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Before I attempt to crack the message that Spivak hides in her writing, I want to express my gratitude for the discussion in class about the direction in which the forum was starting to lead. I praise to the alums for bringing to the surface the lack of interactions within the forum. I had started to sense a brewing of competition steaming in the forums. I became worried that my post was not long or scholarly enough. I thought I misinterpreted the idea that the forum was suppose to be another means for informal dialogue and a way for us to share our thoughts about the texts and reflection of discussion in class.

            With all that said, I apologize to the alums that are not able to be in the classroom because my post will allude to much of what was discussed in class. Class yesterday was particularly valuable in relation to making sense of the dense, manic writing of Spivak. I have yet to read Cixous’ text (and know that I will not be able to get it to prior to the deadline for this week’s posting) but I can only hope that it is more comprehensible than Spivak. Mary Clurman’s posting has given me a sense of reassurance for the Cixous’ text as I found myself relating and agreeing with much of what Mary expressed in her post.  Cixous piece appears to have a heavier psychological rather than philosophical perspective. A psychological perspective may put me on the same wavelength with Cixous because I relate to an underlying psychological perspective as a psychology major. That is not to say that I did not appreciate Spivak in class today as we untangled and deciphered what she expressed in her essay.

            Spivak’s writing is already difficult to decompose without the references to the novels which I have not read (except Frankenstein). The examples drawn from the novels only made her writing seem that much harder to grasp. Class discussion and analysis acted like the Tums per say to alleviate the indigestion that occurred after I read Spivak. I would not concur with Spivak’s argument that European women were using women with another skin color to symbolize the less pure thoughts of the white Europeans. Whether the European writers’ intentionally translated their “darker” desires through that of women of a minority class or that the patterns of female writing during imperialism was more of an act of the unconscious is up to debate. The imperialistic influence may have been a trigger to the hierarchical standing that the European women assumed in society especially during the period of colonization. The men may have been the ones to actually explore the lands to colonize, but the women may very well have played a crucial passive aggressive role in demonizing the third world female population.