IntroductionAs we set sail - I embark upon a journey to delve into metonymic possibilities bestowed upon us by crip theory and neo-material feminism. These two ethereal theoretical approaches shatter the shackles of normative and oppressive structures, unfurling before us a realm where embodiment and identity interweave with sexuality, gender, race, class, and nation. It is within this tapestry of difference that we discover the power of figurative language, a realm where metonymy and metaphor unite to birth new connections and ignite the flames of solidarity and resistance in marginalized souls. Metonymy, a poetic device that breathes life into words, allowing one to stand in for another, beckons us to explore its depths. Stacy Alaimo, a luminary scholar, and activist, wields crip theory and neo-material feminism as her guiding beacons, illuminating the intricate relationship between embodiment, identity, and the environment throughout history's tapestry. Like an alchemist of words, Alaimo coined the term "trans-corporeality" to articulate the movement that traverses bodies and nature, exposing the interconnectedness between human corporeality and the nonhuman world (Alaimo 2008).
Water, a vessel of life and embodiment, becomes Alaimo's metonymic and metaphorical prism, reflecting myriad facets of our corporeal existence—nourishment and contamination, memory and forgetting, freedom and constraint (Alaimo 2002). In this poetic odyssey, I shall employ the lens of crip theory and neo-material feminism, bestowed upon us by Stacy Alaimo, to unravel the mysteries within two remarkable texts that illuminate embodiment and identity in distinct ways: Kate Chopin's timeless masterpiece, The Awakening (1899), and Susanne Antonetta's poignant memoir, Body Toxic (2002). The contention unfurls, for I argue that the conclusion of The Awakening transcends the realms of metaphorical suicide or failure; instead, it stands as a metonym for a trans-corporeal reading—a gateway to uncharted possibilities of embodiment and identity. Furthermore, I shall juxtapose and interweave the divergent manifestations of water within these texts, deciphering the unique modes and experiences of embodiment and identity they unveil. This paper weaves a poetic tapestry where the echoes of centuries past resound harmoniously as the novels speak to one another through metonymic relationships, entwining water and woman within their lyrical embrace. The enigmatic figure of the mad mother emerges not as mere figuration but as an act of writing itself—a dance upon bodies that transcends the boundaries of our understanding. Thus, we embark upon this metamorphosis, traversing diverse registers and embracing the figurations of madness and motherhood as we venture into the realm of queer-crip ecological thought. Together, we cultivate a body of critique, tenderly nourishing it through the interplay of words and the care that breathes life into the writing of the mad mother's body. Within the pages of these texts, invigorated by the theoretical lens of crip theory and neo-material feminism, we discover the essence of critical inquiry—questioning the very fabric of cultural archetypes, unbound by the constraints of time or genre. Our exploration expands the horizons of our understanding, as we perceive writing and reading as an empathetic embrace—an embodiment of the collective that revels in its undecidability. It is within this boundless expanse that the body, in all its splendor, shall find its voice. A. Overview of the paper's focus In the realm of literature, metonyms dance upon the stage, conjuring connections between disparate realms and summoning forth deeper layers of meaning and resonance. These poetic bonds hold particular significance within the domain of feminist writings, for they have the power to illuminate and challenge the traditional roles and expectations imposed upon women. It is within this tapestry of metonymic connections that the figure of the "mad mother" emerges—a symbol of rebellion against societal norms and the confines of conventional gender roles. This paper embarks upon a profound exploration, unearthing how the "mad mother" disrupts teleological notions of form and defies representational critique through her parallelisms with the natural world. In doing so, she challenges the very separation between the observed and the observer, unraveling the foundational assumptions that underpin representational critique. Representational or figurative frameworks that seek to divorce the body from its ideas overinvest in a semblance of universality, a futile pursuit that unravels the intricate fabric of existence itself. The "mad mother" casts her enigmatic shadow upon literature, bodies, and culture, disturbing the equilibrium with her presence. She beckons us to question the boundaries and limitations imposed upon the mother figure, an ambiguous entity that encompasses a multitude of experiences—expectant, bereaved, adoptive, birthing, and beyond. Should a mother who leaves her child at home cease to be a mother? Motherhood, often relegated to a singular event, transcends the confines of temporal boundaries. In the realm of neoliberal feminism, motherhood is often regarded as a choice to be evaded. Yet, perhaps motherhood is a monstrous entity we should embrace—an integral part of the eternal cycles of existence. The mad mother, akin to the ebb and flow of water, dissipates or drowns beneath the weight of the world. She stands on the precipice of the water's edge, embodying the ever-changing nature of the corporeal vessel—the womb. The ownership of placenta, the definitions of fetal life, the birth's oscillation between pain and pleasure, the dichotomy of sacred duty and burdensome weight in child-rearing—within this liminal space, the mad mother emerges as the epitome of the mother we dream of and yearn for. C. Introduction to the primary texts: Kate Chopin's 'The Awakening' and Susan Antonetta's 'Body Toxic' As we traverse the expanse of literary landscapes, our gaze falls upon two remarkable texts that hold the power to illuminate and transform—the timeless masterpiece of Kate Chopin's The Awakening and the poignant memoir penned by Susan Antonetta, Body Toxic. These literary offerings, separated by time's unyielding veil, beckon us to journey into their depths, where water and woman converge in a dance of metonymic interplay. Within the pages of The Awakening, Chopin weaves a tale that resounds across the ages—a symphony of self-discovery and liberation unfurling in the sultry embrace of late nineteenth-century Louisiana. Our protagonist, Edna Pontellier, embarks upon a profound voyage of awakening, casting aside the shackles of societal expectations to chart her own path. It is here that the conclusion of The Awakening stands as a metonymic gateway, beckoning us to transcend the bounds of metaphorical suicide or failure. Through trans-corporeal readings, we unveil new vistas of embodiment and identity, inviting us to envision possibilities yet untold. Antonetta's Body Toxic, a memoir that echoes with the cadence of personal and environmental history, invites us to journey through the author's corporeal tapestry. Through the delicate interplay of memory and flesh, Antonetta unveils the myriad facets of embodiment and identity. As we delve into the interplay of water within these texts, we unravel the distinct modalities and experiences they unveil—a poetic exploration that sheds light on the interconnection between water and woman. In the enigmatic realm of Kate Chopin's narrative, water emerges as a metaphorical current that runs through the veins of the text, carrying with it the essence of Edna's journey. It is a force both liberating and treacherous, embodying the ebb and flow of her awakening. Water becomes a metonym, a vessel that encapsulates the nuances of Edna's embodiment and identity. It nourishes her spirit, whispering tales of freedom and possibility, yet it also contaminates, carrying the weight of societal expectations and constraints. Through the metonymic power of water, Chopin beckons us to ponder the depths of our own fluid existence, the complexities of our desires, and the transformative potential that lies within. In Susan Antonetta's Body Toxic, water becomes the conduit through which the author unravels the intricate tapestry of her own corporeal history. She delves into the contamination of her body and the environment, tracing the echoes of toxicity that reverberate within her being. Water, in its metonymic resonance, mirrors the interplay of flesh and fluid, unveiling the entanglement between personal and ecological realms. Antonetta's memoir invites us to witness the profound interconnectedness of our bodies with the world that surrounds us, reminding us of our shared vulnerability and the urgent need for environmental stewardship. Through her lyrical prose, she immerses us in a poetic symphony of metonymy, where water becomes a vessel of personal and collective transformation. As we navigate the currents of these texts, steeped in the theoretical wisdom of crip theory and neo-material feminism, we uncover the profound implications of their metonymic tapestry. The figure of the mad mother lingers within these pages, defying conventional representations and demanding our attention. She intertwines with the fluidity of water, challenging our preconceived notions of motherhood and birthing new possibilities of understanding. Through the metonymic dance of water and woman, these texts beckon us to embrace the undecidability of existence, to question and transcend the limitations imposed upon us. The figure of the mad mother, entangled with the fluidity of water, beckons us to he mad mother as a cultural figure in writing "Woman must write her self: must write about women and bring women to writing, from which they have been driven away as violently as from their bodies—for the same reasons, by the same law, with the same fatal goal. Woman must put herself into the text—as into the world and into history—by her own movement" (p. 875). This quotation is from Cixous's influential essay on feminist writing and politics. It uses metonymy to link writing and bodies as two domains where women have been oppressed and silenced by patriarchal culture. challenge and transcend societal norms, embracing the ever-changing nature of our existence. Kate Chopin's The Awakening and Susan Antonetta's Body Toxic stand as testament to the transformative power of literature, inviting us to embark on a poetic journey that explores the depths of our shared humanity. It is through the metonymic dance of words and ideas that we find solace and resistance, breathing life into the narratives of the mad mothers in the deep. II. Theoretical Framework B. Crip Theory, Mad Studies, and Neo-Material Feminism ”I propose that we dwell on the possibilities for a metonymic slide, a chain of material significations in which “environmental illness” extends the body outward into a trans-corporeal space. Such a body (or mind) cannot be distinguished from that which surrounds it, since various substances may provoke pain, illness, disability, confusion, and fatigue.” (Alaimo p. 115 Bodily Natures) David Mitchell suggest that suggests that within neoliberalism, disability operates in two distinct domains: (1) disability actively references the United States' claims to global exceptionalism – the inclusive adoption of policies toward disabled people as a sign of the nation's embrace of diversity in neoliberalism; and (2) antinormative novels of embodiment employ disability's radical potential to unseat traditional understandings of normalcy as subject integrity, cognitive coherency, and typical functionality. The first mode involves disability as a sign of neoliberalism's tolerance of difference (i.e., a rhetoric of inclusionism realized by claims to American exceptionalism); the second mode unveils the capacities of incapacity that disability embodies as a key strategy in the antinormative novel of embodiment's neomaterialist revelation of imperfection as a creative, biological force (Mitchell, p. 470). So we will work towards the latter, how does disability, environs and bodies co-mingle to the works of anti-normative discourses. In the imperfect texts and the imperfect ways we have of reading a text, particularly one that is not of our time or place, I attempt to draw out the ways that metaphors themselves are also unstable. As are interpretations, and they are also partial. In reading into Chopin visa vie qualities of the text. I want to find a way to make reading, open itself into uncertain possibility. In reading the uncertainty of a work of fiction ‘out of time’ in relationality to another work and in relationality to myself embraces an attempt to try and find ways that we can see hope in difference. We can propose alternative readings, such as examining Chopin's The Awakening and her protagonist's madness, not to diagnose her or claim it is merely a social construction, but to argue that in the uncertainty of the sea and the meta-ellipse ending, we see peripheral embodiments, albeit only through care. Antonetta's work more clearly fits this role as a self-theory, but at the edges of Chopin's authorial presence, the author bleeds into the text as a mother and an unknown writer who wrote with children running around. We can ask how we attend to the care of the unknowable possibility of what a past author meant - and how do we treat the undecidable openings? “Just as the entire mode of existence of human collectives changes overlong historical periods, so too does their mode of perception” - Walter Benjamin p. 23- The work of art Incorporating this perspective with the ideas of Karen Barad and intra-action, as well as Alaimo's material memoir, we can begin to envision a crip-body-care approach. I am wantign to make clear that I am not really looking at what the narratives represent, I am applying the method of diffraction from Barad, ““Diffraction can serve as a useful counterpoint to reflection: both are optical phenomena, but whereas the metaphor of reflection reflects the themes of mirroring and sameness, diffraction is marked by patterns of difference.” (Barad 2007 p. 70). So instead of looking at text to find where it does what I expect, I am looking and realize my looking implicates me in the eye. And I am looking in relation between two texts, and I want to see if they can speak to each other and to the ways of water. Barad's intra-action framework emphasizes the interrelatedness and inseparability of matter and meaning, enabling us to consider the ways in which bodies and their environments are entangled. Meanwhile, Alaimo's concept of the material memoir encourages us to examine the interconnectedness of the self and the environment. By weaving these ideas together with McRuer’s decomposition studies and Mitchell's able-nationalism, we can better understand how crip-body-care becomes a possibility. A reading and writing practice that challenges the structures of writing. In the crip-body-care perspective, we can transcend conventional views of normalcy and concentrate on the intricate relationships among bodies, environments, and care. This viewpoint enables us to identify opportunities for creativity and self-determination in marginal embodiments, while also highlighting the significance of care for disabled individuals and the larger community. By reevaluating established beliefs about disability and impairment, neomaterialist approaches reinvigorate the materiality of various forms of unique embodiment, considering them as potential sources of proactive, agentive, and adaptable innovations for the species. Starting with Metonymy To embark on this analysis, it is crucial to establish a foundation by defining the figures that form the edges of the haunting mad mother. I approach the reading of these two novels through the lens of metonymy, seeking not to draw direct comparisons or metaphoric containers but to engage in a dialogue across dynamic movements. It is a journey that traverses the watery depths of uncertainty, where clarity eludes us. Metonymy, as a poetic device, allows us to forge new associations and infuse freshness into our thoughts. As Walt Whitman writes, "Agonies are one of my changes of garments. I am the mashed fireman with breastbone broken." Metonymy breathes life into our discourse, creating new connections and expanding our understanding (Hart & Doughton, p. 146). Roman Jakobson's seminal work in 1956 unveils the two poles of metaphor and metonymy. Metaphor, belonging to the poetic realm, thrives on comparisons and substitutions, while metonymy thrives on contiguity. Of particular interest in this analysis is the contingent nature of metonymic relationships. Jakobson highlights the intimate ties of Realism with metonymy, often overshadowed by the prominence of metaphor. He argues that the bipolarity of these linguistic elements has been artificially reduced to an amputated unipolar scheme, coinciding with contiguity disorder, as observed in certain speech disorders (aphasia) (Jakobson, p. 1078). Literary and rhetorical analysis has to find hooks to hang itself on. If I want to draw a picture, I can use nodes. This is the science of language. Language and meaning mix in their contingent relations to others. Can there be a feminist crip techno-linguistic material rhetoric? This linguistic analysis reveals how authors manipulate these techniques, offering essential insights into human communication. Bringing this foundational theory, which has been instrumental in French structuralism and its deconstruction, into conversation with the emerging mad turn in crip theory (McRuer, 2012) opens new avenues for exploration. It allows us to navigate the fluid boundaries of language, where the contours of meaning constantly shift and slip between metaphor and metonymy. I want to focus on something small, bits and pieces, because to make it clear how we can transform the tiniest piece of chance into a leap, we might have to think about the poles of possibility. And make sure they don’t collapse into each other. I wonder about the problems of citing Jakobson who is speaking of metanoym and metaphor in realtion to diagnosis of speech disorders. But I am goign to make leaps here, and I want to embrace the disorder, to find a way to swim here. I am perhaps searching for the slippery terrain. I want to lose my voice in the face of the waves. Crip theory, in its multifaceted nature, extends beyond a singular disciplinary framework. It is both a verb and a chain of associations, embodying critical insights from disability studies. Crip theory, as articulated by McRuer, exposes compulsory able-bodiedness as the script that interpellates subjects. Crip theory sees identity as relatioinly defined, and dynamic, entangle din its relationship with the other, as a discipline itself it has a bit of a metonymic slide between queer and crip, they are not metaphors and they share a problematic relationship as well. This space though is the uncertain terrain between states of being-with in a community. While both terms represent outsider positions, they cannot replace one another. They share a contingent relationality—a refusal of the script of power imposed by dominant systems that seek to exclude. Crip theory also challenges notions of universality, recognizing that at any moment, one may experience disability or identify as crip. It acknowledges the relational nature of disability, encompassing a diverse range of experiences, from inherent conditions to acquired or temporary disabilities. Within crip theory, the disabled body remains central, while resisting essentialist limitations. Mad studies and crip studies intersect, with Margaret Price's work, "Mad at School," shedding light on non-visible disabilities and their significance within critical disability studies. Johnson introduces the term "feminist psychiatric disability studies," highlighting the need to address mental illness within queer and crip theory. She calls for queer theory to take mental illness seriously, expanding the discourse and acknowledging the materiality of emotions experienced by individuals with conditions such as Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD). Johnson's exploration delves into the phenomenological aspects of BPD, moving beyond discursive analyses to examine the concrete sensations felt by those with the disorder, such as the pressure in the chest (Johnson, p. 636). Margaret Price argues for an ethics of care within feminist disability studies, which lays the foundation for what Johnson terms "crip-feminist empathy." This empathetic stance entails caring for, respecting, feeling for, and feeling with individuals experiencing psychically anomalous episodes, such as micro-psychotic breaks or other extreme states (Price, 2015; Johnson, p. 651). I approach the reading of these two novels through the lens of metonymy, seeking not to draw direct comparisons or metaphoric containers but to engage in a dialogue across dynamic movements. It is a journey that traverses the watery depths of uncertainty, where clarity eludes us. Metonymy, as a poetic device, allows us to forge new associations and infuse freshness into our thoughts. As Walt Whitman writes, "Agonies are one of my changes of garments. I am the mashed fireman with breastbone broken." Metonymy breathes life into our discourse, creating new connections and expanding our understanding (Hart & Doughton, p. 146). Roman Jakobson's seminal work in 1956 unveils the two poles of metaphor and metonymy. Metaphor, belonging to the poetic realm, thrives on comparisons and substitutions, while metonymy thrives on contiguity. Of particular interest in this analysis is the contingent nature of metonymic relationships. Jakobson highlights the intimate ties of Realism with metonymy, often overshadowed by the prominence of metaphor. He argues that the bipolarity of these linguistic elements has been artificially reduced to an amputated unipolar scheme, coinciding with contiguity disorder, as observed in certain speech disorders (aphasia) (Jakobson, p. 1078). Literary and rhetorical analysis has to find hooks to hang itself on. If I want to draw a picture, I can use nodes. This is the science of language. Language and meaning mix in their contingent relations to others. Can there be a feminist crip techno-linguistic material rhetoric? This linguistic analysis reveals how authors manipulate these techniques, offering essential insights into human communication. Bringing this foundational theory, which has been instrumental in French structuralism and its deconstruction, into conversation with the emerging mad turn in crip theory (McRuer, 2012) opens new avenues for exploration. I want to focus on something small, bits and pieces, because to make it clear how we can transform the tiniest piece of chance into a leap, we might have to think about the poles of possibility. And make sure they don’t collapse into each other. I wonder about the problems of citing Jakobson who is speaking of metanoym and metaphor in realtion to diagnosis of speech disorders. But I am goign to make leaps here, and I want to embrace the disorder, to find a way to swim here. I am perhaps searching for the slippery terrain. I want to lose my voice in the face of the waves. D. Attention to metonymic possibility to articulate the impossibility of the figure of mother My analytical method embraces close reading, intertwining it with crip theory, neo-material feminism, and the insights of influential thinkers such as Barad, Haraway, and Alaimo. Close reading enables us to penetrate the depths of textual meaning, unveiling the ways in which bodies matter and worlds are created within the written word. It allows us to explore the trans-corporeal metonymic connections that bridge temporal distances and offer glimpses of empathy, care, and collective understanding. In this approach, the boundaries between the self and the text become porous, as we surrender ourselves to the transformative power of language. We become vulnerable, open to the possibilities of meaning-making and the embrace of hope. Through the act of reading, we are washed, evaporated, and transformed. The text enters and changes us, undoing and decomposing our preconceptions. We engage in a perpetual dance of embodiment, seeking to uncover and embrace the body that emerges—a figure that defies categorization and unveils the multiplicity within. Conclusion Within the interplay of metonymy and poetic exploration, a new understanding emerges—one that challenges conventions, disrupts normative structures, and emboldens us to reimagine embodiment and identity. The theoretical framework of crip theory, mad studies, and neo-material feminism provides a lens through which to navigate these complexities. It encourages us to forge empathetic connections, to care for the mad mother, and to embrace the contingent nature of our existence. As we embark on this journey of exploration, let us revel in the depths of these texts, where the boundaries between water and woman blur, where the metonymic tapestry weaves narratives of transformation and resilience. Through the power of close reading and theoretical engagement, we embrace the undecidability of meaning, unraveling the threads of the mad mother's story and finding within them the echoes of our shared humanity. III. Analysis of Texts A. Unveiling the Metonymic Dance With the theoretical framework in place, we begin our conversation with the primary texts at the heart of this inquiry—Kate Chopin's lauded feminist peice, The Awakening (1899), and Susan Antonetta's memoir, Body Toxic (2001). Within the pages of these works, the metonymic dance between water and woman unfolds, inviting us to explore the depths of embodiment and identity. In The Awakening, water emerges as a powerful metaphorical current, surging through the narrative and carrying with it the essence of Edna's journey. It becomes a metonym, a vessel that encapsulates the complexities of her embodiment and the shifting tides of her identity. Water nourishes her spirit, whispering tales of freedom and possibility, inviting her to dive into the depths of self-discovery. Yet, it also carries the weight of societal expectations and constraints, contaminating her path with the pressures of conformity. And it takes other forms, gas like, it promises and exceeds the corporeal limits in tears and in its process also draws towards the depths. Through the metonymic rhythms of water, Chopin invites us to reflect on the fluidity of our own existence, to navigate the intricate currents of desire, and to challenge the limitations imposed upon us by societal norms. Antonetta's Body Toxic, a memoir woven with personal and environmental history, offers a different scale of the metonymic score. Here, water becomes the conduit through which the author unravels the interplay between her body and the world around her. She delves into the contamination that infiltrates her being, tracing the echoes of toxicity that rewrites the processes of body and mind, and it also restores. In Antonetta's narrative, water acts as a metonym, mirroring the entanglement of personal and ecological realms. Through her lyrical prose, she immerses us in the sensory experience of her body, unveiling the profound interconnectedness between self and environment. As we traverse the fluid landscapes of her memoir, we come to recognize the shared vulnerability of our corporeal existence and the urgency of environmental stewardship. B. Queer Eco & Crip Perspectives Rooted in the theoretical foundations of queer eco and crip theory, our analysis of these texts transcends traditional boundaries. Through this lens, we embrace the multiplicity of bodies and identities, blurring the lines between the normative and the marginalized. Crip theory reminds us of the script of compulsory able-bodiedness that society imposes upon us, while queer eco perspectives disrupt the binaries and hierarchies that confine us. Together, they offer a space where intersectionality thrives, where the voices of those on the margins find resonance, and where empathy and care become guiding principles. Within the metonymic interplay of water and woman, we witness the transformative potential of embodiment. The narratives of Edna in The Awakening and Antonetta in Body Toxic defy simplistic categorizations, challenging the limitations imposed upon them. They invite us to question the prevailing notions of motherhood, societal expectations, and the very fabric of identity itself. The mad mother emerges not as a fixed archetype, but as a fluid and multifaceted figure—an embodiment that defies conventional representation. C. Embracing Empathy and Collective Understanding As we delve deeper into the interplay of these texts, our analysis becomes an act of embracing empathy—a willingness to immerse ourselves in the narratives of the mad mother and to recognize the shared vulnerabilities and aspirations of humanity. Through close reading and engagement with the theoretical framework, we navigate the liminal spaces where meaning-making occurs. We become attuned to the nuances of trans-corporeal metonymic connections, where the boundaries between self and other blur and collective understanding thrives. In this exploration, the body itself becomes a figure—a site of transformation, resilience, and untold stories. By embracing the undecidability of meaning and acknowledging the multiplicity of identities and experiences, we cultivate a sense of hope—a hope that jams up temporal boundaries and propels us towards a future where empathy and care are the guiding forces. Through the lens of queer eco and crip theory, we begin to see the potential for a new figuration of bodies—a figuration that disrupts normative structures and celebrates the complexity and diversity of existence. The mad mother, in her defiance of societal expectations, becomes a symbol of resistance and resilience. She embodies the fluidity of water, constantly shifting and transforming, refusing to be confined by rigid definitions. The figure of the mad mother is a failure. I want to make that clear. She will not emerge as figuration, she is not theoretical. She is not engaged in a libidinal economy of jouissance. She will not stand against The Child. Because she is in definition and materiality not one, she is defined as possibly-with-child. Their is a fundamental disconne t between the passages of metonym when we start to see the figures we are making, that we must invest in them a new way of spacing, that spacing must be in fact destroyed. Here and now. I tis a call to arms. Just kidding, it is a call of the armless. It is a seduction, and yes she has a vagina and is leaking breast milk and crying. We as in the western normative culture can’t tip toe out of the story that is written, we might hate her, we might dream to be her, but she is not alone omnipresent - and she is part of you, literally, materially. Can we makes sense with such bodies. Can we think through the bodily callings of cripped suspended lost and emerging pregnancies? Will they be of and with the world, or should theory continue to make itself on her back. This is to be said alongside everything else, but if your theory demands that she must return to the Crypt. She isn’t there. She is everywhere. Uncanninly she is of you and you of her, and language should not artificially dance amongst her. We live in the midst, of so many possibilities. But can you cry? We must think through what it is that emerges as a powerful symbol, transcending temporal and genre limitations, beckoning us to challenge and transcend normative structures. Through empathy, care, and collective understanding, we navigate the depths of these narratives, embracing the transformative power of literature. . C. Chloroform, birth, and the mad mother In Chopin's passages, the metonym of chloroform represents the way childbirth masks the embodied experience. It is used to numb the physical pain and emotional turmoil of giving birth. Similarly, the metonyms "voice of the sea" and "touch of the sea" seduce and envelop Edna in a comforting yet potentially dangerous embrace. These metonyms depict the intricate relationship between humans and their environments, showcasing the material world's capacity to both protect and harm. D. The undecidable ending and its impact on readers The conclusion of "The Awakening" with Edna's suicide at sea deliberately avoids neat resolution, instead inviting readers into a state of undecidability. It beckons readers to enter into a relationality with Edna, the author, and the water. By creating this space of undecidability, the text evokes memories of Edna's children's voices as she swims beyond the point of return, leaving the reader to finish the story themselves. This invitation establishes a metaleptic relationship between the author and the reader that cannot be IV. Analysis of 'Body Toxic' A. Overview of the memoir and its significance Body Toxic is written in a matter that attends to the concept of trans-corporeality introduced by Stacey Alaimo. The book fits into the literary category Alaimo coins, ‘material memoir’. Alaimo examines Antonetta’s work stating it is a form of “counter-memory” in the ways that she investigates the toxic truths of Pine Barrens, New Jersey where she grew up. Where the government lied to the public, she doesn’t accept the discourse as given. She writes a story of her life woven together with scientific and environmental truths that Through its style and content the book opens the reader to how environment and self are entangled. Through transforming the autobiography into a poetic wandering that disidentifies from linear narrative to help us see self through mania, memory, experience, body and environment. Antoinette writes, “Memory is a form of lying. Autobiography is a literary form devoted to the ceremonial lie. A taxidermy. A pretense that the form of what’s dead can be preserved, made to lash and snarl still.” (Body Toxic p. 185). Alaimo’s analysis focuses on the ways in which Antonetta’s memoir points out the different bodily effects including, “I choked facts but they choked me back; they stuck, like Legos—clingy but hard to build into anything real. I can know what hung in the water, nested in the soft tissues of the fish. I can’t look into the novel of my body and go to the end, where it tells what happened. I have or have had one spectacular multiple pregnancy, a miscarriage, a radiation-induced tumor, a double uterus, asthma, endometriosis, growths on the liver, other medical conditions like allergies.” (Alaimo p. 99, citing Antonetta’s p. 27-28) Alaimo more extenensively cites the passage which goes on to list numerous ways that environmental factors can invluence bodies. Alaimo’s analysis makes clear the matter of writing one’s self as as a strategic mattering of form. If I find the mixed form which consistently eludes easy interpretation or pinning down of trees, family trees, locations, to generate a way of thinking about writing materially or writing as a trans-corporeal activity that infuses page with person. A space I found compelling throughout the text was the womb’s intergenerational articulations. “I’m sure it’s these narratives that stay wrapped in a palpable silence that become something else. I don’t speak in metaphor. I mean I think what the mouth doesn’t void for the mind moves into the blood-stream and the nucleotides. It runs for the DNA as any other form of language.” (p. 88) She states, I don’t speak in metaphor, and this quote comes soon after her telling us she thinks her mother is writing the text in a cellular manner at times. Helene Cixous writes that writing is a ladder and one must descend it (three steps on the ladder of writing). This is always simeloutanously a death and a birth. Antonetta writes, “The only secret to be unlocked is why this dream should have jumped in my head…the suppressed, female presence of the reader, another one who lives through the story without a voice.” (p. 87) Can we find the voice in the spaces of resistance where the metaphor resists the dark. If it were to be light. Must it be resistance, ti is in the binding hat we find our way sometimes, a back bend into the pain. To give birth is to give into the inevitably. Disability theory must attend to the ways in which we must give into our pain, our madness, our bodies. To give in - I mean to give. To give pain, a space. This is hospitiality. Derrida writes, “Absolute hospitality requires that I open up my home and that I give not only to the foreigner (provided with a family name, with the social status of being a foreigner, etc), but to the absolute, unknown, anonymous other, and that I give place to them, that I let them come, that I let them arrive, and take place in the place I offer them, without asking of them either reciprocity (entering into apact) or even their names” (Derrida 2000, p. 25). So the author, who reveals much or little is a host of sorts. The text has become body. We are touching on limits here. And the body-with-birth is host, of possibility. Invited or not. There we are. Unhappy hostess. And who wants to find oneself in the home of an unhappy hostess. But in a party and a game we are not stuck there. But this is not a game. And the toxins that Antonetta hosts are unwelcome guests. But they bring things, that one might not simply wish away, or perhaps is even needed. Living-with and writing-with madness, in the materiality of language written towards an unknown audience. Not a letter without destination. But book. Arrives at your door. You must choose, to take up the task, can you allow the text into your home. Or will you refuse to let one sit, will you have many excuses, as to why you can’t just put aside self - in relation to the book, this moment, right here. What are we wearing and holding that can’t be dropped. The weight of toxic love. And that is where we again become lost in the waves of me writing myself, and then I am too creative. What is writing is only auto-erotic. And that I am only playing a game with myself. Well I would not send it away. But when you don’t hear me I realize I made it too personal. I have risked too much. It is not just the structures of risk, which are indeed what structure the economy of choice. But it is the other ex-tensions, that we are written into. To write can be such a risk, as Baitalle says in Literature and Evil, it is of necessity that we see the danger of literature. The interesting, writer must be at risk. So how much must I put on the line. To play these games. I stop now. I have said too much, withdrawing back into something I will try to order these lines. My materiality is mad. And it might muster confusion. That is the point. That is what is wanting to write itself. And writing of auto-ex-scription is writing-with the body, if I can counter-memory, I must stop muttering around. Wallow. of metaphor and metonym after reading Alaimo and thinking why metaphors as a literary term that helps us see two like things, yet when we are always looking at how we are the same as another instead of how we are all possibly moving in paths that intersect, or how our intra-actions are colliding, we get lost in our subtractions or difference. So, when we see how one thing becomes another, how it infuses and leaves and transforms and transfers, we have more generative potential. Alaimo writes -----“….I propose that we dwell on the possibilities for a metonymic slide, a chain of material significations in which “environmental illness” extends the body outward into a trans-corporeal space. Such a body (or mind) cannot be distinguished from that which surrounds it, since various substances may provoke pain, illness, disability, confusion, and fatigue.” (Alaimo p. 115 Bodily Natures) “It’s that moment, like with paper, when it shivers between receiving you and holds out the signs – the emptiness, the receptiveness and resistance – of another life, another story. What was to have been she made again Of course like all loves this one is based on illusion, the illusion of quiet, of nothing-there. Though once we exist, nothing’s empty; we can add but we can’t subtract.” (Antonetta Body Toxic p. 89) And here we see the ex-scription of body, well really I think we mean soul. And the body’s soul shifts between water and wine. Purity and Toxicity. But these are merely metonymic poles, waiting for a new definition. A new perspective. Perhaps in universality of undecidability we can escape the pull back. The pull towards the new fascism. Where right goes left and left goes right and we find ourselves one day away from the end. And now I am a fear-monger? I didn’t intend to find myself here. B. Close reading of groundwater toxins and their metonymic relationships Groundwater toxins and their interplay in descriptions of her writing and womb work as a metonymic relationship that forms metalepsis of madness and motherhood that become inextricably linked. The cultural figure of Mad Mother is worked through in writing itself. Writing becomes a way of healing, without an aim for cure, but of empathy for self and a call out towards the figuration of a cultural model that overshadows literature and culture. Like a monster, she emerges from the depths, time and again, but her shadow is not a shadow, it is not a figuration of a non-real idea. The mad mother frightens and captures because there is as of yet, no way to escape reproduction outside of motherhood. As the sole link between the unknown and materiality, the mother speaks to the ghostly and the monstrous. The spiritual and the material or the body and the body. In Body Toxic, Susanne Antonetta discusses the hazardous effects of groundwater toxins on human health and the environment, creating metonymic relationships between the toxins and their consequences. For instance, Antonetta refers to the "taste of metal" in water as a metonym for the presence of toxins such as lead, mercury, and arsenic. This sensory detail connects the reader to the experience of drinking contaminated water, while also symbolizing the broader issue of environmental pollution. Another metonymic relationship Antonetta explores is the connection between the toxins in the environment and their effects on human health. She writes about the "chemical fingerprint" left by pesticides and other pollutants, which stand as metonyms for the various health issues she and her family have experienced, including cancer, autoimmune diseases, and mental illnesses. By using the term "chemical fingerprint," Antonetta emphasizes the indelible impact of these toxins on the human body. Through the use of metonyms, Antonetta invites the reader to consider the interconnectedness between the environment and human health. By focusing on the intimate details of her own experiences, she underscores the idea that we are all affected by the toxins that permeate our surroundings. C. Womb Focusing on a critique of Representationalism, itself, the representation of narrative as holding a determined truth is in line with critiques of representatlisionsim that are rooted in Platonic theory, considers language and ideas as always representing a true object. The subjective turn, influenced by Neo-Platonists, views language as reflecting an image, separating it from its source and recognizing it as illusory. The mirror stage in psychoanalysis represents individuation from one's mother by seeing oneself as separate from others. The slippery slide from the separation and the abject, leads to affectual isolation, as Johnson writes. The anti-social anti-future turn in queer and crip theory has left a feeling of dread for those who carry the weight of embodied experience. There is something wrong reliance on figures that don’t touch bodies. I want to conjure a figure that is body, in all sense of the word. Bodily horror, all too mortal, is part of the messiness of wombs and water. Antonetta does not shy away from the complexities of language and body. Alaimo’s analysis of material memories steps into the mud of messy womb spaces - “The pregnant female body is an ideologically hazardous terrain due to the centuries-old articulations of woman/body/nature as passive matter, a resource for active human minds and cultures. An entire constellation of pernicious practices and assumptions emanate from the melding of woman as nature, nature as woman…Despite the ideological risks of calcifying the female body as a reproductive body and of eroding reproductive choice by focusing on fetal health, it is impossible to deny the devastating consequences that environmental toxins have on developing fetuses and on infants who are ingesting human milk, which is…simultaneously the best food for infants and terribly toxic. Feminism, even gender-minimizing feminisms, cannot turn away from matters of reproductive health and bodily politics.” (p. 104-105). Alaimo, Stacy. Bodily Natures (pp. 104-105). Indiana University Press. Kindle Edition. V. Evaporation and care in the Transmutation of contingent relationships - relationality of reader and author and text in 'The Awakening' and 'Body Toxic' A. The Limits of Body and Text I started this and forgot about myself. As I touched the two texts, I moved through back and forth between them. I read them again in order then out, and I am now a bit lost in my swimming. Another text was mixed in, there were so many. I wanted to tell you everything. But we aren’t supposed to say things like that. Seduction requires concealment, this is the way of the sorcerer. And do we speak? I certainly should delta this paragraph if I am to be not haunted by the drawings of the figurations of failure that encompass my literary goggles. And to say, what have we touched on? The limits of self? The expansiveness of self. I think I may have forgot that I am trying to find a way to stay alive when life comes to crash down, and perhaps I am like the bird flying in ciricles, or I wish I could swim to the sea. But I have no water. I reject the purity of a clean water. I am only washing in the depths of blood and poison. What is this voice, can a mother speak like this? Is this fiction? No its fucking not. You don’t need to know my citations. This is my mad feminism. I am mad. It’s anti-relational as seduction. I’m queer when I want to be queer with who I want to be. And I can be as Mad as I want. I can be as Mom as I want. I also can fail at every step of the sliding. And then I can be drowning. And I can know myself at so many nodes that the self is melting into memory. And I sometimes can’t controlt he overflow. I don’t want to be naked in words. But I am always undressing, what brings me here? Why can’t I find a way out of this auto-erotic confessional. It is so hard to get anyone to think through the mess. I am trying so hard to not write this way. But this comes so much easier. I can come when I think of the ways that my body touches the text and the words can carry me across times, I can be someone else and I can be lost in the voice. And the voices can intermingle. And this isn’t touching madness. This is material madness. This is the fucking pain of birth. And its better than sex. I am ready to reclaim the material bodily horror of placentas. The after birth. You want to feel relations? Why is there no feminism of the sexual pleasure of pulling my breast out in front of the whole world and sticking an engorged tit in the face of a beautiful child. The oxytocin is pulsing thorugh my body, the other nipple is driping, I never wore a cover, why would I cover my chance. I will breastfeed in a church, at a funeral, in a bed, while watching porn. Whenever the fuck I want. But then I kind of won’t. So I sound so mean. I mean could I be masculine mom, I am bothered deeply by the flat out ways in which childless students, queer parents have told me that my research is a form of violence. Well like only 2 people. Violence, because you don’t know me, and I am saying my name. My name Mother. Mom. That is also a name in your lexicon, but is it better to keep it at home, out of this world of Ivory? This isn’t everyone, clearly. Or foggy. But to even tell you the number of former students and former profs who warned me about being open about having children and letting department know about it as I started grad school speaks to the absolute discongrouity between academia and motherhood. I am either too late, I am promiscuous fucking myself by having had kids before my PhD or whatever in between two phds. So yeah I quite one because my world fell apart or fell together, in teh puzzling ways worlds come together. And I know this is dumb, but the academic might not realize - that I was working harder for less money. Or also that I know how to play with things, like money I am older and never had the protection of job security. Ever. So I found ways to make things. I made compromises, I am not a Marxist. I am a materialist. A body. I use money because it is an energy that feeds me and gives me power. I am not going to lie. Do I want to support capitalism no. But I am certainly not aligned with everyones destory capitalism crying when they continue to take promotions with institutional security. Now I really can’t share this anymore. . Would that be more pleasing to the reader? If I am masculine female that only shows my tits to fight capital. I will only show my tits to make you very uncomfortable. Or if you buy me dinner. Am I prostitute or a mashocitst? I can take on that role. In the room. But I would rather not. I love you that do, I want you too. I want it all. I am hungry and tired and always in search for more. I am eating myself and the world in my insatiable hunger for fuck. But I just wish you would let me say the things I want in my time. Will they? I can say this and maybe if you realized that I am saying this, is what Kate Chopin did. Her quite tame affair and tears in the bedroom. And she smoked. Thank god. No one fucking smokes anymore. I want to be able to bring back a base neo-materialism. A Baitallian religous fervor for the natural. And this whole thing of like writing liek this, this is how I could always be But only in words. Well and body. But not in figure. So figure is fucked. I can’t be that figure. Maybe I am part of a figure of a mother or nature or child or whatever. But I don’t really care that much. Until you do. Until you treat me like that. Not you, now I figuratively made you a You. And then I’m losing where I wanted to go. Must I be totally nude until you realize that I have something to say. We (who is We, if we is always me-you, this conversation is simply an example of the failure of figures because the point of all this is that words are always material. That neurons are always electric, we didn’t need electric sheep, we needed mattering) cannot demand a flanking of self, it is one thing to speak from experience as a way to access power. Or to speak when you want. But to feel compelled ot confess. I have to meet with the school social worker again. And then my confidence is falling, and I am failing. I am alone and a keyboard in a room. I went out once this semester and I cried. I am so fucking old. And I am falling and a failure. But thats the words or the ways? This is a journal entry. What do you want to do with it? I don’t fucking know. But what else can I do. How does emotino exit the body if I don’t write it. I am not sure, I am like a fucked up machine. I am the fastest typer and reader in my school, or I was as a child. I was TAG. Talented and Gifted Child. So maye I was the CHILD. And now I am MoM. Monster of Monster. Mess. Mad. Mistake. Memory. Material. Mmm I am shifting sands and I don’t want to get dragged down under. What would happen if I could let go of these words. I would have no more words and I would be losing light. And sometimes I realize I am closing my world in. I am not really. But i am making limits. And what if I were to just run. But then in between all the bravado, which is really pretty pathetic. IT is like a small dog barking aggressively. I am nothing. But I have nothing to protect me so I have very tall walls - of - toxic - energy? If that exists. I let people in too close and it might get real. Particularly now. It seems to be falling into each other more and more. And I am afraid because if I get too creative it gets more dangerous, I can’t break with reality. But if I don’t do the creative. I fall apart and I am non-moving. I want to reduce my commitments, smaller make world. Aphorsia. See its happening! I am losing words. I am always lost with words. I don’t know if anyone will ever read one fucking word I write or get it. Tehy will see me as the debase, psycho, whatever. It doesn’t matter. They should learn to read. I hate that insult. Don’t ever say that to anyone, its not something one learns to do, it is soemthing you feel. Reading isnt the text to the eyeball. Its more and less. It is the way of becoming a child in the face of the text. To let it wrap you up in its arms. To let mommy read you a story. That is the embrace of the reading process. Hear it - read it- touch it. Don’t be afraid, of the erotic nature of the text. It is seductive, and if you appraoch it like an asshole. You won’t get much but the sun coming out of my eyes. The roles are reveresed now and I am the the woman with the moon in my cunt. I am more. And if only they knew this might happen. The reversal. Narcisim. Where is Lyotards jerk-off. And again how do i get here? I don’t want to make more mistakes in my direction. figures such as Edelman The Child in his critique of reproductive futurism - are invested with political meaning and operationalized rhetorically by actors for gains. ⁃ He posed sinthomosexual as the schynecode which challenge it ⁃ Mad Mother adds a verb to mother which then I argue transmigrates figuration itself. If figures must be born even theoretical ones, mad has many metaphoric slippages that overidentify mother another invested term which in a patrocharal linguistic an cultural system come to be opposed to masculinity, mad mother is a doubling and alliteration MMM this double m Evaporation is the process of transformation from liquid to vapor, and reminds us of the scales of temporality and their fragile nature. We are not forever nor are we even always ourselves. What one calls pain and another pleasure can evoke watery responses, the body leaks as it releases towards the all. This is the brief ecstacy of being with eternity, wrapped in a tear, orgasmic relase, the draw of the water pulls us back towards the cycles. Pleasure and Pain are also in a dance of opposition as they exist in the divide of either ors. Pleasure invites pain, in a gesture of hospitality, and pain seeks out pleasure in the night and they are speaking scales of skin. B. The chiasmic possibility of a trans-corporeal reading and writing practice This sense of water as healing, tears releasing, kisses enlivening and the ocean calling is further explored through bringing Edna and Antonetta in dialogue, through another body - this writing. In Body Toxic, Antonetta writes a memoir of bodies, the way that one's body is entangled in other bodies. The writing of self becomes excess, and the difference between water as healing or that which madness escapes back to the infinite, is altered. . The water outside her hometown was contaminated with radiation and toxic waste. My analysis will focus on the form of the memoir as an eco-poetic material memoir. Alaimo writes about material memoirs in Material Feminisms; this genre makes real the nature of trans-corporeality in the complexity and beauty of its form, which cannot be separated from the author or the interwoven worlds surrounding the author. Kate Chopin’s novel (1869) The Awakening once banned and now acclaimed as a critical modern feminist text has been analyzed by numerous scholars since its revival in the post DeBeavour and Gloria Steinman era. The book’s embrace of sexual desire, breaking social norms of the era and prose all have been delved over. But I want to say something a bit different. Through reading Chopin’s novel empathetically in relation to another current text, Body Toxic, in combination, with my own reading and perspective, their forms a chiasmic possibility of the texts opening towards a trans-corporeal reading and writing practice that decomposes the body of itself and highlights the authors own body and its own evaporation towards the future. The analysis will close read the relationship between water as a narrative player via metanoymic relationships to desire and voice throughout the text. The conclusion with the infamous suicide of Edna at the sea, does not conclude neatly and tie up the narrative. Rather the text opens undecidably inviting the reader into relationality with Edna and the author and with the water. Through creating a space of undecidability the text calls forward and backwards in her memory of her children's voices as she is swimming past the point of return and as the text suddenly ends. The reader must enter, they must finish the story themselves. This invitation is a relationship between author and writer that forms a metalepsis that cannot be resolved. The reader is haunted, and is given a chance to invite the ghost which emerges, The Mad Mother figure. Nancy, Jean-Luc. Corpus. P. 310 ““Such is the world of bodies: it has in itself this disarticulation, this unarticulating of the corpus. A statement of the whole extension of sense. An unarticulating statement: no longer signification, but a “speaking” body that doesn’t make “sense,” a “speech”-body that isn’t organized. Finally, the material sense—meaning, in effect, a madness, the onset of an intolerable convulsion of thought. We can think of nothing less: it’s either this, or it’s nothing. But thinking this, it’s still nothing. (Which might be: laughing. Above all, not to ironize, not to mock, but to laugh, the body shaken with no way thought.)”(Excerpt From Corpus Jean-Luc Nancy & Richard A. Rand ) ““the techn is one of a sharing of bodies, or of their compearance: the various ways to make room for the tracings of areality along which we are exposed together, in other words, neither presupposed in some other Subject, nor post-posed in some particular and/or universal end. But exposed, body to body, edge to edge, touched and spaced, near in no longer having a common assumption, but having only the between-us of our tracings partes extra partes.” ( Excerpt From Corpus Jean-Luc Nancy & Richard A. Rand ) C. Floating Care & Time If crip theory has illuminated the power of material, yet not-biologically determined collectives, a way of aligning in relation with others for the collective. In the literary realm, I apply this to the contingent relationship between water and body. This is not the water of purity and re-birth and Mother Earth Goddess energy (not that it isn’t also a bit of that). This is polluted water, that both cleans, restores, and can hurt too. The radical undecidability of the sea, draws us to the seductive power of its allure. And this is not radical in and of itself. It is radical in that Chopin holds out the end. She makes you wait for it. She does not provide you an image, but rather a scene in which the reader must write the end. The ending offers very little in terms of a life line for Edna. And I do not want to argue that she does not die within the narrative. But rather that that opening, is the glimmer, that opens itself towards conversation. And in fact that is what reading does, it does not merely deposit information, it is entangled in a matrix of one’s own experiences, encoded and accidental associations between authora nd reader. Writing at Kate Chopins time with her children running around the home, this is dirty writing. Recent queer and race critiques of her work are entirely valid in terms of the representations of the time period she depicts. I am less sure though of how we can read with care to the past. Is she giving us a picture of the time. As a portrait of the time, the novel encapsulates things that were happening at the time. Her resistance is more subtle. She writes in glimmers. She wants to see something else. A world where feeling isThe impact of the mad mother figure on readers and society demonstrate the potential for crip-care in liminality of language. Her writing provides a space for readers to empathize and understand her journey, allowing for a reimagining of the relationship between the author and reader. VI. Conclusion A. B. The body is written, materially in its births in its differences in its weights; the body is inaccessible in itself, except in touching from the exterior, and a sense of interiority can be touched. An empathy of motion, emotions that can be written, must be not a figuration of a disembodied body but of an embodied writing. It is in fact, not what was written, but it is in the writing that care appears, in the use of I which was only an I as it touches you, and you are an intruder to the body of this text. Pregnant with possibilities, the reading and writing of bodies is a Mother, and this is Madness. In the madness of literary figurations, we will leave the body politic, itself a disembodied mass of bodies, and perhaps open ourselves to a body beyond the spaces of place – a body is more a time than a place, it is in motion and in its movements of community commotion we work towards the dissolution of I. The dissolution happened already, in the impossibilities of true differentiation, that already happened in birth. And we continue. Bodies corporeal and intracorporal, the trans-corporeal river flows through the text. And I am not a nice ending, I am an invitation awaiting the touch of your thought. A call towards the future. A call to the past. And this is yet to be written. I want to step a bit, I am drinking toxic water. If chloroform polluted body - the body chose sea. With lover away, the lamp not lit, the need for experience was a return of the raw. And Antonetta - writes with it. Chopin is yearning for Antonetta, this is nearly love. And I am the menageua-tea. The third. I am going to sort of go sideways here. A slippery slide - to something keeps invoking a feeling in me. That what we might need, is a base neo-materialism. Baitaille, prefigures in many ways the move towards the contingent nature of identity in an event. And so what we are seeing or remembering in Baitallie, is the pollution of ideal and that which is excluded. Crip pollutes queer as crip pollutes queer. And I poison the reader as I am poisoned, we do not consume each other but rather extend out - and there we again find ourselves sort of in the same realm. Of this trans-corporeal, crip, counter-narrative, affirming via multiplication, fresh toxic tangles. To be with child. Is one thing. To be drugged is another. But they speak back and forth. And I can’t tell whats where. I know that there is something slipping away. It is the bodies. And the big body, every wall and step away, from experience, ecstacy desire - I think in some ways its ok be bad and mad. I’m sorry for those that will find me terribly offensive. And I mean that, truly I do. But care for some is like this. It is just raw. And maybe your words hurt me raw. Maybe I was hiding, and I ran to it. And I am running still. Can you let me lick my wounds on your knife? I will be here too? This is not a call to violence, but a romp in the mud. B. The invitation for readers to engage with the text C. The call for a future understanding of the mad mother figure My drive to incarnate the figure of "monster mother" and the interplay of madness and motherhood reveal the deeply intricate and diverse nature of the maternal experience. Motherhood, in its multifaceted dimensions, may indeed offer a framework for embodied care that unites us through our differences, never settled, always in our decay, a base collapse of time/space. As we move forward in a world where universals have been criticized and challenged, it is essential that we strive to build a body politic that acknowledges and respects the roots of our existence - our shared experience of birth and motherhood. A fragile vulnerable universal that is born again and again, through love at moments, shared, for uncertain futures. In the face of climate change, , perhaps a return to the body that all have came from can help us think through how to honor the body we all are part of, Mother Earth’s body politic. By doing so, we can foster a sense of care for the collective that bridges the gaps between us and unites us in our common shared present, shattered as each vision may be, a kaliodsocope can become a collective, a stained glass reflection built together. Can we build a universal that is based in place? In the body? New Woman movement culture and literary side of first wave fem, Chopin doesn’t fit as neatly. - themes of marriage, motherhood women’s desire for separate identity and bodily autonomy. At the time women did not have right to body or refuse sex for child, Sea is site of sensual fulfilmment and elemntal force driving woman towads slef-destruciton - (Heilmann p. 335. ) The ending can be read as a return ot the sea, the ocean maternal spac eof the sea which she describes as “homecomign” a return to childhood. But I want to say that perhaps it is not a return but a transformation, a call out towards the future. Jean-Luc Nancy's concept of exscription relates to the idea that meaning is not something pre-existing or inherent in an object, text, or artwork, but rather emerges through a process of externalization and interaction with the viewer or reader. Theco-productive nature of meaning interactions, as well as the role of optical metaphors and the significance of ecstatic experiences in connecting to the universe. Applying these theories to the process of writing, we can understand that the meanings produced by a text are not fixed or solely dependent on the author's intentions. Instead, they are generated through the complex interactions between the text, its context, and the reader. This co-productive process is shaped by historical, cultural, and psychological factors that influence the ways in which the text is read, understood, and experienced. I tried so hard to write a map. An outline. A guide. And follow it. But I kept writing other stuff. And then being pulled to read more, this is the process of writing, but how do we make limits? That allow us to have space and produce. I am actually wanting to birth here. I have a freight train - a build up of backed up nonsense and body that I want to drip into the text. This is my material empathy. It doesn’t come out right. My writing is not right. It is a flawed copy. And it is a weaver, not ashamed, but not proud. It sounds brave, but the words are weak. And I shorten. Them. To try and avoid, complete unravel. And the direction got fuzzy, the world fell into itself. And I may need some guidance. So any help here now (Robert like seriously how should I conclude this and how do I incorporate my own experience or my preferred style of writing in a way that will be more legible to publications and readers, and how do you write? Do you just write it first, slowly, organized. I think you are less of a mess. Well I’m feeling sure of it a bit. But maybe thats a projection. Of my own reflection. Shattered mirror. Writing something. Sorry if this comes off, the door is a bit unhinged.)
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