The essence of literature ? it?s voice, it?s meaning? has always been scrutinized of interest to readers and theorists. The language in itself has the power to revolt against and undermine current and dominant hierarchies. This language can also be of a passive nature, accepting existing norms and dichotomies. This paper has the ambition to examine the language, the voice, of Clarice Lispector in her novel A Hora da Estrela (The Hour of the Star).The theoretical horizon from which I will read The Hour of the Star is that of Hélène Cixous, which can be expressed through the term écriture féminine.

This is a study of the novel Mes mauvaises pensées (2005) by the French writer Nina Bouraoui. I use an intertextual comparative method, where I read the novel against three intertexts: Marie Cardinal Les mots pour le dire (1975), the David Lynch movie Mulholland Drive (2001) and novels and photographies by Hervé Guibert. Main focus is on the relation between body and language. Using the psychoanalytic theories by Julia Kristeva I examine the melancholy of the narrator in Mes mauvaises pensées. The melancholic subject mourns a Thing which is the unrepresentable archaic mother.