Citation

Hiddleston J. Textual Practice 2007; 21(4): 623-640.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2007)

DOI

10.1080/09502360701642359

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

This article uses Spivak's engagement with the myth of Echo and Narcissus to theorize the position of the voice of the other within her work. In the essay 'Echo', Spivak describes Echo's voice as an imitation without intention, a mimetic form within which the agency of the subject lies hidden. This concept of an imitation without intention can, moreover, be deployed in a reading of 'Can the subaltern speak?', since widow suicide or 'sati' is also conceived as an act of imitation in which the women's intention is inaccessible both to colonial officials and to native historians. Spivak's account of 'sati' can for this reason be seen to propose an alternative theory of response in its opening up of the ambivalence of the women's intentionality. In addition, Spivak's own 'Narcissus' or theorizing persona is self-doubting and continually mutating, so that she never sets herself up as the holder of a clear subject position. Despite critics' vilification of her self-consciousness then, this article suggests that her exploration of Echo and, the hesitancy of her Narcissus, provide a highly informative example of how to theorize alterity without obfuscating or speaking in the place of the other.

Language: en

Keywords

Alterity; Echo; Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak; Mimesis; Narcissus; Subaltern