In recent years, there has been extensive debate in the area of literary criticism, much of it focused on real or imagined differences between male and female texts. French feminist theorists, Helene Cixous and Luce Irigaray, to name a few, argue that biological differences necessitate textual differences, while others reject this essentialist position, considering it just another means for perpetuating the notion of female inferiority. Many linguists assert that women use language differently than men, and that texts reflect these differences. But in order to analyze the origin of any textual differences, it is necessary to look beyond biology and linguistic performance, to concentrate on psychology and its wider implications in the cultural world. Because Brigitte Schwaiger's text, Wie kommt das Salz ins Meer. contains a number of elements which underscore the extent that psychology and culture influence text production, it will serve as the focus of this paper. While this work can be classified as a female Bildungs- or Reifungs-roman - a narrative about the development of a modem consciousness and the attendant struggles involved - it serves in a wider sense as an example of the "difference" argued by many feminists between male and female texts.