Chapter 35: Écriture Féminine – Summary and Analysis

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

The poem opens with the speaker acknowledging a personal selfishness as the reason for their child’s birth. The child now watches television, animated by “my funny blood” – a phrase suggesting inherited quirks or traits. The speaker admits to sometimes losing themselves while gazing at the child. They feel underloved yet still braid the child’s hair, performing motherhood through imitation. The closing line reveals the speaker’s self-awareness: they are mostly in love with the reflection of themselves they see in their child.

Key Events

The speaker confesses that a selfish impulse led to the birth of their child.
The child is depicted watching television, filled with the speaker’s “funny blood.”
The speaker describes moments of forgetting self and staring at the child.
Despite feeling underloved, the speaker braids the child’s hair – a caring act.
The speaker reflects on mothering as a form of imitation.
The poem concludes with the insight that the speaker’s love is directed largely at the self they see in the child.

Character Development

The speaker (the mother): Reveals vulnerability about feeling underloved. Their voice is intimate and honest, admitting selfishness and a love rooted in self-reflection. This self-awareness marks an acceptance of imperfect motherhood.
The child: Remains a passive, unnamed presence – a mirror for the speaker’s introspection. The child’s role is to receive care and embody the speaker’s inherited traits.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Écriture Féminine: The title references French feminist theory (Hélène Cixous) that champions a distinct feminine writing emerging from the body and the mother-child bond. The poem itself is an example: raw, bodily, and centered on motherhood.
Selfishness and Selflessness: The speaker frames the child’s existence as a result of selfish desire, yet performs selfless acts like braiding hair. This tension challenges the ideal of maternal self-sacrifice.
Mirroring / The Other as Self: The closing line exposes the mother’s love as narcissistic – she loves the child as an extension of herself. This motif destabilizes the notion of pure maternal love.
Blood as Inheritance: “Funny blood” symbolizes biological and personality traits passed down. The word “funny” suggests both humour and strangeness, hinting at mixed feelings about inheritance.
Hair Braiding: A traditional act of care and bonding. Braiding here is performed mechanically (“copycat”) rather than instinctively, underscoring the speaker’s emotional distance.

Why This Chapter Matters

This poem condenses many of Golden Ax’s central concerns: ancestry, the maternal body, and the complex inheritance of identity. By introducing the concept of écriture féminine directly, Cortez aligns her work with a tradition of writing the female experience from within. The chapter challenges romanticized views of motherhood by exposing the speaker’s selfishness and self-reflection. It also deepens the book’s meditation on how the past lives inside us – here, the mother sees herself in her child, just as earlier chapters see ancestors in the speaker. The short, confessional form offers a moment of quiet intimacy amid the larger historical and familial narratives.

Study Questions

What does the speaker mean by “I was selfish enough / that you were born”?
The speaker suggests that their desire to have a child was driven by personal need – perhaps for love, meaning, or legacy. This contrasts with the selfless ideal of motherhood, implying that the child’s existence stems from the parent’s own wants.
How does the line “I’m mostly / in love with the me in you” complicate the idea of maternal love?
It reveals that the speaker’s love is at least partly narcissistic – she cherishes the child because the child reflects her own self. This complicates the notion of unconditional, other-oriented maternal love by inserting self-interest into the bond.
Why does the speaker call their maternal actions “copycat” behavior?
The speaker admits they are imitating what a mother is supposed to do (e.g., braiding hair), rather than acting from innate maternal instinct. This suggests that motherhood is a learned performance, not an automatic impulse, and ties into the poem’s exploration of écriture féminine as a constructed, bodily practice.