Maieutics - Note No. 7
This axiological move is cast as a corrective to male death drive and is most often expressed in O'Brien's hostility to existentialism. Its zest leads to some philological blunders. In the Politics of Reproduction (67), she puns upon Heidegger's Dasein with Das Man [sic]. French is equally Englished. In reference to a Beckett character she serves up a hormonal interpretation to Estragon's name without a hint of the herb namesake. The character from Waiting for Godot "has appropriated in thought the feminine creative principle, the female sex hormone." ("The Politics of Impotence" 162) These flourishes accentuate the tenacity of the dichotomy which generates them.