Laid Bare for Scrutiny

Today I came home feeling rather forlorn. I started to write and wondered about posting it on my blog. Then I wondered about one day when I die and if all my works were published, pried open and into, dugged out, laid down, spread bare on the operating table for all to examine, scrutinize, and conclude things about me that I might not have been even aware of myself. (Of course that would necessarily mean I die a miserable, disturbed, desolate artist of some sort.)

If what I write is not a result of only mind but also of bodily inscriptions, as Grosz said, and Cixous had advocated for women to write ourselves into existence, then that act of examining my works would leave me virtually naked, forcibly, for all to analyze--eagle-spread, and no allowance for modesty, and the only thing you can close are your eyes.

Maybe that's why the binary of mind/body is still so integral today--that barrier makes us feel more comfortable that if we (i.e. who we are) must be exposed for ravens and buzzards, it's only the mind, something intangible. As opposed to exposing our bodies--something we see physically everyday, mostly in our own company--and feeling more violated (than exposing our minds).

Are people who are more closed about their bodies more liberal about their minds; and are people more liberal about their bodies more guarded about their minds? Is that another reason why we're hesitant about collapsing the mind/body binary? Since we tend to be simultaneously liberal and guarded, this binary would allow us to indulge this tendency; as opposed to a non-binary, which would mean we are either open (completely or partially) or closed (completely or partially).

I wonder how Plath feels about us dissecting her poetry and making statements about who she was. I wonder if she feels we are dissecting her body.