It associates thought and logic with the male sex, and the body with the female sex. Patriarchal logocentrism favors the mind over the body. In The Laugh of the Medusa, Helene Cixous reverses the patriarchal notion that the mind, thought, and knowledge, are somehow entirely separate from the body. “The Laugh of the Medusa” by Helene Cixous and the “Cyborg Manifesto” by Donna Haraway, two feminist theoretical works which concern, in part, how language relates to the body, can illuminate these stark differences. In the Lilith’s Brood series, the differences between humans and nonhumans regarding their relationships to corporeality becomes stark. Stacy Alaimo, a scholar of literature, feminism, and ecocultural theory, writes in “Displacing Darwin and Descartes: The Bodily Transgressions of Fielding Burke, Octavia Butler, and Linda Hogan,” “ bodies that know, Butler radically challenges the oppositions between body and mind” (53). Humans, who largely rely on words, have a phallocentric language that fails to meaningfully incorporate knowledge that arises from the body. Communication and knowledge are body based. Lilith’s Brood features the Oankali, a trigender alien species who are particularly physically-oriented, (as opposed to the language-oriented humans.) Symbols have not been necessary to the Oankali’s intercommunication because their bodies manifest their feelings and thoughts through physical appearance and neurosensory illusions. In her Lilith’s Brood series, (formerly known as the Xenogenesis Trilogy,) Octavia Butler has created creatures who base knowledge and communication in their bodies.
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