A power point presentation about Ecriture Feminine in the writing style of A.S. Byatt's Possession and an analysis of the two subplots plresented in the novel.

1. POSSESSION
An Analysis of the Narrative Style

2. THESIS STATEMENT
Possession is a novel that
is an example of Ecriture
Feminine.

3. TRADITIONAL NOVEL
unified and
plausible
plot
structure
sharply
individualize
d and
believable
characters
a pervasive
illusion of
reality

5. ECRITURE FEMININE
- literally "women's writing‖ is a
strain of feminist literary theory
that originated in France in the
early 1970s and included
foundational theorists such
as Hélène Cixous and others
(―Ecriture Femine‖).

6. HELENE CIXOUS
 A professor, French
feminist writer, poet,
playwright, philosopher,
literary critic and
rhetorician
 Famous for her essay
―The Laugh of Medusa‖
which is an exhortation
to a ―feminine mode‖ of
writing; the phrases
―white ink‖ and ―écriture
féminine‖ are often cited,
referring to this desired
new way of writing

7. SIGNIFICANCE OF THE STUDY
For the readers to distinguish a female novel
from a traditional novel. Moreover, to
understand the unique narrative style of
Ecriture Feminine and encourage female
writers to write using the theory of Ecriture
Feminine to express themselves more.

8. CHARACTERISTICS OF ECRITURE FEMININE
Two sets of plots
Two sets of characters
Overflowing of description
Use of letters and journals
Several no. of climaxes

9. Two Sets of
Characters

16. OVERFLOWING OF DESCRIPTION
Blackadder sat amongst the apparent chaos
and actual order of his great edition, sifting a drift of
small paper slips in a valley between cliffs of furred-
edged index cards and bulging mottled files. Behind
him flitted his clerical assistant, pale Paola, her long
colourless hair bound in a rubber band, her huge
glasses mothlike, her finger-tips dusty grey pads. In
an inner room, beyond the typewriter cubicle, was a
small cavern constructed of filing cabinets,
inhabited by Dr Beatrice Nest, almost bricked in by
the boxes containing the diary and correspondence
of Ellen Ash. (Byatt 3.31-32)

17. OVERFLOWING OF DESCRIPTIONS
―She was dressed with unusual coherence for an
academic, Roland thought, rejecting several other
ways of describing her green and white length, a
long pine-green tunic over a pine-green skirt, a
white silk shirt inside the tunic and long softly white
stockings inside long shining green shoes. Through
the stockings veiled flesh diffused a pink gold,
almost. He could not see her hair, which was
wound tightly into a turban of peacock-feathered
painted silk, low on her brow. Her brows and lashes
were blond; he observed so much. She had a
clean, milky skin, unpainted lips, clearcut features,
largely composed. She did not smile.‖ (4.44)

18. Cixous says in her essay that, ―Woman must write herself:
must write about women and bring women to writing.‖
(875) this can be done ―by her own movement‖ (875)
which is…

19. ―She doesn't 'speak', she throws her trembling body
forward; she lets go of herself, she flies; all of her
passes into her voice, and it's with her body that
she vitally supports the 'logic' of her speech. Her
flesh speaks true. She lays herself bare. In fact, she
physically materializes what she's thinking; she
signifies it with her body. In a certain way she
inscribes what she's saying, because she doesn't
deny her drives the intractable and impassioned
part they have in speaking.‖ (―Laugh of the Medusa‖
893)

20. USE OF LETTERS AND JOURNALS
Dear Miss LaMotte,
I do not know whether to be more encouraged or cast
down by your letter. The essential point in it is "ifyou care to
write again, "for by that permission you encourage me more
than by your wish not to be seen—which I must respect—you
cast me down. And you send a poem, and observe wisely that
poems are worth all the cucumber-sandwiches in the world.
So they are indeed—and yours most particularly—but you
may imagine the perversity of the poetic imagination and its
desire to feed on imagined cucumber sandwiches which,
since they are positively not to be had, it pictures to itself as a
form of English manna—oh the perfect green circles—oh the
delicate hint of salt—oh the fresh pale butter—oh, above all,
the soft white crumbs and golden crust of the new bread—and
thus, as in all aspects of life, the indefatigable fancy idealises
what could be snapped up and swallowed in a moment's
restrained greed, in sober fact. (10.173)

21. POSSESSION: WHY A ROMANCE?
There are two basic elements that comprise every
romance novel: a central love story and an
emotionally-satisfying and optimistic ending (―About
the Romance Genre‖). Possession fulfills its form
as a Romance because it has a central love story
that centers Roland Michell and Maud Bailey.
Randolph Ash and Christabel LaMotte’s story is just
a subplot included by Byatt but the main plot of the
novel is Roland and Maud’s story.

22.  Nathaniel Hawthorne also said in the Preface to
The House of the Seven Gables that, ―The
Romantic definition lies in the attempt to connect a
bygone time with the very present that is flitting
away from us.‖
 The novel subverts its Romance form because the
novel can also be described as a quest narrative.
Byatt uses elements in her novel that are present in
a detective story.

23.  Another reason is that ―the novel’s composition is
presumed to aim at a very minute fidelity, not
merely to the possible, but to the probable and
ordinary course of man’s experience‖ (Hawthorne)
which is also true for the novel Possession

24. CONCLUSION
Possession is written in a post-
modern feminist theory known as
ecriture feminine. The play of language
and the use of metanarratives were
apparent in the novel which is the
characteristic of ecriture feminine.

25. WORKS CITED
―About the Romance Genre‖ 16 March 2012 < http://www.rwa.org/cs/the_romance_genre >
Argamon, S., Koppel, M., Fine, I., & Shimoni, A.R. ―Gender, Genre, and Writing Style in Formal Written
Texts.‖ MA Thesis <u.cs.biu.ac.il/~koppel/papers/male-female-text-final.pdf>
"A. S. Byatt." Microsoft Encarta 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008.
Borders, Catherine. ―Ecriture Feminine.‖ Wordpress. 5 February 2010. 6 March 2012
<http://eidetictraces.wordpress.com/2010/02/05/ecriture-feminine/>
Buda, Agata. ―Narration Techniques in A.S. Byatt’s Possession as a means to portray a woman‖ 13 February
2012 < http://www.univ.rzeszow.pl/wfil/ifa/usar5/sar_v5_14.pdf>
Byatt, A.S. Possession. London: Vintage, 1990
Cixous, Helen. The Laugh of the Medusa. Signs. 1.4 (1976): 875-893.JSTOR.14 February 2012
www.jstor.org
Domínguez, Pilar Cuder ―Romance Forms ‖ 16 March 2012
<http://rua.ua.es/dspace/bitstream/10045/5411/1/RAEI_08_07.pdf>
―Ecriture Feminine‖ oppapers.com 4 March 2012 <http://www.oppapers.com/essays/Ecriture-
Feminine/888953>
Eron, Sarah. The Victorian Web. 8 April 2004. 20 February 2012
<http://victorianweb.org/neovictorian/byatt/eron29.html>
"Feminism." Microsoft Encarta 2009 [DVD]. Redmond, WA: Microsoft Corporation, 2008.
―Fiction – the structure of a narrative‖ Englishbiz 12 March 2012
<http://www.englishbiz.co.uk/extras/freytagtriangle.htm>
Janik, Vicki, and Janik, Del Ivan. Modern British Women Writers an A – to –Z Guide. Connecticut:
Greenwood Publishing Group, 2002