Precis Irigaray

Irigaray in her essay "The Speculum of the other Woman" criticizes and analyzes Plato's allegory of the cave under a very close reading. In the analysis, she takes certain liberties in using Plato's story as part of her own personal metaphor whose purpose is to further her own arguements and ideas. Given this, it feels like she is not using Plato's story to attempt to garner any truth from a reading of it, but rather is using Plato's story to fit in with her own metaphor that she. She uses which parts of it she wants to futher her ideas. Of these ideas, some interesting ones are ideas about the dichotomy between the two worlds. In the passage, "The Forgotten Path" Irigaray examines the separation and significance of the separation between the cave and the outside world. This can be read many ways, between good and evil, between the way men have been allowed to live and how women have been allowed to live, and light and darkness. The simple idea the the path leads in a straight progression upwards is not even safe from her critisisms, the path is considered of being "Phallic even?"

-Henry McDonald