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But let us first examine the benefits of the discipline. As I stated earlier, feminist criticism certainly has merit. There can be no denying the years of injustice and prejudice concerning women. Through the feminist lens, a number of new literary doors are opened. Previously ignored texts gain new attention, even a rebirth, in a more accepting society; more accepting through the efforts of the feminist. .
But we can also revisit well-known, even canonical works, and shed an entirely new light on them. By re-reading the "classic" male authors from a woman's point of view ( or in my case, as close an approximation of which I am capable ) we become conscious of the attitudes that have shaped, as well as echoed, the old ideologies and prejudices that disparage the contributions and ideas of women, intentionally or inadvertently. But more than this, we can re-examine the works of the few women writers who did achieve recognition on par with, or at least in proximity to, their male counterparts. Rich is at her best when "decoding".
the works of her spiritual and literary predecessors, reading between the boundaries of the admittedly male-imposed lines. This act of "re-vision - the act of looking back.from a new critical direction," as Rich puts it, at male and female writers "is an act of survival (p.167)." It is vital to the self-knowledge required to form an accurate and lasting sense of identity, which is itself crucial to the creation of new ideologies. This is an excellent point. .
In her essay "When We Dead Awaken," Rich refers to the astonishment she felt when, while rereading Virginia Woolf's A Room of One's Own, she noticed previously undetected emotions emanating from the text.
