Arts and Humanities Commons^™

“Little Messiah: Relational Religion In Hélène Cixous’S Messie”, Rachel Katherine Carpenter

Theses - ALL

This thesis performs a close textual analysis of Cixous’s text Messie, paying particular attention to the text’s central relationship between the human protagonist and her cat. Considering the complex dynamics of this relationship, this project attempts to understand the significant ways Cixous’s narrative outlines a religious and ethical relationality between humans and animals. Ultimately, inspired by Messie’s ethics, this thesis posits an ethics of relation readers may themselves apply to animal relations.