| Jacques Lacan's Mirror Stage introduces the split between the body as a whole seen in the mirror-image and the body experienced as fragmented parts. For the rest of life, the split self seeks the idealized "other" in the mirror. Feminists read Lacan's mirror as reflecting a patriarchal system where woman occupies the position of man's "other." Therefore, the mirror-image ideal for women is not objective, but an Imaginary self that defines her as "not man." The search for a true Other for women must come from women's bodies with which they have direct contact. This thesis examines the progression of women writers using the female body to expose the patriarchal mirror and to discover their own sense of self by deconstructing or de-silvering the mirror into a window. George Eliot's Middlemarch , Virginia Woolf's Mrs. Dalloway, and Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve are analyzed through this lens. |
