To begin with, the titles build a sense of expectation with the reader.

As the first part you read, it forms a starting point for its narrative and therefore is assumed to capture the meaning, or essence, of the story. However, this is not the case in any of Munro's short-stories. Reading "Marrakesh" , it is only after a good while Marrakesh is mentioned. And when that happens, it is part of an embedded narrative in which Jeanette recalls her travel to Marocco and her strange meeting with two young Arab boys. Reading with the grain, Iassume Munro chooses Marrakesh as a title for its mysterious appeal (both as being an 'exotic' place and as not really fitting in to the beginning of the story)--it provokes you to read until the mystery of the title is solved. Moreover, Jeanette's story-telling becomes (I interpret it) a way in which she wins Blair King over. In order words, Marrakesh becomes important, but only as part of a story. And this would brin g me to the myth about Marrakesh that the story conveys. This would in that case be part of a 'reading against the grain'--namely that the exoticism of that 'other' place, especially a place of which stories are told, puts Marrakesh into an objectification through a Western perspective. There are hints of racism in Jeanette's story (which she also realizes in ways) for example. "The Spanish Lady"works similarly. Its function as a title again is a way of spurring the reader's expectation. Its importance in the story is to represent that other part of the narrator's personality. Being trapped in that triangle relationship in which she is only second best, where her dry, unpassionate husband Hugh does not give her attention as a woman, she becomes--in the eyes of her co-traveller on the train--'the spanish woman' who enjoys being seen and appreciated as a woman, even to the extent that the man "bows to [her] slightly, with a Spanish dignity" (188). It assumes an exoticism in relation to the Spanish culture, or perhaps more accurate, a kind of old-fashioned, steroetypical society in which 'men are men' and 'women are women'. /TobiasH. Discussion topic 1: The titles "The Spanish Lady" and "Marrakesh": stories. And by the way, there is a city in Canada called London,the same name as the British capital. Perhaps that is also connecting it to Western culture; the story could take place in London, that could be where these old ladies are living and Jeanette comes to visist, and if the story then was called "London" that would indicate that whether it is London in Canada or London in Britaindoes not matter, or perhaps just that the names display further he connection, the place they live that might be London and the London in Britan, since it is allWestern culture,and thenMarrakesh is set as the opposite, even in name,in this context. /JohannaN Traditionally, as Bertens mentions, the woman has been portrayed as a seductress, an angel, a helpless child, etc. These are the roles that patriarchal literary tradition has forced upon the female gender (Bertens 76). My first impression of Something Ive Been Meaning to Tell You was that the women were stuck upon men, to put it crudely. Although perhaps what Munro tried to convey was the cruelty of many men towards their wives or lovers and their forced dependence, yet, there tended to be an obsession with only this. For example, the first story named the same as the whole collection, Something Ive Been Meaning to Tell You, implies that the sister of the narrator took her life much because of a lost love. That is what she, the narrator, seems to believe anyway. The second story was about a woman talking about her former and current husband. The narrator of Material expressed anger towards the males in her life , but an obsession to go with that. Overall, the women who have this obsession but try to forget about it and some end up worse than those who did not. Consider How I Met My Husband or Forgiveness in Families or Tell me Yes or No. In the first

the character waits forever for a man, in the second a sister is incredibly irritated with her brother and the third present yet another woman like this. The theme is perhaps supposed to be females coping with the difficult life, but really it is just women coping with men, which I understand. That is not the problem; of course there is a reason for that. But these women are not described as independent or focusing on anything else but the men in their lives. The gender role women are forced into in most of these stories is a dependant one. The woman as eternally dissatisfied shrew and the woman as unworldly seems to appeal to me in describing Munros women. I think that to some extent in her attempt to convey the difficulties in being a woman this is what happens to her characters. The unworldly I think is a general trait in the older women and perhaps they are portrayed that way to point at that their unwordliness comes from patriarchal oppression which has hindered them from changing this position, but at the same time they seem somewhat nave at times: they totally reject even trying to understand young people, for example. However, I like the eternally dissatisfied, taking away the shrew part, as a positive description of her women, but that which they are unsatisfied with does not seem to be the fact that they are forced to depend on men, instead it is to be without them. I hope I am making sense here, and I would gladly discuss this further as I am sure there are opinions that differ from mine. /JohannaN KNOWLEDGE IN FOUCAULT PHALLOCENTRISM Phallus is symbolic for the male genitalia and phallocentrismis aboutthefalse assumption thatmaleness is"the natural source of authority" (Bertens, 126). Using the phallus instead of the penis was Jacques Lacan's idea, as the phallus is merely symbolic of the penis, indicating the male dominance is a social constuction and not anything biological. Phallocentrim is offeminist origin, a termthat was created in reaction to Freud'stheories about children's desires in the Oedipal stage. Freudargues that in growing up children have a a difficult time dealing with the fact that as boys they have a penis unlike their mothers, and girls have a hard time because they donot have one either. Boys then grow up to compete with the father, find this fruitless, and then decides to jointhe father side instead, so to speak, joining the manly side. Girls redirect their desire for a penis to having a baby, according to Freud. Not surprisingly,he was critisized for these opinions. /JohannaN. THE SYMBOLIC ORDER THE IMAGINARY ORDER DISCOURSE THE PANOPTICON The name is taken by Michel Foucault from the name of a type of prison designed by philospher Jeremy Bentham. It is constructed so that there are videocameras put up in all the cells, and then the supervisor of the prison can sit in one room and see all the prisoners but they cannot see the supervisor. The prisoner does not know when s/he is being watched and that leads to a constant feeling of being observed. Foucault means that this is how the modern individual works; we areconstantly conscious of our possible deviations from normalitywhich leads tothatwe surveillance ourselves at all times, meaning we all create and sustain our own prisons within. INTERNALIZED SURVEILLANCE POWER IN FOUCAULT -

Marrakesh I think that this story has got its name from the climax of the plot. When Jeanette is telling the story about her travels. This makes Dorothy consider the fact that she does not know her granddaughter at all. At first Jeanette shows hatred towards Marrakesh because she gets robbed and almost killed but she ends the story by saying that she might have loved the man. You cannot expect less when you are all alone in a place you do not understand. I think that in this story Dorothy represents the english and if we are looking at her the story might as well be called London while Jeanette in her turn represents Marrakesh. A colourful, foregin place that Dorothy, who does not seem to have been abroad, does not understand completely./ LouiseP As Tobias points out, the title of a work builds up expectation. This is the first impression the reader is presented to in the story and you suppose the titles to have central meaning. Reading with the grain, I suppose I agree with Tobias here also, that perhaps Munro uses the titles to create a mystery that adds to an exotic air. However, by doing so Munro supposes that in peoples minds there is a great difference between Canada and Morocco, so the reader is anxious to find out what part Morocco plays, rather than supposing that the story actually takes place in Morocco. The names of the characters and some of the environment were the things that made me suppose that they might be English-speaking and maybe were situated in an English-speaking country, so I waited for the meaning of Morocco to occur. The story is not about Marrakesh at all, it is only the story within the story that Jeanette tells. It is only her experiences of Marrakesh that we receive, one which looks down on Moroccan culture, as when she says she hates all Arabs because she had been robbed by an unknown robber (169). She is portrayed as this modern and worldly person, a person that stands for love and freedom yet she takes advantage of cultural prejudices. Also, this portrayal of Morocco impresses the others, far more than the anecdote about London did, which is significant. Reading against the grain I would say that by choosing these titles it seems that Munro is trying to take advantage of our prejudices and representing the cultural environments as opposites. I think both stories is about understanding and not understanding each other, handling the comprehensible and the incomprehensible, and this opposition is presented through the difference between cultures: Spain and Morocco as if opposed to Western culture. If the title would have been London than the focus would have been on the understandable, demonstrated by for example when Blair King knows what Jeanette is talking about when she talks about London (167). Yet the story is about that which you do not understand, Viola and Dorothy not understanding Jeanette and her youth culture, and so the title is Marrakesh. So, simply because London is part of western culture it is part of who the characters are: white and Anglo-Saxon people? Well, in this story Morocco is the incomprehensible whilst Western culture is comprehensible. The Spanish Lady has this same type of problem. We as readers suppose the title refers to someone in the story. But why put emphasise on that she is Spanish? How does that matter in this story? When it turns out that it refers to the narrator, but not her current self but a life before this one, my impression was that the Spanish lady becomes very distant and much divided from the narrator, and I could not see what her being Spanish had to do with anything more than that it symbolised a completely different life than the one she had no w which again points at the cultures as opposites in these stories. And by the way, there is a city in Canada called London,the same name as the British capital. Perhaps that is also connecting it to Western culture; the story could take place in London, that could be where these old ladies are living and

Jeanette comes to visist, and if the story then was called "London" that would indicate that whether it is London in Canada or London in Britaindoes not matter, or perhaps just that the names display further he connection, the place they live that might be London and the London in Britan, since it is allWestern culture,and thenMarrakesh is set as the opposite, even in name,in this context. /JohannaN. Titles give the reader expectations on what can be found in the story, and set the mode in a way. Thus, the exotic sounding titles tell us to expect something unusual, something out of the ordinary, which makes the reader curious and attentivehow, in all this Canadian everyday life will a Spanish lady or Marrakesh fit in? The titles invoke a sense that all is not what it seems to be. An American Lady and London would not have brought the expectation of something out of the ordinary, something more exotic and colorful. Reading against the grain, however, one could say that Munro uses stereotypes about Spanish and Moroccan people to invoke certain feelings in the reader, there is an exotization of those cultures going on here, as Munro relies on the fact that they are considered Other by the reader. In The Spanish Lady a woman whose husband has fallen in love with her friend finds solace in the ide a that she could have been a Spanish lady in a previous life. The words Spanish lady conjures up a stereotypical image of Spanish people as proud and passionateperhaps a Spanish lady wouldve sought revenge on her husband and his mistress, rather than acted civilized and quietly walked away like the woman in the story. In Marrakesh, it is the foreign that draws Jeanette and Blair King together, and widens the gap between them and the older generation. /LouiseW CONSCIOUS VS UNCONSCIOUS DISCOURSE Conversation, or communication, that claims, in Foucaults definition, to be knowledge; claims that give the discourse its poweror rather, those who create the discourse have power. This power could be used in media to tell us what perfume to buy to create our identity, but also to contribute to the creation of communities that would otherwise have been marginalized or stigmatized, such as homosexuals (Bertens, 121)./LouiseW THE PANOPTICON The name is taken by Michel Foucault from the name of a type of prison designed by philospher Jeremy Bentham. It is constructed so that there are videocameras put up in all the cells, and then the supervisor of the prison can sit in one room and see all the prisoners but they cannot see the supervisor. The prisoner does not know when s/he is being watched and that leads to a constant feeling of being observed. Foucault means that this is how the modern individual works; we areconstantly conscious of our possible deviations from normalitywhich leads tothatwe surveillance ourselves at all times, meaning we all create and sustain our own prisons within./JohannaN. IDENTITY FEMININE CRITURE Feminine writing that resists the assumption that maleness is the natural source of authority, which as a consequence has led to the repression of womens experiences. Ecriture feminine does not exclude men, however, as they too are repressed by the phallocentric system (Bertens, 131)./LouiseW THE SEMIOTIC -

Traditionally, as Bertens mentions, the woman has been portrayed as a seductress, an angel, a helpless child, etc. These are the roles that patriarchal literary tradition has forced upon the female gender (Bertens 76). My first

impression of Something Ive Been Meaning to Tell You was that the women were stuck upon men, to put it crudely. Although perhaps what Munro tried to convey was the cruelty of many men towards their wives or lovers and their forced dependence, yet, there tended to be an obsession with only this. For example, the first story named the same as the whole collection, Something Ive Been Meaning to Tell You, implies that the sister of the narrator took her life much because of a lost love. That is what she, the narrator, seems to believe anyway. The second story was about a woman talking about her former and current husband. The narrator of Material expressed anger towards the males in her life, but an obsession to go with th at. Overall, the women who have this obsession but try to forget about it and some end up worse than those who did not. Consider How I Met My Husband or Forgiveness in Families or Tell me Yes or No. In the first the character waits forever for a man, in the second a sister is incredibly irritated with her brother and the third present yet another woman like this. The theme is perhaps supposed to be females coping with the difficult life, but really it is just women coping with men, which I understand. That is not the problem; of course there is a reason for that. But these women are not described as independent or focusing on anything else but the men in their lives. The gender role women are forced into in most of these stories is a dependant one. The woman as eternally dissatisfied shrew and the woman as unworldly seems to appeal to me in describing Munros women. I think that to some extent in her attempt to convey the difficulties in being a woman this is what happens to her characters. The unworldly I think is a general trait in the older women and perhaps they are portrayed that way to point at that their unwordliness comes from patriarchal oppression which has hindered them from changing this position, but at the same time they seem somewhat nave at times: they totally reject even trying to understand young people, for example. However, I like the eternally dissatisfied, taking away the shrew part, as a positive description of her women, but that which they are unsatisfied with does not seem to be the fact that they are forced to depend on men, instead it is to be without them. I hope I am making sense here, and I would gladly discuss this further as I am sure there are opinions that differ from mine. /JohannaN First of all, I agree with Johanna that Munros stories show women hung up on men, moved by men, depending on men. Men seem to be the ones setting things in motion, with the women, willingly or unwillingly, following along. In How I Met My Husband, we have an innocent, nave girl surrounded by jealous, catty women ( a stereotype Bertens forgot!), and in they eyes of these women, the girl is seen as an immoral seductress. The theme portrays how blindly women fall for menboth the innocent young girl and Alice Kelling, who follows her fianc even when he clearly does not care for her. There is an implicit supposition here that women passively wait for love, while the men to call the shots. In The Found Boat, two girls find the boat, but boys fix it up. Again, women are passive, they dont initiate action. Eva has something of a crush on Carlton, and is exposed and violated by him (when he spits water at her bare chest). She is punished for happily taking off her top and not being a good girl. It is clear that girls (and women) can play along with boys (and men) but they will be put in their place for doing so. /LouiseW IRIGARAY CIXOUS 1. Cixous argues that there exists a man/woman opposition where male has been portrayed as positive and female as negative in sciences such as philosophy and literature and that we are governed by Phallocentrism, that belief that men are the natural authority. With this in mind, Cixous also argus that females are not

afraid of bisexuality, instead they are open to difference, as opposed to men who find it threatening since, answering to Phallocentrism, they are afraid of becoming the abased. However, she also points out that both genders are caught in this social construction and that both can break loose from it by accepting the other, in other words, by accepting difference. /JohannaN. FOUCAULT LACAN 1. Cixous argues that there exists a man/woman opposition where male has been portrayed as positive and female as negative in sciences such as philosophy and literature and that we are governed by Phallocentrism, that belief that men are the natural authority. With this in mind, Cixous also argus that females are not afraid of bisexuality, instead they are open to difference, as opposed to men who find it threatening since, answering to Phallocentrism, they are afraid of becoming the abased. However, she also points out that both genders are caught in this social construction and that both can break loose from it by accepting the other, in other words, by accepting difference. /JohannaN. FOUCAULT and 899). 899). /JohannaN. LACAN 1. Cixous argues that there exists a man/woman opposition where male has been portrayed as positive and female as negative in sciences such as philosophy and literature and that we are governed by Phallocentrism, that belief that men are the natural authority. With this in mind, Cixous also argus that females are not afraid of bisexuality, instead they are open to difference, as opposed to men who find it threatening since, answering to Phallocentrism, they are afraid of becoming the abased. However, she also points out that both genders are caught in this social construction and that both can break loose from it by accepting the other, in other words, by accepting difference. /JohannaN. FOUCAULT 1. Foucault argues that modern society has not repressed sexuality as it might seem, on the contrary, because of all the focus, "the isolation, intensification, consolidation" of peripheral sexuality, the relations of power have multiplied and he concludes that the 19th century was perverse because it created an endless set of sexualites through its relation between pleasure and power (898 and 899). LACAN CIXOUS 1. Cixous argues that there exists a man/woman opposition where male has been portrayed as positive and female as negative in sciences such as philosophy and literature and that we are governed by Phallocentrism, that belief that men are the natural authority. With this in mind, Cixous also argus that females are not afraid of bisexuality, instead they are open to difference, as opposed to men who find it threatening since, answering to Phallocentrism, they are afraid of becoming the abased. However, she also points out that both genders are caught in this social construction and that both can break loose from it by accepting the other, in other words, by accepting difference. /JohannaN. 2. Questions on Cixous: Page 350, she says that for men females doe not exist except in this sense: He keeps of the woman only this space, always virginal, as matter to be subjected to the desire he wishes to impart. Does she mean that females are only seen as sexual by men? Also, about bisexuality, Phallocentrism and castration, does Cixous agree with Freud? As I understand it, she says it is hard to disprove, but still that is not

saying that he is right (352). Maybe I just missed something here? FOUCAULT 1. Foucault argues that modern society has not repressed sexuality as it might seem, on the contrary, because of all the focus, "the isolation, intensification, consolidation" of peripheral sexuality, the relations of power have multiplied and he concludes that the 19th century was perverse because it created an endless set of sexualites through its relation between pleasure and power (898 and 899). /JohannaN. 1. Foucault argues that modern society has not repressed sexuality as it might seem, on the contrary, because of all the focus, "the isolation, intensification, consolidation" of peripheral sexuality, the relations of power have multiplied and he concludes that the 19th century was perverse because it created an endless set of sexualites through its relation between pleasure and power (898 and 899). /JohannaN. LACAN language (454). (454). /JohannaN 1. Foucault argues that modern society has not repressed sexuality as it might seem, on the contrary, because of all the focus, "the isolation, intensification, consolidation" of peripheral sexuality, the relations of power have multiplied and he concludes that the 19th century was perverse because it created an endless set of sexualites through its relation between pleasure and power (898 and 899). /JohannaN. LACAN 1. Inspired by Saussure, Lacan argues that people answer under the function of signifier and signified, a system that is arbitrary as signifiers are dependent on their difference from other signifiers in creating their meaning,and therefore this is a system that is inadequate. Furthermore, Lacan argues that the relationship between the signifier and the signified has bar separating them as the conscious and unconscious. Dream-images are only signifiers, for example; it is not the real thing, the signified, that the dream shows us but an unconscious representation of it, a signifier. However, Lacan also points out the complexity in mocking this system, as man is forever caught in it by using language (454). 1. Cixous argues that there exists a man/woman opposition where male has been portrayed as positive and female as negative in sciences such as philosophy and literature and that we are governed by Phallocentrism, that belief that men are the natural authority. With this in mind, Cixous also argus that females are not afraid of bisexuality, instead they are open to difference, as opposed to men who find it threatening since, answering to Phallocentrism, they are afraid of becoming the abased. However, she also points out that both genders are caught in this social construction and that both can break loose from it by accepting the other, in other words, by accepting difference. /JohannaN. 2. Questions on Cixous: Page 350, she says that for men females doe not exist except in this sense: He keeps of the woman only this space, always virginal, as matter to be subjected to the desire he wishes to impart. Does she mean that females are only seen as sexual by men? something here? here? /JohannaN. FOUCAULT 1. Foucault argues that modern society has not repressed sexuality as it might seem, on the contrary, because of all the focus, "the isolation, intensification, consolidation" of peripheral sexuality, the relations of power have multiplied and

he concludes that the 19th century was perverse because it created an endless set of sexualites through its relation between pleasure and power (898 and 899). /JohannaN.
Edited at 1:42 PM on April 11, 2010

KNOWING WHO HE IS & OUR INTERPRETATION -I am sure knowing something of Ondaatje's origin affected the way I interpreted the novel. Perhaps I looked more closely for symbols and themes that my (predjudiced) mind expected to find. I suppose it could be both positive and negative for the reading experience. / EKj I think Karl (it is you, Karl, right?) covered much of the facts here very well, so I thought that I could just add some about how it represents this time period, and some thoughts I had on the author. The setting is very mixed as we jump through time, but what always remains a fixed settingin this novel was the villa in Italy (the dialectical opposition of light and darkness was always there though, when explaining the setting, which I found very interesting, there was a constant mentioning of darkness, reminded me of Heart of Darkness, where the dark represents the incomprehensible). The main characters, situated in the villa, are: the nurse Hana, the thief Caravaggio, the sapper Kip and the spy Almsy, or as we have come to know him, the English patient. Their occupations are all typical of war. They all have had people close to them who have died because of the war or experienced tragedy. They are a collection of different nationalities: Canada, Germany, India, England, all of which participated in the war, displaying the world-part of the name World War II. The setting being Italy even though none of them are Italian or live in Italy is also significant as it marks th is. Kips role in this novel is interesting. As Karl mentioned, he does not totally reject the Western culture until the bombings of Japan, and I think this is connected to this time period especially. After WWII the West was forced to let go of their still existing colonies. People saw that any form ofcolonisation was simply not right. Concerning the author, cultural materialism states that dissidence is not so much a matter of individual agency but first of all produced by the inner contradictions that characterize any social order (148). As I understand it, because Canada is a mixture of a whole lot of different nationalities, there has been a lot of focus on its multicultural aspect. Also, Ondaatje is from Sri Lanka, which is situated in Asia, pretty close to India (if my geography skills are not as bad as always). It was also under British rule until 1948. Ondaatje is part of the immigrant Canada who took part in WWII and of the colonised East who answered under the West. All this must inevitably have affected his writing this novel, which does not classically side against the Germans only, it sides against all abasement, trying to point out that part of what the Germans do here is what the West is still doing by not letting go of their colonies. This is expressed when Kip states that people would not be dropping nuclear bombs over a white country. Answering under the theories that we have studied here, if I would have known who Ondaatje was, the history of him and his family, I guess that would affect how I read this novel, as everything you know affects what you read and how you read it: The new historicism and cultural materialism reject both the autonomy and individual genius of the author and the autonomy of the literary work and see literary texts as absolutely inseparable from their historical context (140). /JohannaN. If a student came to you and wanted a book recommendation and 2-3 articles on the issue, what would your recommendations be? These will need to be different from those of your classmates. Check out the university library catalogue (you

may want to use the national catalogue LIBRIS) and the library databases for articles (JSTOR, academic search elite, and MUSE are all full-text databases. If you don't remember how to do either of these things, ask a librarian! :) SEXUALITY AND GENDER -1. Gender is your sex, whether you are female or male for example, sexuality is you sexual preference, whether you are attracted to females or males or both. Gender, as with race, is visible while sexuality is invisible. This means that one can hide their sexual preference from anyone, even your closest social environment. However, it is interesting to determine what constitutes your sexuality, what makes you a lesbian, for example? How does a homosexual text look like? /JohannaN. ISSUES IN BERTENS -2. Gender, race and class have been the prominent areas of interest when discussing Western culture. In the 1980s, however, some theorists see sexuality as the central principle of social organisation, focusing on the way people have been marginalised because of their sexual orientation (Bertens 178). Lesbianism, homosexuality, cross-dressing, all have been condescended and marginalised. /JohannaN. THEORIES/THEORISTS -3.Eve Kosofsky Sedwick poses an interesting approach with her theory on homosociality, the true nature of social relationships, to read against the grain to find socio-sexual structures in literary texts. Also, Butlers ideas are interesting, especially in connection to drag and crossdressing. /JohannaN. A SEXUALITY ISSUE RECOMMENDATIONS -4 and 5. I chose cross-dressign! The article I would recommend can be found if you go to the university library catalogue, click on articles and find the database MUSE. Once youve entered the database, simply type cross-dressing and scroll down. Here you will find an article titled Victoria Flanagan. Into the Closet: Cross-dressing and the Gendered body in Childrens Literature and Film. It is a review by Rachel Dean Ruzicka of Victoria Flanagans book. Flanagans book explores cross-dressing in novels and movies, exploring movies such as Disneys Mulan. She argues how feminine cross-dressing is not as strange to us as male cross-dressing, and explores movies where females are still performing the traditional ideas of femininity even though they dress as men. Ruzicka says that it takes up Butlers and Bakhtins theories, which is interesting to us who have studied Butler in particular. I ch ose this article because it brings up interesting ideas about cross-dressing, the difference between females and males in this perspective for example, praising some of the ideas that Flanagan brings up, but also bringing up further ideas in this area that Flanagan could have included. That was my suggestion for a book and an article, all in one, enjoy! /JohannaN. PHALLOCENTRISM Phallus is symbolic for the male genitalia and phallocentrismis aboutthefalse assumption thatmaleness is"the natural source of authority" (Bertens, 126). Using the phallus instead of the penis was Jacques Lacan's idea, as the phallus is merely symbolic of the penis, indicating the male dominance is a social constuction and not anything biological. Phallocentrim is offeminist origin, a termthat was created in reaction to Freud'stheories about children's desires in the Oedipal stage. Freudargues that in growing up children have a a difficult time dealing with the fact that as boys they have a penis unlike their mothers, and girls have a hard time because they donot have one either. Boys then grow up to compete with the father, find this fruitless, and then decides to jointhe father side

instead, so to speak, joining the manly side. Girls redirect their desire for a penis to having a baby, according to Freud. Not surprisingly,he was critisized for these opinions. /JohannaN. ORDER - -The symbolic order is Lacan's notion that the subject, having left the imaginary order, enters the realm of language. In this realm, the "Real" world is symbolized by language. It thus follows that our conception of reality is constructed by language and other modes of representation. As the subject enters this realm, it accepts the existing cultural and social structures (Bertens, 126). /CarlW THE IMAGINARY ORDER - -The imaginary order is the state of existance of the new-born child. In this state, the child does not recognize the boundaries between itself and its mother or the world that surrounds it. As Bertens says, "it lives in a state of immediacy and experiences a sort of blissful wholeness" (Bertens, 126). /CarlW MISRECOGNITION - -The child transfers from the imaginary order to the symbolic order through the "mirror stage". Here, the child faces the mirror image of the world, which is actually a distortion of the image of the world which it mirrors. It is this distortion that Lacan calls misrecognition. For the child, this misrecognition produces the foundation upon which it may build up its sense of identity (Bertens, 126). /CarlW THE OTHER - - Lacan argues that the subject apprehends its subjectivity and its own sense of identity by interacting with others. Furthermore, we form our subjectivity through the "gaze" of The Other. The Other -the "grande autre"- is not to be understood as any one individual, but as our perception of reality, or the social order which is prevalent where we happen to come into existance. (Bertens, 127). /CarlW IDENTITY FEMININE CRITURE -