The Body Of Written And Visual Construction

Marguerite Duras is a famous contemporary writer in France who has rich works and far-reaching impact. She is an outstanding figure in contemporary France, standing in the focus of attention in Europe and the United States. Her works have been translated into more than 30 languages, widely spread in the world. Her creative language has changed the world of male discourse, and her unique way of literary writing guides the innovation trend. She expressed female experience, questioned the relation between male and female which seems to have already doomed, and re-constructed or defined gender identity.The gender identity of men or woman is not simply physical definition, but a symbol taken by the main. Judith Butler put forward gender identity performances which views that gender is a social requirement, forming in the later days. Over the years, the female body was in shackles, being the state of repression, and had no right to speak. Helene Cixous advocated writing the female body, expressing their idea with body. Duras wrote the female body, subverted the status of female as object for thousands of years and reconstructed the dominant position of the female body.Vision is an important part of body feeling, being the top of the five senses. It's reflected by the descriptions of gaze in the texts. With the theoretical contribution by these philosophers, such as Sartre and Freud, etc, the concept of gaze is finally put forward by Lacan, who views that the gaze of the subject is always dominated by the gaze of the absent object, and a new subject is reconstructed during the process of gaze. Gaze in the texts contains a kind of power relation between male and female in which male is main while female is object. Duras reconstructs this relation and improves the status of female.By use the concept of body writing and gaze, this article reveals the potential sexual problems in Duras'works, studies the subversion and remodeling phenomenon of gender identity. On the base of that, I hope this dissertation could provide a new perspective for the comprehension of Duras'works.