consequence of a alteration, a deeper expression in one ‘s authorship, from a different position, with a fresh oculus. Both authors emphasize the importance of interrupting the tradition, that narrows the imaginativeness and this might be their most of import common statement.
Even though they are both objecting to different sort of tradition they both have the same aim, to assist authors, including them, to compose for themselves, to utilize their ain experiences and voice, to compose from their point of position, interrupting every stereotype of either artistic or academic authorship.
Rich and Sommers mention incidents of their personal and household lives. It is interesting how these specific events reflect the obeisance of authorization they inherited from their close environment. They follow traditional theoretical accounts, artistic and academic, that forces boundaries to their imaginativeness and self look. Rich show us how the traditional female theoretical account kept her confined in merely one function, that of a female parent and eliminated her phantasy, therefore her authorship. Sommers from the other side illustrates how her parents ‘s sense of authorization influenced her ain perceptual experience of authorization, this clip the academic 1, upon her authorship.
Even though both authors are of female gender their statements and decisions besides apply to non female authors. They are both looking for manner to show strictly themselves in their ain authorship, making their ain images, with no influence of tradition artistic or academic. Using a female point of position, they have managed to make a debatable country for all authors. Both male and female authors should be able to talk for themselves and utilize their imaginativeness, freely making texts and statements which are supported with their ain experiences.
As mentioned before, both authors notice that there is something losing from their authorship. And that something is their ain voice, their ain point of position. Trapped in the tradition they learned to obey they do non utilize their ain experiences and images in their work. Their similarity lies upon the fact that they were both raised under the influence of tradition. Even though they have a different point of position when revising their work, they come to the same decision chiefly because the beginning of their conservativism is the same: obeisance to authorization.
Harmonizing to Rich, the function of a author is to make images through words. These images influence other authors and particularly adult females, as they seek their way reading poesy and literature, seeking to happen ways of look, looking for illustrations.
And in this attempt they come across once more and once more with “ the image of Woman in books written by work forces ” . But what they do non happen is a manner to show their ain personality in their text, instead than reflect and reproduce a flattering or non image created by another author.
I find it easy to hold with Rich ‘s statement. I have frequently read literature and identified myself with the adult female hero of the book. I found my ego to be flattered with similarities of character. Of class, in every effort to compose about my ego, or to state a narrative, I tend to reflect the same image of the adult female I read about in my ain authorship. It is non that I have nil to state for myself, instead than I find that image capturing and want others to see me in this manner.
Still like Sommers, I am absent from most of my texts. Surely influenced by my female gender, I tend to hold a more romantic and soft attack in my authorship. My category and civilization are besides reflected in my texts as a have no experience from anything different and therefore I can non compose about it. However the presence of my ain experiences is limited in my authorship. Chiefly because I think of myself as insecure and that I do non hold a strong plenty statement to do.
Another ground is that I find it easier, and I believe I am non the merely 1 to make so, to speak about others than talk about myself. Talking about oneself requires painful delving to make to self consciousness. Of class the fright of uncovering personal experiences to others plays its portion as good, as once more I do non mean to mess my traditional female image, with effusions of choler, anxiousness, passion, and compulsion.
1 Adrienne Rich: “ When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision ” , p.18
2 J.G. Steward, Jane Ellen Harrison: A Portrayal from Letters ( London 1959 ) , p. 140
3 Adrienne Rich: “ When We Dead Awaken: Writing as Re-Vision ” , p.19
