1.6 Thesis Outline. 20

1.7 Definition of Key Terms. 21

Chapter 2: Transition of Female Characters. 24

2.1 Current of French Thought. 25

2.1.1 French Feminism.. 26

2.1.2 Psychology and French philosophers. 31

2.1.3 Interactions between French thought and German thought 33

2.1.4 The relation of Feminism and Marxism.. 37

2.1.5 Lacan’s and Foucault’s Structuralism.. 38

2.1.6 The role of Simone de Beauvoir in French Feminism.. 42

2.1.7 Manifestation of Postmodernism and Post-structuralism.. 44

2.2 Luce Irigaray. 45

2.2.1 Irigaray’s concepts about the “female character”. 47

2.2.1.1 “The Other Woman”. 48

2.2.1.2 “Sexual Difference”. 52

2.2.1.3 Psychological repressions of women identity in West culture. 55

2.2.1.3.1 Repression and Schizophrenia. 55

2.2.1.3.2 Deconstruction of Patriarchal philosophy. 57

2.2.1.3.3 Sexual organs. 58

2.3 Helene Cixous. 59

2.3.1 Cixous’s philosophy and concepts about the female character. 60

2.3.1.1 Poetic writings about woman’s character. 60

2.3.1.2 Re- Born Woman. 65

2.3.1.3 Feminine Writing. 66

2.4 American and French Feminist literary criticism and art criticism.. 67

2.4.1 First waves of feminism.. 69

2.4.2 Second waves of feminism and Cixous’s and Irigaray’s concepts. 70

2.5 Proposing the theory of transformation of woman’s personality from Irigaray’s and Cixous’s viewpoints 72

Chapter 3: Female Characters of the Buried Child. 77

3.1 “Buried Child”. 78

3.2 Discourse of Characters and Post-Modern Attitude of Shepard. 79

3.3 Construction of “Buried Child”. 81

3.4 Psychoanalysis of women characters. 81

3.4.1 The character of “Catholic Bride” or the notion of multi-phallus in Irigaray’s and Cixous’s concepts. 83

3.4.2 “Halie”: the hysteric and repressed character. 85

3.4.3 Orgasmic pleasure and the character of Shelly. 88

3.4.4 Rape or alienation to femininity. 89

3.4.5 “Woman’s body” speaks. 91

Chapter 4: Female Characters of A Lie of the Mind & States of Shock. 92

4.1 “A Lie of the Mind”. 93

in Shepard’s Viewpoint. 97

4.3 The personality of “beaten Beth”. 104

4.3.1 Beth’s anxiety-Freud’s and Irigaray’s “lack of orgasm”. 106

4.4 Irigaray’s dialectics in women characters. 109

4.4.1 The relation of mother-daughter (Meg and Beth) 110

4.5 Cixous’s literature therapy and dialogues of woman personality. 111

4.6 “Transition of Personality” in female characters of A Lie of the Mind. 112

4.6.1 “Sally”: Conservative and unrepressed personality. 112

4.6.2 Meg and Lorraine: Non-Reborn Mothers. 113

4.7 “States of Shock”. 115

4.7.1 “White Woman, lack of male’s sex organ”. 117

4.7.2 “War, the absence woman identity”. 119

Chapter 5: Conclusion. 121

5.1 Summing up. 122

5.2 Findings. 126

5.2.1 Research Questions. 127

5.3 Works Cited. 131