post-colonial_translation

Cixous, Lispector and fidelity 159
according to its species, without violence, with the neutrality of the
Creator’
If we compare the main scenes of the Cixous/Lispector affair to the
one that depicts the boys from Comercolly begging for English books,
it seems quite clear that the illusive fascination exercised by ‘the
subject presumed to know’ does not by any means institute authority.
If authority is ultimately a form of writing, it certainly belongs to
those who have the means not only to write but, most of all, to impose
a certain attitude and a certain reading upon this writing. As Gayatri
C. Spivak elaborates on her well-known argument according to
which ‘the subaltern cannot speak’, ‘even when the subaltern makes
an effort to the death to speak, she is not able to be heard, and
speaking and hearing complete the speech act’ (Spivak 1996, p. 292).
In the asymmetrical ‘dialogue’ that takes place between G.H. and
the cockroach, or G.H. and the black maid, for instance, the
establishment of authority has been clearly and directly dependent
on the dominant’s power to decide what to do both with the insect’s
alleged wisdom and with the maid’s unwelcome writing on the wall.
In G.H.’s elegant penthouse, the absent maid and the wise but
helpless cockroach will not be adequately, or pacifically, heard no
matter how and what they ‘speak’. Therefore, in G.H.’s exemplary
‘colonial’ space, the asymmetrical relationship which she establishes
with her subaltern prevents her from actually ‘learning’ from the
insect, her bizarre ‘subject presumed to know’, in a non-aggressive
manner, or even from ‘collaborating’ with it. In such a context, if
the dominant G.H. wants something from the other, she does not
hesitate to destroy it in order to take possession of that which she
desires. Similarly, in the perverse ‘dialogue’ which Cixous establishes
with Lispector, who conveniently cannot talk back, the Brazilian
author will not really ‘speak’ no matter how and what she wrote in
her marginal language, because the completion of her ‘speech act’ –
at least within the boundaries of this ‘dialogue’ – has been entirely
dependent on Cixous’s power not only of deciding what Lispector
is in fact allowed to say but, most of all, of being heard and taken
seriously, no matter what she says. Thus, far from demonstrating
the possibility of undoing the basic ‘masculine’ oppressive dichotomy
between subject and object, which she appropiately associates with
patriarchy and colonialism, Cixous’s textual approach to Lispector’s
work is in fact an exemplary illustration of an aggressively
‘masculine’ approach to difference.