Perchance to Dream: Transcending Gender in Olga Tokarczuk’S House of Day, House of Night

PERCHANCE TO DREAM: TRANSCENDING GENDER IN OLGA TOKARCZUK’S HOUSE OF DAY, HOUSE OF NIGHT Stephanie Mielcarek The University of Chicago Mielcarek 2 INTRODUCTION Olga Tokarczuk’s novel House of Day, House of Night (Dom dzienny, dom nocny) outlines the narrator’s experiences near Nowa Ruda, a town in Silesian Poland, to which she has recently moved. She intersperses reflections on her surroundings and neighbors with dreams, poisonous mushroom recipes, and stories about the people who have lived in, visited, or in some other way been connected with the area. Many of these tales deal with sex and gender relations. These stories are shaped by their characters’ gender; their deepest problems are rooted in this singular aspect of their identity. However, though the narrator acknowledges the inherent disparity of men and women in society, as evidenced in language itself and the stereotypes it perpetuates, she herself has somehow managed to bypass this stumbling block. Jack Hutchens has suggested that House of Day, House of Night can be read in conjunction with Judith Butler’s theory that gender is inherently unstable, “capable of constant change, forever in a state of ‘becoming’ instead of ‘being.’”1 Today, I will argue that Tokarczuk’s novel takes this theory one step further, suggesting that one can move past gender identity entirely, transcending these categories in order to attain a higher state of being. In House of Day, House of Night, it is apparent that gender differences, whether culturally created or biologically inherent, are inescapable. However, the novel ultimately offers an escape route: If we withdraw from this conventional existence to live in the larger, language-less and non-gendered “houses” of our dreams, a deeper understanding of human nature and consciousness is possible, even if this dream-world is inherently fleeting. Tokarczuk hints at this when she opens her novel with the following quote from Kahlil Gibran: Your house is your larger body. It grows in the sun and sleeps in the stillness of the night; and it is not dreamless. Does not your house dream? And dreaming, leave the city for grove or hilltop? Twój dom jest twoim większym ciałem. Rośnie w słoocu; śpi w ciszy nocy. Miewa sny. Czyż twój dom nie śpi, a więc nie opuszcza miasta, by znaleźd się w gaju lub na szczycie wzgórza? A house is an apparently neutral, genderless entity; though an extension of one’s body, it is not subject to limitations imposed by sex or gender. As such, it is a fitting metaphor for an existence outside the constraints of gender. OF LANGUAGE AND DREAMS: THE NARRATOR'S IDENTITY The neutrality of the narrator’s gender is not immediately apparent to the reader. Although there are virtually no textual markers to prove his or her gender, she is depicted on certain editions of the book’s cover and in the back page summary as female, and Tokarczuk herself is a woman. These external clues lead the reader at first glance to assume the narrator’s femininity. However, it is soon apparent that the narrator is as neutrally gendered as is possible. The narrator uses the first-person, non-gendered “I” to describe personal actions, and at no point in the novel self-references as a woman Mielcarek 3 or man, a wife or a husband, or refers to gender-specific body parts or processes. It must be noted that this statement becomes complicated if we read the text in the original Polish, in which the past tense makes clear that the speaker is female. However, reading the novel in the English translation, in which tenses do not imply gender, merely highlights the fact that the narrator uses no other gender-identifying phrases, except in one brief chapter. This essentially gender-less form of narration is also emphasized by the frequent usage of the second-person “you” or the Polish impersonal verb “było,” which, as in Gibran’s The Prophet, shifts importance away from a nondescript, desexualized author, and towards a similarly non-gendered reader.2 The narrator’s apparent lack of a gendered identity, as well as how this lack is actually beneficial, is evident from the novel’s beginning. In the opening segment, “Dreams,” she begins, “The first night I had a dream. I dreamed I was pure light, without body or mass. ... I could see everything.”3 (“Pierwszej nocy miałam nieruchomy sen. Śniło mi się, że jestem czystym patrzeniem, czystym wzrokiem i nie mam ciała ani imienia . widzę wszystko lub prawie wszystko.”4) This statement suggests that to exist purely as awareness, without the problems a body poses, is ideal. Located at the book’s beginning as it is, this comment also sets the tone for the rest of the novel; the narrator has told her reader that she has found a way—even if only in dreams—to escape her body in pursuit of a higher truth. As Hutchens has pointed out, her use of the neutral past form “było” in this section—an impossible Polish grammatical construction for a human—instead of the feminine “była” further emphasizes that this escape is particularly from gender.5 The narrator continues to tell of her dream-world surroundings, commenting on the apparent motionlessness of the world and the people in it. However, “Their stillness, too, was only superficial—their hearts were beating gently, their blood was rippling in their veins, I could even see their dreams, fragments of images flashing inside their heads.” (“…ich bezruch także jest pozorny— delikatnie pulsują w nich serca, szemrze krew, nawet ich sny nie są rzeczywiste, potrafię bowiem ujrzed, czym one są: pulsującymi kawałkami obrazów.”6) Her description of the “superficiality” of these sleepers’ unmoving bodies implies that they are flawed or somehow limited. She does not disapprove of all that is inside, though—their thoughts and dreams as well as their hearts and lungs. In noting the superficiality of bodies, she makes a distinction between universal, internal bodily organs and visible, differentiating ones. Thus, the narrator off-handedly suggests that these bodies’ imperfection or stagnancy is due to their external bodies—in particular, their differentiating sex and how they display it to the world as gender. The narrator, too, wishes to move past her own gendered body. SEX AND STEREOTYPES: KRYSIA AND A. MOS This idea of individuals as imperfect because of their physical sex continues in the next segment of the novel that deals, this time explicitly, with gender relations: “Amos.” “Amos” tells the story of a woman who hears a loving voice in her ear, and goes off in search of it. Krysia Popłoch is described as a stereotypical contemporary female, overly concerned with her looks: Krysia was the most elegant girl at the bank. She had a fashionable hairstyle—a well- shaped blonde perm with carefully dyed roots. The fluorescent lighting brought out its highlights. Her mascara-coated lashes cast subtle shadows on her smooth cheeks. Her pearly lipstick discreetly emphasized the shape of her mouth. As she grew older, she wore more and more makeup. Była najelegantszą osobą w Banku. Modna fryzura—starannie ułożona blond trwała, odrosty ufarbowane. Jarzeniowe światło wydobywało z włosów lalkowo-brylantowe refleksy. Jej lepkie od tuszu rzęsy rzucały delikatne cienie na gładkie polickzi. Perłowa szminka dyskretnie podkreślała kształt ust. Im była starsza, tym bardziej się malowała.7 Mielcarek 4 This description of Krysia is notable not only for its imagery, but for its thoroughness. By commenting on each of her intentional physical improvements, the narrator makes the reader well aware of how much each of these fashionable elements mean to Krysia, and of how shallow she is. This superficiality is also emphasized when the narrator tells of Krysia’s home life: “Krysia was quite important; she earned money and did the shopping, carrying it home in bags her mother had made. She had her own room in the attic, with a sofa-bed and a wardrobe. But only at the bank did she really start to come into her own.” (“W swoim domu Krysia była wystarczająco ważna, zarabiała przecież pieniądze, robiła zakupy, które dźwigała w uszytych przez matkę torbach. Miała swój pokój na poddaszu, z wersalką i szafą na ubrania, ale dopiero w Banku stawała się kimś.”8) This suggests that the only reality that matters to this woman is her outward appearance; working at the bank is worthwhile for her not because she particularly enjoys her job, but because it is where her “elegant” style is most appreciated. Though she is the bread-winner in her family—a typically male position—she is notable not for her work but for the image it allows her to create for herself. Thus, the narrator portrays Krysia as a cliché, ultimately caught in a stereotypically female role and seemingly bound by cultural conventions dictating how women are supposed to behave. Krysia’s clichéd mode of thought continues when she discovers Amos’ exceptional love for her via her dreams. “On that unusual day Krysia Popłoch, head of the credit division, realized for the first time in her life that she was wholly and unconditionally loved.” (“I tego niezwykłego dnia Krysia Popłoch, szefowa działu kredytów, zrozumiała, że po raz pierwszy w życiu jest totalnie, wszechmocnie i bezwarunkowo kochana.”9) This realization is quite shocking for her, and again her reactions are quite stereotypically weak and feminine. She begins her search for Amos with an expectant hope, but soon settles, seemingly out of desperation, for a man with the last name Mos, first initial A.—“A. Mos”— found in a phonebook in Częstochowa. Her world, based so much on a web of fragile self esteem, comes crashing down on her after her encounter with the false Amos, who is as much a stereotype of masculinity as she is of femininity.

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