University of Alberta

Immigration and the Cyborg: Identity, Language, and Writing in the Works of Nancy Huston

by

Mary Elizabeth Kupchenko

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Master of Arts in Comparative Literature

Office of Interdisciplinary Studies

©Mary Elizabeth Kupchenko Spring, 2011 Edmonton, Alberta

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1*1 Canada Table of Contents

Abstract

Introduction 1

Chapter I: Fractured Persons: Identity and the Cyborg 12

Saffie: Maid, Wife and Mother 12

Erra: Multiple Personas 21

Chapter II: Caught between Languages: Speech, Separation and Translation 34

Silence and Speech 35

Separated from Language 40

The Question of Translation 45

Chapter III: The Translingual Voice: Expression and Possibility 54

Translingual Writing 55

Saffie' s New Narrative 62

Erra's New Song 69

Conclusion 76

Works Cited 86 Abstract

Nancy Huston's works, fiction and non-fiction, offer perspectives for the examination of immigration, specifically the female experience, of living across and between languages and cultures. An exploration of migrant individuals, utilizing Donna Hara way's cyborg metaphor, reveals situations of lirninality, in which the individual exists poised between various concepts of self. In both The

Mark of the Angel and Fault Lines, this space will be explored, with a focus on questions of identity and language. Additionally, the potential of writing, living, and the pursuit of the creative, as a result of the above existent state, will be examined. 1

Introduction

It is my intention to examine, in the works of Nancy Huston, the figure of the immigrant in states of division and synthesis. The migrant individual exists poised in a state of liminality, between the world of her past and the world she

strives to create. If one examines this figure in Huston's writing, while considering Donna Haraway's concept of the cyborg, the immigrant individual emerges as one in a state of transition across culture and history, progressing through self-established partitions of identity and language and seizing the disparate portions of her self-concept to pursue new opportunities for living, writing, and creativity.

Bom in Calgary, Alberta in 1953, Nancy Huston moved to Boston at the age of 15 after the separation of her parents. She studied at Sarah Lawrence

College, and after relocating to Paris in 1973, studied at the 1'Ecole des hautes

etudes en sciences sociales. There, working under Roland Barthes, she completed her thesis on profanity (later published as Dire et interdire: Elements de jurologie). She currently lives in Paris with her husband, Tzvetan Todorov, and their two children.

As a writer, Huston has been prolific. Since 1981. with the publication of her first novel Les variations Goldberg, she has published multiple novels, as well as numerous works of non-fiction including Nord Perdu: suivi de Douze France,

Lettres parisiennes: autopsie de 1'exil, and Journal de la creation. Writing primarily in her adopted tongue of French, she has translated many of her texts into English — of her publications, while the majority are original language texts, just under half are self-translated. Her works have garnered critical acclaim; she has received numerous honours, examples of which are the Prix Contrepoint and

Prix Femina. She was awarded the Governor General's Award in 1993 for

Cantique des Plaines; and was nominated for the Governor General's award in

1997 for Tim Goldberg Variations, as well as in 1998 and 1999 for L 'Empriente de l'ange and The Mark of the Angel, respectively. As well, she has recieved

Honorary Doctorates from the Universite de Liege and the University of Ottawa.

In 2005, Huston was inducted as an Officer of the Order of Canada.

Not all of her honours have been uncontested. Her 1993 receipt of the

Governor General's Award for Cantique des Plaines, given for French-language fiction, was considered to be controversial in Quebec as Cantique des Plaines was originally published in English as Plainsong (and in the United States as

Paddon 's Song); and as Huston is not French-Canadian. Huston was accused of being "une Albertaine defroquee, une Anglaise recalcitrante qui a renie sa langue matemelle pour epouser le francais" (Petrowski D3). While the prize was, in fact, awarded to Huston upon the assertion that Cantique des Plaines constituted an adaptation, and not a translation (Laurin, Klein-Lataud), the controversy surrounding the honour foregrounds the issue of language in Canada, as well use of canonical literary languages. Huston's acceptance of the award has been utilized by Quebecois critics to call for the creation of Quebecois literary prizes

(see Yergeau). Critics have cited the subtext of Cantique des Plaines as privileging Quebecois culture over that of anglophone Canada (Sing 751), and 3 examined questions of translation and voice within the text. Furthermore, explorations of vocal expression within the work itself have revealed how the work "[sings] the aridity of the plain, to condemn the destruction of aboriginal culture, to tell how [...] intellectual aspirations are slowly destroyed by repressive religion and the rough culture of [the] land" (Senior 683).

It should be noted, additionally, that in assuming French as her language of choice, Huston deliberately situates herself within one of the canonical idioms of literature. The language of Voltaire, Derrida, Proust, and Flaubert has long been constnicted as the language of universal human reason. As Keisuke Kasuya comments, this is an essential component of the myth of 'la clarte francaise', which establishes French as intrinsically superior to other languages and its resultant ability to civilize the speaker, as promoted by Boileau and Rivarol. In choosing to write in French, Huston associates her work with high culture, and a tradition of literary and critical discourse.

Unsurprisingly, questions of writing, language, translation, and identity in the works of Nancy Huston have served as rich fields for examination for literary critics. Her works are viewed as promoting "de-centered, trans-national, polyphonic French literature" (Holmes 87) that seek to engage the reader in an active process of creation (Holmes 91). Her writing examines "female experiences which have remained taboo "(307), in which individual stories gain primacy over history (Sardin 311), almost echoing her thesis on the forbidden, profanity and questions of speech. Questions of identity, the relationship of the self to the Other, have been examined by critics such as Claudine Potvin, 4

Katharine Harrington, and David Bond, who have noted situations of division, doubling and hybridity.

Employing the metaphor of the cyborg in "A Cyborg Manifesto: Science

Technology and Socialist-Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century," Haraway challenges dualisms established between machine and animal, the crafted and the natural. Dealing specifically with women's experience, Haraway utilizes the figure of the cyborg to dismpt constructions of the feminine - it is a creature of "a post-gender world" (150). Representing a fusion of disparate parts, the cyborg emphasises that "there is nothing about being 'female' that naturally binds women. There is not even such a state as 'being female', itself a highly complex category constructed in contested sexual scientific discourses or other practices"

(155). Haraway's cyborg is a refusal of a totalising theory of identity production.

The cyborg is a liminal figure, a fusion of disparate and often conflicting parts, an outsider, that can renegotiate and regenerate itself and its own identity. A figure embodying deep contradiction, the cyborg embraces the irony of its existence.

Originally published in essay format in 1985, "A Cyborg Manifesto" was revised and republished in Haraway's 1991 book, Simians, Cyborgs and Women:

The Reinvention of Nature the work seeks to engage with the radical feminism of the 1970s and 1980s, specifically to dispute anti-technological, Edenic theoretical aspirations. While perhaps the questions of technological inclusion are not as relevant in the twenty-first century, the metaphore Haraway proposes for an identity characterized by contradiction and affinity, as opposed to irreconcilable 5 dualisms of male/female, past/future, etc., that represents possibility for change and transformation, remains of relevance.

In later works, such as "Situated Knowledges: The Science Question in

Feminism and the Privilege of Partial Perspective," Haraway discusses the feminist interaction with the traditionally masculine fields of scientific theory, problematizing traditional feminist critique as a polaiizing force. She advocates for a kind of feminist empiricism, and necessary objectivity. Further publications continue this examination. Primate Visions: Gender, Race, and Nature in the

World of Modem Science examines the science of prirnatology, the masculinization of the primate narrative and the difference of perspective evidenced by female primatologists; offering differing visions of accepted ideologies. In Modest J¥itness@Second_MiHenmum.FemaleMan©Meets_Onco

Mouse, Haraway further highlights the artificiality of dualisms between humans and animals, culture and nature, and science and technology. The Companion

Species Manifesto: Dogs, People, and Significant Otherness and Wlien Species

Meet, which represent two of her more recent book-length publications, explore multi-species co-existence, along with questions of technological and biological union. Her work, overall, is characterized by a call for the transgression of established boundaries, and the dismantlement of traditional dualisms and the exploration of the human-technology-science interaction.

The cyborg is not confined to the realm of science-fiction. As Haraway asserts in "A Cyborg Manifesto," in our age "we are all chimeras, theorized and fabricated hybrids of machine and organism." The cyborg, as a "condensed 6 image of both imagination and material reality" (150), becomes a stnicture through which identity may indeed be explored. Identity, arid perhaps more

obviously immigrant identity, caught between cultures and languages, like the cyborg, exists as a whole composed of conjoined yet differentiated parts. Thus I

would argue that the cyborg identity is one that is lirninal1, not only that it exists in a state of flux and transition, but that it provides an ability to metamorphose as the part-yet-whole stnicture of the cyborg may be moulded at will. Additionally,

I would argue that the as connections between the parts are multiple and fragile,

as well as easily dismpted (which allows for an examination of the nature and potential of the cyborg state) which creates a situation of precariousness.

Claudine Porvin conceptualizes Huston's Cantique desplaines as being

about, in part, rrreconcilable dualities. Identity, she posits, is constructed in terms

of "des cultures des centres...et de la peripherie...que la metaphore de la plaine resume au niveau discursif dans les dichotomies spatial et temporale: vide/plein,

dehors/dedans, avant/apres" (10). While initially it may appear that this structure

of dualisms is the most appropriate way to approach questions of identity, I would propose that Haraway's ironic, irreverent, cyborg metaphor offers a manner of

exarnining and exploring identity in which these dualisms are, of necessity,

disposed of. The cyborg, as a creature that exults in its contradictions, allows for

a space of existence in which opposing and often conflicting aspects of identity

are joined to form a disparate whole.

1 The concept of liminality originates in the work of Arnold van Gennep. who established the term in an anthropological examination of ritual, specifically with relation to ritual related to the transition of an individual from one role or to status another. The situation of liminality was further expanded upon by Victor Turner, who noted that this state was both constructive and destructive, and suggested circumstances of permanent liminality. 7

In using the figure of the cyborg to explore the migrant phenomenon, one is able to explore not only the "intimations of what is beyond [...] the languages they know" (Kellman, Translingual 114) but also the power and "potential amidst the races and ethnic identities of women" (Haraway 174). Katherine HaiTington, citing Arjun Appadurai, comments that:

more people than ever before seem to imagine routinely the

possibility that they or their children will live and work in places

other than where they were born. Not surprisingly, this

phenomenon is vastly changing the global cultural climate, and

widespread deterritorialization could be considered one of the most

definite forces of the modem world. (119)

This movement results in an increase in the frequency with which individuals find themselves in Haraway's cyborg state - a state of liminality, posed between two or more concepts of themselves or states of being. The cyborg is a figure of "fiction and lived experience" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 159), a creature concerned with its own regeneration and survival. If, as Horni Bhabba theorizes, cultural difference contains "uncanny structures" which reveal the links between the self and the Other (313), Haraway's cyborg construct then offers a way of examining the migrant identity as it offers a way around the relativism resultant from the act of cultural self-location (Kamboureli 358). In utilizing the myth of the cyborg, we may explore the ways in which the migrant is able to transcend "the process of self-scrutiny [which] would then translate itself into 8 consolation for the wrong of the past and ... paralysis in the present"

(Varadharajan xvi).

Specifically, it is my desire to examine how the migrant subject functions as a cyborg in the works of Nancy Huston, who exist "dans un espace d'incertitudes, oil existent pliisieurs dissonances, la possibilite de l'epuisement du soi ainsi que la non-reconciliation des contiaires" (Carriere 70). In both The Mark of the Angel and Fault Lines. Huston explores concepts of immigrant identity and self-regeneration. Two characters, Saffie and Erra, exist attempting to dissociate themselves from their pasts. Each has tried to establish a division from their childhood as well as from their cultures and languages of origin and attempts to establish new identities and new lives. Utilizing the figure of the cyborg, to explore these separations, specifically those established between past and present, and the disconnection from language, it becomes apparent that a new space of existence emerges. It is in this space that the "potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 154) of the migrant/immigiant figure emerge.

Both Saffie and Erra are able to engage in an act of translingual rewriting, utilizing her fractured-yet-whole state of self, in the process of regeneration of identity across language and culture, revealing the potential inherent in the rmgrant/irnmigrant position.

In Chapter One, the specific incidences of fractured identity which the cyborg/migrant experiences and embodies as a being "synthesised from fusions of outsider identities" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 174) will be examined. In Tlie Mark of the Angel as well as in Fault Lines, the protagonists struggle to establish a new 9 state of existence. As a result of the process of identity reconstitution undergone by both Saffie and Erra, a kind of self-censorship occurs. An effort is made, as part of the agenda of identity reconstitution, to suppress prior identity. The two exist in a state of attempted compartmentalization - they are caught between their pasts and the new identities they are attempting to generate. The here has been separated frorn the there, her mysterious past deliberately hidden from the future she strives to create. As the fractured nature of the roles and personas adopted by each becomes evident, the instabihty of the hierarchised and divided identity each has created is revealed. Cyborg identity, after all, hinges on and is pursued as a matter of survival and choice, but does result in a liniinal state of existence.

In Chapter Two, I will examine how the state of liniinal division existent in The Mark of the Angel and Fault Lines is not merely one of identity but also a state of linguistic hybridity. Both Saffie and Era act as a kind of linguistic

"chimera" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 175), caught between the languages of their childhood and then language of choice as they attempt to reconstitute their existence. The way each functions in these states reveals situations of power and dominance, and enforces her status as Other. However, significantly, it is even as this status is reinforced that each "seize[s] the tools" that identify her as "other"

(Haraway 175) and utilizes them to further her own agenda.

Next, my discussion will focus on how the works themselves, as translations, bridge this same gap - existing as L 'empriente de Vange/Tfie Mark of the Angel and Lignes de faille/Fault Lines. As works translated by the original author, they inhabit a space between pure translation and creative work; self- 10 translation functioning as a self-editing process. As well, the differences between the original and translated text emphasize the impossibility of complete transfer of meaning across idioms. Ultimately, like Saffie and Erra, the works function as lirninal constructs, "joined structures" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 150) that operate at once independently, but also in relation to one another.

In the Third Chapter, discussion will focus on the new space created by cyborg identities and liniinal linguistic relationships. In that space potential exists

- a potential for new creation, for the writing of a new personal narrative, new modes of existence, and new methods of communication. The position of the immigrant, as a cyborg, resting on the space of tenuous connection between the disparate parts of her self-concept, allows for the transcendence of old boundaries and the exploration of new frontiers. Effectively, the migrant/cyborg seeks to write her own stoiy, moving through their culture/language of origin to create a new state of being defined by her multiplicity. For the translingual writer, the situation of ambiguous re-emergence in which this figure exists allows for the establishment of "a new voice" (Kelhnan, Translingual 20) as the writer is freed from the constraints established by an emotional attachment to connotative meaning in language. The author becomes able to explore what Barthes refers to as ecriture, that is, the modes of writing that expresses the manner in which the writer conceptualizes literature as a whole. Consequently, the writer becomes able to play with language as that which is forbidden in the language of origin becomes accessible in the new language, a language with "no personal associations whatsoever" (Huston, Losing 49). For the cyborg/migrant figure, it is 11 in the divisions that both Saffie and Erra establish a new space of existence in which to regenerate and rewrite their own life narratives - a space full of potential that offers the "possibilities for [their] regeneration" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 181).

Thus, it will be rny argument that the position of the immigrant, as a cyborg, allows for the transcending of old boundaries and the exploration of new frontiers. The concept of a translingualisrn, "the phenomenon of authors who write in more than one language or at least in a language other than their primaiy one" (Kelhnan, Switching ix) becomes more than relevant. Effectively, the migrant/cyborg seeks to write her own story, moving through her culture/language of origin to create a new state of being. While she has distanced herself from her past life, unwilling or unable to maintain personal connections, she is able to establish a new space of commonality - transcending cultural, historical and linguistic divisions. 12

Chapter I

Fractured Persons: Identity and the Cyborg

In the "Cyborg Manifesto," Donna Haraway conceptualizes the cyborg as a figure that is "synthesised from fusion of outsider identities" (174). Nancy

Huston, in both Mark of the Angel and Fmdt Lines, explores concepts of migrant identity. Saffie and Erra represent figures uprooted froni their past who are attempting to renegotiate then identities, torn between their past and present. Both create for themselves liminal existences in which they strive to reconstitute their identities, a feat not only attemptable but possible, "because of [their] ability to live on the boundaries, to write without the founding myth or original wholeness"

(Haraway 176). Not only does division and compartmentalization between their personal histories and new lives occur, but within their new lives, the assumed roles and personas each assumes are themselves fractured.

Saffie: Maid, Wife, and Mother

Paris in 1957:

Modern. Unemployment doesn't exist, cars are chrome fitted,

living rooms flow with the grey light of TV, film directors are

making new waves, babies are booming and Picasso is just

commencing his Fall of Icarus [...] for UNESCO - which he 13

promises will depict "peaceful humanity turning its gaze towards a

happy future." (Huston, Mark 1-2)

It is in this vibrant and optimistic atmosphere that the reader encounters Saffie, a recent German immigiant seeking employment as a maid. Saffie operates at odds with her environment: her "utter lack of hurry" (4) and lack of reaction mark her as set apart from the general population.

The characteristic that typifies Saffie in Mark of the Angel is her neutrality, her seeming absence from the world around her. Her movements are described as

"vague, preoccupied" (3) and her appearance is completely non-descript: "[gray] pleated skirt, white long-sleeved blouse, white ankle socks, black leather purse, matching shoes" (4). When she appears at the violinist Raphael's building, seeking employment, she knocks and then does "absolutely nothing other than

[stand] at the door" (4). Her expression looks "painted on" (6), and her detachment and lack of emotion are emphasized by the way in which her "makeup and jewelry clash with the spectacular' neutrality of her features" (7). She is a woman who "can be standing right in front of you, yet somehow not be there" (5).

Saffie is "ontologically divided into two" - two worlds exist within her person. Not only are these worlds unalike, they are "hostile and hierarchized"

(Huston, Losing 14). Perhaps the only point of intersection between these two divisive, non-integrated worlds is Saffie herself. Saffie cannot avoid the confrontation of her past with the present she is attempting to create. As with many migrants or exiles, she: 14

will not be able to avoid the need to live for many years in two

languages, torn between the public dominant language, on the one

hand, [...] and on the other hand the private subjected set of words

that keep the newcomers in touch with the old home and homeland

and with these person they once used to be, the persons they believe

they still might once again become. (Dorfman 30)

An individual in this position is forced to compartmentalize lives, the old (or hidden) and the new (and public) - eternally dividing against and yet for both identities, languages and histories. Thus, Saffie's old life remains concealed as she strives to assimilate herself into a new society. Three roles - maid, wife, and mother - and the way in which Saffie adopts them exemplify the identity disconnect that exists within her person.

The first role Saffie assumes in her attempt to reconstitute her identity is that of a maid. It should be noted that this role certainly falls within what would traditionally be constituted as 'women's space' - that is 'bound up with reproducing the pure space of 'home'" (Gedalof 341). She seems an ideal candidate; she "obeys, wordlessly" (Huston, Mark 7). Once her employment begins, her performance in this role of is flawless (25): Although she has now established a niche in society through her employment, Saffie maintains her state of neutrality - she is defined by a kind of "presence-absence" (Huston, Mark 15).

It is this lack of engagement that reveals a disturbing level of artificiality. This is exemplified by the way in which Saffie is unable to cease cleaning — even after work hours, even outside of Raphael's apartment: 15

She [...] rummages around under the sink, finds a scrubbing brash

and some Ajax, a pail and a rag, and goes back up to the seventh

floor to clean the squat-down toilets. Holding her breath and

gritting her teeth, she furiously scrubs at the excrements of a dozen

strangers [...]. She has no choice. She can't do otherwise. (23)

It is as if she is not entirely human: Saffie functions effectively as if she were an automaton, literally as if she were a cyborg — truly "simultaneously animal and machine" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 149). This is further emphasized when Saffie does not sleep at night - rather she "stares at the ceiling" (Huston, Mark 23), almost as if she has powered-down to prepare for the next day.

Saffie's assumption of this role is not a passive act; she is, after all, attempting to reconstitute her own identity on her own terms. She applies for the position, accepts it, and continues to perform her function efficiently eveiy day.

Her enactment of this role emphasizes the separation she has created from her past, even that she has a past at all — she has left Germany, "[b]oth her parents are dead and she's severed all ties with her brothers and sisters" (23). She, like Haraway's cyborg "does not expect its father to save it" or "dream of community on the model of the organic family" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 151). She has removed herself from her story of origin, and now moves through Paris "as if she were invisible - a ghost" (13). Saffie seeks to establish a kind of existence and the invisibility of her new role suits her agenda.

Saffie's role transfoiins when Raphael, who finds her strangeness intoxicating, and is "excited by the singularity of the situation" (Huston, Mark 19), 16

feels an emotional tie and expresses his desire by raping her (27). While Saffie's

silence appears to signal consent to Raphael, and her lack of resistance is

interpreted as the "assimilation of the category woman with nature, passivity, and

materiality, and its infeiiorized relation to that of man" (Cloiigh 20), her usual lack

of response emphasizes a complete absence from the situation. A sexual act is to

be performed on her, but not with her. "She freezes," we are told, "like someone

who knows what's in store for her. [...] As usual, scarcely any differently than usual, her body and her entire being seem to be in a state of suspended animation"

(26). When intercourse occurs again, later, the two "don't make love with each

other — no far from it; Raphael makes love to Saffie" (29). Although this is a role

imposed upon her, Saffie does not resist or reject the change from maid to sexual

object.

Raphael, feeling a deeper emotional connection to Saffie than anticipated,

proposes marriage. Saffie accepts in such a way that re-emphasizes the emotional

disconnect that exists in her current life. Her response is the completely

ambivalent "That's okay with me" (30). Saffie's role in her day to day life does

not alter greatly; her uniform goes, but "she continues to do housework with the

same perfectionism and the same absent smile on her face" (34). She does not

abandon her maid-role, but is given the additional role of sexual-object/fiancee.

She still cleans compulsively, she still "stares at the ceiling" (39) at night, and if

she sleeps, "sleeps fitfully" (39). This is not to say that Raphael desires her to

continue in her maid-role; in fact, he finds Saffie's diligence "a bit frightening"

(34). Raphael's anxiety towards Saffie's actions emphasizes that she is not a 17 merely a victim; her body is a "[map] of power and identity" (Haraway. "Cyborg"

180). Cyborgs, after all, are not, as Haraway emphasizes, "innocent" (180),

Saffie's continued automatic perfonnance becomes a means by which she gains power over her personal circumstance.

Saffie's acceptance of Raphael's proposal allows her to further her own identity agenda - that is, the elimination of her past identity. Her wedding dress, a

"black vainp gerup" (35), symbolizes the death of her past identity. Her goal is realized, but even matrimony initially does not affect appear to affect Saffie's detachment in the slightest — she does not "express one whit more feeling that

[she] did before she was married" (37). She carefully attempts to maintains the segregation she has established between her emotions and her everyday life.

The one marriage-related event that evokes a response from Saffie, and indicated a abandonment of her state of absence, is her ability to eradicate all traces of her German name:

The day after the ceremony, her new family record book in hand,

she goes to the West German embassy [...] and requests a new

passport. [...] [S]he receives the document within forty-eight hours.

Her old passport is given back to her with one corner snipped off;

she immediately tears it to pieces and shoves it into the garbage

can. Her father's name, the family name she bore for the first

twenty years of her existence, has been obliterated once and for all.

(38) 18

While Saffie's marriage allows her to reconstruct her identity and eliminate visible signs of her past, it also emphasizes that her existence represents a compromise between worlds "ambiguously natural and crafted" (Haraway 149). That is, Saffie is attempting to reconstitute her identity on her own terms, without reference to personal or political history. However, her marriage also exposes her to a world beyond that she has drafted for herself. Hortense Trala-Lepage, Raphael's mother, cannot forget recent historical events as easily as Raphael, or dispose of the past as

easily as Saffie. Saffie represents part of the "abominable regime" (33) - Nazi

Germany. When Raphael reveals his intention to many Saffie, Hortense expresses her objection by "categorically and definitively refusefing] to meet her daughter-

in-law" (34). Hortense perceives the union of Raphael and Saffie as "monstrous

and illegitimate" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 154). The cyborg is exposed - Saffie can no longer move through larger society as a being that "doesn't attract people's

attention...a ghost" (13), although her mother-in-law does not advertise her son's

disadvantageous union. Her dual existence has been recognized, and has been

identified as potentially threatening.

Soon after her marriage, another role transition occurs for Saffie — again, in

circumstances in giving her no choice. This latest change in role, expectant mother, and Saffie's consequent status, do not have the advantageous quahties that

the previous transformations held. While performing as maid and acting as wife

allow her both a degree of invisibility in French Society and the chance to reconstruct her identity on her own terms, Saffie's pregnancy is an unwelcome

surprise. This new role of mother is not one she is desirous of assuming. 19

Cyborgs, after all, are concerned with "regeneration and are suspicious of the reproductive matrix and of most birthing" (Haraway 181). For Saffie, pregnancy represents a return to the family unit, a deeper tie that she is unprepared and unwilling to deal with.

Raphael is convinced that motherhood and the consequent reinforcement of the "middle-class heterosexual domestic space" (Michie 62) will save Saffie and be the "brilliant solution to all of Saffie's problems" (Huston, Mark 42). Saffie. however, cannot accept this alteration of her status and attempts to terminate her pregnancy (43). When these efforts are not successful, Saffie pursues more drastic measures and tries to abort her pregnancy using a knitting needle. This abortion effort is unsuccessful as well: "Raphael's cheeks are wet. Saffie's are dry. Her attempt has failed. The child inside her is still alive. She'll be a mother whether she likes it or not" (45). Saffie is unable to rid herself of her unwanted burden and

"day after day, the thing grows" (46). The specific reference to the fetus as 'thing' emphasizes Saffie's rejection of her pregnancy, and the inherent role transition.

She becomes a kind of monstrous incubator - unable to rid herself of the child and not capable of nurturing it: "deprived of nourishment, the child starts feeding on its mother's bones. Saffie's already lacklustre beauty vanishes altogether - the flesh melts away from her face, revealing the outlines of her skull; the circles under her eyes deepen and darken, her gums bleed; her strength deserts her" (49). Her role as mother enforced, Saffie has no choice in this aspect of her future identity; the

"mother's autonomy is entirely absent" (Michie 63). While both her willingness, reflected in her adverse physical reaction to the pregnancy, is lacking, she is 20 constrained by the "web of power" and the "reinforced (simulated) nuclear family"

(Haraway 170) in which she finds herself.

Implying that her rejection of motherhood may be linked to her rejection of her own childhood, as her pregnancy progresses, the shell Saffie keeps around her emotions "like an oyster around its pearl" (Huston, Mark 48) begins to fracture.

Her silent immobility during the night is broken - an alarm clock goes off and

"Saffie stalls to scream, thrashing about in bed with her eyes tightly closed. [...]-

a sonorous, high-pitched scream, the scream of a little girl" (40). On another

occasion, when Raphael touches her stuffed poodle paw, the one remnant of her

old life she has retained, she "[leaps] at him in a fury" (50), displaying the most

emotion Raphael has seen her express. Saffie's emotional reaction emphasizes the

instability of the segregation attempted between Saffie's past and present, the new

identity she attempts to create is revealed as unstable.

When the infant is born, "it's as if the child doesn't exist for her" (64).

Saffie, who cannot identity with her son "just sits there, not looking at him, staling

into the void, until Emil begins to whimper" (64). When Raphael leaves for a

concert tour, Saffie is faced with caring for the child on her own - but "Mutti is

over and so is Muttersprachem both have been suspended, once and for all" (67).

Saffie does not know how to operate as a French mother. Her reference to motherhood is tied up with the past she has sought to actively to ehminate - a past which seems to be emerging in spite of her efforts to suppress it.

Saffie's transition through her various roles signifies the way in which she

functions as an "image of both imagination and material reality" (Haraway 150). 21

Saffie anives in Paris and attempts to reconstitute her existence through a strategy of assimilation and transformation. Each role she assumes — maid, sexual- object/wife, mother — highlights the division in her identity, the "disassembled and reassembled" (Haraway 163) existence that Saffie has created for herself, and emphasizes the emotional disconnection she has tries to maintain in her current

'new' life. Throughout her performance of these roles, the instability of this crafted existence becomes evident - the eliminated past resurfaces in nightmares, violent outbursts, and most of all, memories, all reminders of a nationally guilty past.

Erra: Multiple Personas

While Erra, in Fault Lines, does not present the same kind of apparent emotionless absence that characterizes Saffie at the beginning of Mark of the

Angel, she does undergo similar role transformations in her attempt to synthesize and regenerate her own cyborg identity. These transformations do not occur so much through the assumption of various roles as through the assumption of a number of different personas. This is emphasized by a family tree in which the instability of the cental character's identity is highlighted. In this Erra's many identities and the names associated with them come to the forefront immediately:

"G.G = Erra = Klarysa = Kristina" (Huston, Fault ix). Like Saffie, Erra undergoes the "struggle to reconcile the different pieces of the identity puzzle" (de

Courtivron 2). This process is revealed in reverse-chronological order, as the 22 reader first encounters Erra in her old age and is gradually introduced to the personas she has adopted over the course of her life.

The fractured identity that is revealed emphasizes the radical break that occuis between the then and now. As Huston comments in Losing North, "You've got one life here, and another there - with everything the word life implies: codes deciphered and mastered; systems of reference learned; the incredible complexity of the everyday; possibly even a different language, which is a whole world unto itself (10). The here and there are distinct and deliberately, but not inevitably, separated. The there is set aside when she is present in the here: all the common cultural elements that make up what a childhood in a specific geographic and cultural region have an alternate meaning in the new culture and region of choice.

In the here, elements from the there are suppressed, denied, even though as Huston further comments: "you tell yourself it doesn't really matter because you're convinced that you preserve it all inside of you somewhere deep within your heart, or your memory, and that, even if you never talk about it, you can never lose it"

(Losing 11). Similarly, in the there, the here is suppressed; the family, and elements of a childhood, of the past are not of interest in life now, "It's too complicated, it's not worth the effort" (Losing 11). The result of this division for

Erra is a kind of self-mutilation, self-censorship. She is never able to relate all that she is; she must communicate either using her childhood reference frame or that of her adult life. However, three threads bind her personas together: the birthmark on her arm that is passed down through her family; music, her love of song; and 23

Lute/lute — a mysterious figure that accompanies Erra throughout her many

transformations.

The five names associated with Erra — G.G, Erra, Krissy-Kristina, Kristi-

Kristina and Klarysa — are the means by which she recognizes her own self and is recognized by others. While the transitions between these personas, and the resultant name changes, emphasize her ability to transform herself, they also represent the highly fractured and unstable nature of her identity.

The first of Erra's personas that the reader encounters is that of G.G., great-

grandmother of Sol, who makes her home in New York City. Sol, like Erra and all

of her descendants, has a distinctive birthmark. Erra has "always had a special

feeling about [their] moles, they've been a secret connection" (Huston, Fault 26), representing a family tie. G.G. feels so close to her mole that she has even named

it; it is called Lute. Sol's will be removed; severing the link that exists between

G.G. and her progeny - a fact that deeply distresses Erra.

In spite of the importance G.G. places on this physical manifestation of

family connection, her personal history remains hidden from her family, and she is

estranged from close family members. What is known of her past is vague; when

Sol inquires as to why she has no teeth, his mother responds that "it's because she was malnourished as a child.. .1 think she was in a refugee camp or

something.. .She doesn't much like to talk about it" (34). What her family does know is that her past is somehow connected to Germany as one of the "two hundred thousand eastern European children kidnapped by Nazis in the 1940's" 24

(52). Anything more than that remains hidden, providing evidence of G.G.'s dissociation from past history and identity.

Her family pushes her to reconnect with her estranged sister Greta; but Erra resists. She is particularly disconnected from the driving force behind this reconciliation, her daughter Sadie, whom she "hasn't even seen., .in fifteen years"

(57). Any person that represents a connection with her past has been put aside. As well, although Erra has a successful international singing career, Germany is the

"only country in Europe where she never once gave a concert" (57). G.G is not interested in reengaging with the past she has striven to eliminate from her conciousness.

G.G. returns to Germany, eventually and inexplicably convinced by her daughter, but is deeply affected by the return. She is confronted with her past, but refuses to interact with it on anything but her own terms stating, "Today

.. .communication will be in English" (70). Yet by returning to her childhood home, she is forced to acknowledge that "identity cannot simply be about escape"

(Stevenson 101), the past cannot be eliminated, and confrontation is inevitable.

This is re-ernphasized when Greta and G.G. reengage in a childhood conflict: "I can't believe my eyes: the two old women are fighting over a doll! G.G. is hugging it in her arms - a stupid old doll in a red velvet dress - and her face is twisted with rage. 'She's mine!' she hisses. 'Always she was mine. But apart from that - even if she hadn't been mine - you promised, Greta! '"(76). The doll, and the conflict regarding its ownership, reveals a past previously forgotten. 25

Whatever else is known about her past, this revelation of a family interaction

"contains the seed of [G.G.'s] most intimate identity" (Dorfrnan 30).

Erra, G.G.'s younger incarnation, seems to be the embodiment of her attempt to escape from the past. She is "a famous singer" (90) and an unlikely grandmother who is "only forty-four years old and looks younger because she's thin and lithe and lively" (91). Erra truly seems to be the complete embodiment of

Haraway's "condensed image of both imagination and material reality" (Haraway

150) - she seems herself almost a fantastical creatine, a "weightless fairy," whose singing is "totally eerie and unique" (91), and whose music is accompanied by a lute that "may be invisible, but he's there, he's the only one who's really there"

(110). Her crafted reality has "no origin story" (Haraway 150), or at least no origin story that will be revealed or discussed. Like Saffie, Ena is confronted with the clash between her hidden past and constructed present.

Just as Ena represents herself as otherworldly on stage, in life, she functions with a level of disconnection from the larger outside world. According to her daughter, she operates as "a reverse ostrich" (91), in that she is unwilling or unable to deal with unpleasant encounters or her past. While Sadie feels the discovery of her mother's past is necessary and important for understanding both herself and her parent, Erra resents her daughter for her "[s]trange profession.. .Meddling in other people's lives" (106). She then distances herself from Sadie as the latter uncovers more about her mother's past. Erra, Sadie learns, was part of the Nazi initiative that sought to "purify the whole of the German 26 nation" through the deliberate breeding and integration of individuals of "the type

of the Nordic German" (qtd. in Rauschining, 95) - a Lebensborn baby.

Following this discovery, delving into her mother's past becomes an

obsession for Sadie. While Erra has severed herself from her past, her daughter's

search for connection takes over all aspects of her life, including her marriage, a

situation emphasized when her husband exclaims: "Listen Sadie, of course this is

all very fascinating, but I didn't marry your ancestors, I married vow and I sure wish I could spend some time with you once and a while'" (111). Sadie's

reaction, as well as the way her discovery affects her life, confronts Erra's fairy

world and "assails theories of identity that seek to privilege a theoretically

autonomous individual whose identity remains untouched in any way by either

.. .embodied experience or.. .interaction with [her] environment" (Stevenson 88).

Erra may attempt to disconnect herself from her personal history, but cannot avoid the impact her life choices and past have upon her progeny. However much she may wish to construct herself as an entirely autonomous individual, she cannot

avoid "joint kinship" (Haraway 154). The moles, the "identical round birthmarks"

(91), emphasize her connectedness to her biological family; they share the same

genetic code.

Before Erra emerged publicly, there was Kristina, who lives a life of a

carefree young artist - building her singing career. Krissy, as she is called by her

artistic social circle, exists at odds with the repressive atmosphere present in her

adoptive parents' house, an environment defined by the word "discipline" (158).

The reader sees Krissy through her daughter's eyes and narration. Sadie dreams of 27 joining her mother's carefree existence: '"I put the good-little-girl mask back on because if I'm nice and obedient and do everything right Mommy will take me to live with her and say 'It was just a game, darling, I was just testing your strength

of character, now you've passed the test with flying colours and we can live together at last!'" (158). The contrast between Krissy and Sadie's home

environment (fraught with emotional distance and repression) is emphasized

"because of [Krissy's] smile, because of her blue eyes and her readiness and her

eagerness, she's always completely where she is" (179). To Sadie, her mother is a

drearn come to life, a woman who has moved beyond her repressive upbringing

and unplanned pregnancy to pursue her dream of being a singer (162-62).

However, once she goes to live with her mother, Sadie realizes her mother's life is not only built on thwarting the social mores of her home

atmosphere; it is based upon fabrication and illusion. When Kiissy marries Peter,

it is no tine wedding: "I'm not sure I understand a hell of a lot about love"

(Huston, Fault 189). Rather, it is a theatrical show put on for the benefit of

Kristina's adoptive family:

"Your mom told me it was theatre," [Peter] whispers back. "We're

doing this play about a wedding, you see? Everyone's got a role to

play. [...] It didn't take me long to memorize my lines." [...] He

walks slowly up to the altar and, a moment later, the actor who is

playing the minister pronounces my mother and Peter Silbermann

man and wife. (Huston, Fault 206) 28

A fictional world, "reconstructing the boundaries of daily life" (Haiaway 181), has been established.

A marked degree self-orientation becomes apparent for Kristina, as she exists in the same cyborg state as Saffie, is concerned with the "possibilities for

[her] reconstitution" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 181), not the care of her progeny. This becomes evident through her lack of concern over the abuse her daughter receives at the hands of her piano teacher (Huston, Fault 191). Not only has Krissy detached herself physically from family connections, but she has removed herself

emotionally as well. She has established a fantasy world for herself. She has a perfect nuclear family. She is "unique, an inventor, a genius, a goddess of pure

song" (185) and "when people talk to [her] they have a special tone of voice as if they [are] in awe of her" (194). Kristy establishes not only a new identity, but a

support structure that reinforces her self-construction.

However, this illusion world and her persona are revealed as unstable when

a man who calls himself Lute appears at the door of the New York apartment she

shaies with Sadie and Peter. The normally carefree Krissy freezes, "She drops her

eyes and says Lute., .in a low voice.. .and her right hand [presses] her birthmark as

if she were about to sing. 'Lute.. .1 can't believe it...'" (225). The invisible

instrument that has accompanied Erra throughout her career, her birthmark's namesake, is revealed in the person of this strange, somewhat frightening man.

Sadie notices a change immediately — it's as if she has become "a different person" (225), one unrecognizable to her daughter. Krissy and the stranger

immediately react to each other in a visceral, intense manner, "crying and laughing 29

and breathing hard and looking at each other" (226). The fragile "construction of

interpersonal connections and alliances" (Stevenson 89) Krissy has established with her daughter, Peter, and the rest of her social circle is shattered. Kristina is

exposed as a stranger in her own artificial world.

The origin of the intense connection between Lute and Erra is revealed in

the first of her incarnations - Kristi, a child glowing up in Gennany duiing World

War II in a seemingly idyllic setting: "Greta and I beg Mama to let us ride on the

carousel in the park, pleading and cajoling and insisting until she relents although we can't afford it she says" (235). It is in this warm family environment that

Kristi learns to sing: "Grandpa is teaching me to sing harmony so that the

Christmas carols will be even more beautiful that usual" (Huston 236). Even as a

child, song is her ovenvhelrning passion — "when I sing it's like the lava

overflowing" (240). Seeds of doubt regarding Kristi's position in the family

structure are planted when Greta, her older sister, during a conflict over a doll (the

same doll over which G.G and Greta fight when they are reunited in old age)

taunts Kristi by saying that she is adopted: '"Mama and Papa aren't your parents.

Grandma and Grandpa aren't your grandparents. None of us are any relation to

you. You didn't come out of Mama's tummy the way Lothar and I did, you've got

another mother somewhere but she didn't want you. You're adopted""'(256). She

is devastated by her sister's revelation. Moreover, her mole is unique in the

family; Kristi feels even more isolated — "WJio gave me my birthmark''' (262).

When her Grandfather comments that Kristi is "'the only one in the family with perfect pitch'", she cannot help but wonder, "Who gave me my voice?" (263). 30

Kristi begins to feels separated from her family, and her feeling of dislocation escalates when Johann is adopted. She instantly forms a connection with him. They are both strangers to this family: " We are the orphans. I am song and he is silence" (266). Johann reveals to Kristi that he is not, in fact, adopted, but that he was taken forcibly from his real family and, furthermore, that Johann is not even his real name: '"Not Johan: Janek. Not German: Polish. Not adopted: stolen. My parents are alive, they live in Szczecin. I am stolen. And so, little phoney-Kristina, are you'" (270). Kristi's concept of identity begins to unravel, and Kristi and Janek identify each other as family. If she is not truly Kristi — if she, like Janek, has been stolen — she has another name, one given to her by parents who love her. Kristi hypothesises a new reality, in which she too is Pohsh, and has a loving family waiting for her return: "Does Matka have as warm a heart as Mama? Will I recognize her? She'll recognize me from my birthmark. She'll take one look at the inside of my left ami and cry out, rolling her r's the way Janek does:' 'Krystyna! Krystyna! At last! My darling Krystyna!' and crush me to her chest and weep for joy" (282).

This hypothetical life is shattered when, at the end of the war, Miss Mulyk arrives to remove both Kristi and Janek. No loving Polish family will await Kristi;

Miss Mulyk informs her, "I'm quite certain that you're Ukrainian [...] and that your real name is Klarysa" (294). Kristi is now isolated even from Janek; they may have the shared experience of being stolen children, but the fantasy of then- shared Pohsh ancestry has been destroyed. She is now more than ever a stranger to her German self. Perhaps more traumatically, she is denied the opportunity to 31

reconnect with her birth family or the family-based identity she so craves when

Miss Mulyk decides not to return Kristi to her birth family: '"But what about her

mother's letter'...'The Ukraine is being taken over by the Reds!'...'But the

letter...'...'That letter never existed, okay? I refuse to send Klarysa to the Reds!'"

(302). Not only is Kristi denied the opportunity to discover who Klarysa is, she is

taught Enghsh, and will be sent to Canada to be raised by a Ukrainian family - the

Kryswatys.

Janek, discovering that his family is dead, decides to align himself once

more with Kristi. Together they choose new names — Lute and Erra — to represent

then 'true selves', their feeling of kinship, and the identities they will construct:

"We know who we are and there's nothing they can do and right this minute we 're

going to invent real names for ourselves and that's who we'll be from now on"

(303). Lute promises Erra he will "find [her] by her singing" (304) and swears on

her birthmark to love her "and be with her forever" (304). Kristi must attempt to

restructure her identity "synthesized from fusions of outsider identities" (Haraway

174) as she belongs nowhere. She now identifies her other personas as being just

that: personas - her concept of self is bound up in her connection to Lute, with a

"[bond] that [ties] individuals to one another" (Stevenson 101) to the exclusion of

all other relationships.

The lirninal nature of cyborg identity is emphasized as Fault Lines

progresses and the myriad identities and personas Erra assumes are revealed.

G.G., upon returning to Germany, reverts to the pursuit of a childhood squabble

over a doll. Erra, in her unwillingness to share her connection to her past with her 32 daughter, reveals an emotional disconnect from her present and highlights its constructed nature as a fairy-world. The Krissy persona establishes this emotional distance with her lack of concern for her daughter's well-being. Further fragmentation occurs when Lute appears and the existence she has carefully constructed is destabilized. The way in which Kristi copes with her traumatic divisions from her families - of origin, adoptive, and of choice - reveals the way in which cyborg identity can be foiined and pursued as a matter of decision and survival.

Both Saffie and Erra exhibit a degree of emotional detachment from the lives they craft. Saffie functions in an almost machine-like manner, exhibiting little to no reaction to the world in which she lives. When she does display emotion, her reaction is violent in nature and reveals the instability of the new life

Saffie is attempting to create for herself. Each role she assumes emphasizes this liminal existence, as well as the divisions Saffie deliberately attempts to create between her past and her present. Erra's emotional detachment is revealed through her lack of connection to family members, and her deliberate agenda of withdrawal from the world around her. Each persona she assumes reveals yet another fracturing of her identity; although she may have constructed Erra to be a representation of her 'true self, ultimately the persona functions in accordance with her agenda to escape past trauma. She maintains connection to Lute throughout her life, which allows her to further her agenda of identity recreation and the establishment of a persona removed from the world around her. Both cyborg figures attempt to fuse new lives and new identities from disparate parts. 33

Each exists in a state of disconnection, where past and present concepts of self come into direct confrontation with each other. 34

Chapter II

Caught between Languages: Speech, Separation and Translation

Haraway's cyborg does not exist only in a state of divided identity, a liminal existence composed of many disparate parts. She also exists in a state of linguistic hybridity, caught between languages and belonging to no one particular idiom. The language of the cyborg is "self-consciously spliced, a chimera"

(Haraway, "Cyborg" 175). Saffie and Erra, and the works within which they exist, are poised upon a fictitious divide, a linguistically dual space.

The separation Saffie experiences becomes evident as she transitions through various roles - maid, wife, and mother. As well, in each of the roles she assumes, as part of her agenda to synthesise a new identity, she is caught between speaking and silence. The ways she functions in these states reveal situations of power and dominance, and result in the power structure being turned upon itself and subverted. Her Other-ness, reinforced by her linguistic difference, makes her both at once threatened by and threatening to the surrounding culture.

Erra exists in a state dissociated from language. Her identification, as

Kristi, with the German language is shattered upon the discovery of her abduction and adoption. The possibility of forming connections to new languages is thwarted as her relationships with people and concepts of personal history are disrupted. Ultimately, she exists in a state of disconnectedness from language; finding herself in a place between cultures - those of her childhood, which formed 35 her emotional and psychological impressions of the world, and that of her adulthood, which shapes the culture and world of her chosen present and future.

The Mark of the Angel and Fault Lines themselves function within this liminal space; caught between languages, they are translations. As works translated by the author into the second language, they exist in a hybrid state between pure tianslation and creative work. The differences between the original and translated texts highlight the impossibility of the complete transfer of meaning through translation and emphasize the works operation as joined structures. Even as Saffie's and Erra's states of linguistic instability are exposed,

Huston's works evoke ambiguous linguistic states of being, functioning as linked entities and challenging dualisms of translator and translated.

Silence and Speech

Saffie not only relocates herself geographically but also linguistically, and as such, lives in translation. She exists in a situation of bilingualism, but not that of a person born and raised speaking more than one tongue. Rather, she is raised in one language and, through circumstance, must learn and communicate in another. This kind of bilingual individual cannot have the same attachment to connotative meaning in the second tongue as the native speaker. The 'false' bilingual, as termed by Huston, will never truly master the second language. As

Huston asserts, "You communicate with others using either child or the adult part of yourself. Never both" (Losing 12). Care must be taken at all times, lest the 36 unthinking tongue betray the speaker. The bilingual becomes trapped between silence and speech.

This space of linguistic existence described above, which characterizes

Saffie's speech, is representative of the gap between the here and the there, the language of childhood and the language of adulthood: "this moment of impasse between language and silence serves as an analogue for the presence of another language in a monolingual [...] language text purporting to represent a multilingual life" (Lim 44). Through the states of silence and speech, she is exoticised and alienated simultaneously.

One of the traits that initially attracts Raphael to Saffie is one aspect of her foreignness: "Raphael had noticed she had an accent. He couldn't have said fiom what country, but her French seemed a bit shaky. That was actually an asset, as far as he was concerned. The last thing he wanted was a chatterbox" (Huston,

Mark 6). While his assumption of her silence may be presumptive, her accent becomes the marker of her state of not belonging - Saffie will always be exposed as un-French by "an oddly mistranslated word or an accent placed on the wrong syllable" (de Courtivron 163). This others Saffie, and Raphael her state of not- belonging position him in a situation of power. The demands he plans to place upon Saffie expose his intent to dominate, evidenced by the stringent terms of employment he requires she adhere to (6).

Saffie is able to respond to Raphael only in the most basic of terms, which emphasizes her alien nature. To accept Raphael's offer of employment, "she nods her head" (Huston, Mark 11), and to acknowledge that she will return with her 37 belongings, "Not many things. Two suitcases only. I go get them now?" (11).

New to France, Saffie cannot help but "[slip] into a syntax or phrasing that isn't

[French]" (Everett 104). Her inability to communicate perfectly becomes fascinating for Raphael. The way in which she cannot help "fuming a sentence"

(Everett 104) and her lack of vocabulary incite Raphael's desire: '"Have you a...' she says. 'A?...' She gestures to make up for the missing word. Raphael takes a clean apron from a drawer and hands it to her, repressing the incongruous impulse to tie it around her waist. 'Apron,' he murmurs. 'It's called an apron.' 'Yes/ says Saffie. 'Apron. I was thinking napkin. Apron. I was confusing'" (18). She becomes the exciting foreign element in an otherwise normal daily routine.

While Saffie's initial silence and lack of linguistic ability create desire in

Raphael, her choice to speak, her words, function in almost the same manner.

Initially, her speech and its contrast to her silence increase Raphael's fascination:

"Good Lord, her voice. He hadn't noticed it before. A devastatingly fragile voice. It paralyzes liim" (10). Her phrases are an echo of Raphael's: "'So, does that sound all right? [...] That sounds all right'" (16). Even Saffie's entirely ambivalent response to Raphael's marriage proposal is an echo of words he has said, "the expression he taught her on the day they first met" (Huston, Mark 30).

As long as Saffie's responses indicate acquiescence, or mimic acceptable utterances, they reinforce Raphael's position of authority, and perpetuate his vision of Saffie as the exoticized Other. Saffie, with her lack of linguistic capability, does not speak often. When she does speak, her voice functions to reinforce the existing power structure just as her sentences echo Raphael's earlier 38 vocalizations. Effectively, even when Saffie speaks, it is as though she is silenced. She is restricted in what she can express verbally, her words lack meaning, and Raphael "venerates her silence" (19), her submission.

However, as their relationship progresses, Saffie's silence loses some of its initial appeal. Saffie utilizes her speech as a tool to assert her agency. To choose to speak or not is, after all, an act of power in itself: "silence, as symbolic action, is as expressing and signifying as any speech act, and narrators may be hurt or may hurry others into silence as much as they may be driven into speech or rhetoric" (Lim 44). Her silence becomes a warning to Raphael: "Saffie's green eyes throw out flames at him, telling him: You 're breaking the mles, coming too close" (Huston, Mark 56). Saffie utilizes her silence as a powerful mechanism to maintain her emotional disconnection as she works to suppress her past. Saffie's silence and lack of linguistic acumen in the French idiom become weapons used to reinforce her emotional distance in her campaign to synthesize a new identity.

With increased assimilation of the French language, Saffie wields the new power she possesses. Raphael cannot stand against her; when he attempts to send their son Emil, Saffie's son, away to school, she objects: '"But I don't want him to go to school!'... 'I can't go walking alone in Paris,'... 'You know.. .men in the streets.. .they respect mothers, but...Besides, it does me so much good for my health... .And we learn lots of things you know.. .about the history of

France.. .and.. .and trees.. .It's even better than school!'" (Huston, Mark 174).

While Raphael recognizes this response as manipulative, he gives in to her request. Saffie has found her voice, and she has, "for once, [...] forcefully 39 expressed a wish for something" (174). Saffie has discovered the power inherent in her speech; she has "seized the tools to mark the world that mark [her] as other" (Haraway 175).

However, as Saffie finds her voice, the reader becomes aware that the situation of linguistic divergence in which Saffie exists does not disappear.

German, the language of the Nazis, the language of her childhood, is forbidden.

The language of her present is French, and when she speaks, her phrases are still marked by idiosyncratic syntactical eixors — the evidence of her lack of linguistic acumen which results in the constant reaffirmation of her foreignness.

Saffie exists in a lirninal space poised between silence and speech, since her silence at once exoticizes and others her in her new environment. It then becomes her line of defence against emotional interaction, a refusal to interact on a truly intimate level with Raphael. Her speech, with its accent and imperfections, constantly marks her as foreign. Furthennore, it acts as an allurement as long as she functions within a conversational mode that either reinforces Raphael's dominance of a situation or, as her ability with the French language increases, leads him to believe in the possibility of an emotional connection forming with Saffie. Her voice becomes a tool through which she can rewrite the narrative of her life and facilitate the construction of the existence she desires; Saffie finds power in her voice and in her ability to influence the world in which she lives. 40

Separated from Language

Erra, unlike Saffie, is not positioned between silence and speech. Like

Saffie, Erra experiences separation from specific avenues of communication, that is, from the languages themselves. As she transitions through her various personas, she interacts with multiple tongues. It is her connection to these languages, and her experiences with them, that exemplify the unstable linguistic state in which she exists.

Erra, as Kristi, grows up speaking German. In this language, she learns to sing, her grandfather teaching her Christinas carols, and it is in this language that she memorizes the poems of Strnwwelpeter. "I recite the poems over and over again, I invent tunes for them and sing them to myself (Huston, Fault 246). Her earliest education takes place in German when her sister Greta teaches Kristi what she will learn in school: "As soon as the twelve days of Christmas are over and school stalls up again she shares her homework with me, guides nay hand to help it form cursive letters, instructs me in the heroic deeds of our Teutonic past, drills me in fractions and percentages. I gobble up her knowledge, digest it, shoot the answers back at her" (Huston 258). German is the language of her earliest experience, the language of family and cultural connection.

However, once Kristi discovers her role as a Lebensborn baby and aligns herself with Janek against her adoptive family, the German language becomes, for her, tainted. Just as the Nazis stole Kristi from her family, in turn, the discovery 41 of this abduction in effect steals the German language from Erra. It becomes the language of kidnappers and betrayal; therefore, she rejects it. Gerda Lerner comments on this state of betrayal and rejection, "The Nazis robbed me of my mother tongue, but the rest of the separation, of the violent severing of culture, was my own choice" ("Living" 286). Like Lemer, Erra's childhood linguistic frame of reference is tainted, and she chooses to dissociate herself from the language of her earliest memory.

Kristi/Erra rejects her adoptive culture and language and identifies with

Polish as a possible native language as a result of her connection to Janek. He teaches Kristi Polish, and she learns new words for the most important concepts in her life: "Mother is matka, father is ojciec, brother is brat, sister is siostra, I love you is kocham was, dream is sen and song is s'piew" (271). Janek reveals that her true name "is spelled with a y's instead of with i's, Krystyna or maybe

Krystka, and when he pronounces it he rolls the r" (271). Even as Kiisti distances herself from the German language, and invests her concept of identity as being

Polish, she and Janek must acknowledge that their speaking Polish is forbidden - they are supposed to act as German children. For Janek and Kristi, this cultural reassignment is perceived as mutilation: "I stopped speaking Polish. They tore my tongue out by the roots" (276). It must be their secret language.

When Kiisti is informed that she is not, in fact, Polish, but Ukrainian, she experiences the death of the rich fantasy world she crafted about her presumed nationality and she experiences the a further division from the Polish language that she experienced with German upon the discovery of her adoption. While the 42 strong connection Kiisti is able to fomi with the Polish language results from her closeness to Janek, her relationship to Ukrainian is much more ambivalent. Kiisti has no concept of what it is to be Ukrainian: "Where and what is Ukrainia?"

(294). The Ukrainian language represents a complete unknown. Not only is the language she has spoken since she could talk not "her own", neither is the language on which she builds her fantasy and expectations.

Perhaps even more traurnatically, Kiisti is denied the experience of discovering exactly how this new tongue impacts her identity and life. Rather, she will be relocated to Canada and adopted once again into yet another family and culture. Kiisti, now Erra, experiences yet another linguistic transition; she is taught English, the language of her new home and future. To this language, she has little emotional tie - there is nothing of family, past, or history.

When Erra and Janek reunite, many years later in New York, they attempt to communicate in German. Sadie relates her mother's unusually emotional reaction: "Mommy starts crying.. .then she starts laughing at the same time but what's more upsetting than anything else is that every word she says is in a language I've never heard her speak before. It could be Yiddish or German, they speak by bits and snatches between crying and laughing and breathing hard and looking at each other" (226). Ironically, in spite of her rejection of the German language as the language of betrayal, ultimately it is the one medium through which Erra can try to communicate with the person with whom she maintains her strongest emotional attachment. Her reversion to German reveals the way in which non-use of a language results in an inability to communicate effectively 43

(229). The separation Eixa creates for herself from the German language hampers her ability to communicate as she wishes with the most important figure in her life.

Huston relates this experience of division from the tongue of origin in

Losing North:

What? You call that your mother tongue! Have you seen the state

it's in? I don't believe it! You 've got an accent! You kept

slipping French words into your speech! This is ridiculous! Stop

putting on airs! You're just trying to impress us with your

Parisianism! Forget it! We won't be taken in! [...] How dare you

make mistakes? How dare you cast around for the right word?

You've got all the words you need, you drank them down with

your mother's milk, how dare you act as is if you'd forgotten

them? (28)

The bilingual exile's acumen in her mother tongue gradually is distanced - she, in the there, becomes foreign to her the languages childhood, her family, and her history.

She is twice othered. Isabelle de Courtivron refers to this phenomenon as being like a linguistic transvestite, with the Other always revealed by the errors she now makes utilizing her first language (163). One cannot return to the mother tongue one once possessed, since it has been changed by years of living elsewhere in another language. It is a matter of lived experience, but, as Lerner comments, one assumes it can be returned to. However, language mastery evolves; it is not 44

"a dead body of knowledge" (Lemer, "Living" 275). It must be used if one wishes to remain adequate in its use.

Perhaps this inadequacy is the reason that, upon returning to Germany to reconcile with her sister, Erra declares, "communication will be in English"

(Huston, Fault 70). English is the language that holds no emotional connection for Erra; while speaking in Gennan may result in the dangerous exposure of the personas she has constructed to protect herself. This possibility becomes a reality when Greta speaks to her in German and Erra, althougli maintaining her use of the

English language, reverts to a child-like state, pursuing again their unresolved childhood argument over ownership of a doll.

Erra is distanced from the language of her adopted family, the language of her family of choice, and the language of her family of origin. She is divided; she cannot be sure to which linguistic group she belongs. Erra cannot determine which language she should identify as being her own; being connected to none, and yet ironically, at the same time, to all, she is adrift in a linguistic ocean.

Existing in a state of constant transition and transformation, she is divided among languages. Her life, and the languages she encounters, "foreground the differences between and among languages" (Banting 216), among cultures, and even the spaces and shades of interpretation surrounding any kind of semiotic representation. Consequently, she has little emotional connection to the language of her adult life - the tongue in which she brings up her own family. Erra, her life, and her personas exist poised on a linguistic divide created by 45 multilingualism, a divide that further highlights the separation Erra creates between her past and present as she assumes various personas.

The Question of Translation

As earlier mentioned, although so far presented as English texts, both works were originally written in French, and also exist as L 'empriente de I 'ange and Lignes de faille. The translation of the works into English has been undertaken not by a third party, but by Huston herself, a fact which emphasizes the space of linguistic hybridity and tension existent between the texts, and possibly in the writer's personal and professional voice. Tlie Mark of the Angel and Fault Lines bridge the same semiotic gap as do Saffie and Erra, connected to their source texts by fragile bonds.

The English versions of the works function as translations, an undertaking which in itself is "une oeuvre de creation" (St. Onge 1). That is, translation in itself is a creative act, that exists between languages. Eric Onnsby speaks of words as being "possessed in the past" (13), as of being inextricably linked to history, politics, geography, environment, social use, and any number of other factors which influence and form the meaning of a word. He also refers to "the hidden life [.. .words] will possess in the future" (13), or the constant and on­ going reinterpretation and formation of the meaning of words. Meaning, then, is not just a matter of connotation and denotation in a new time and place, but also across cultures and history. Furthermore, the disrupting nature of translation has 46 the ability to challenge established spaces of meaning as it acts as "a means of rendering self-knowledge foreign to itself (Apter 6) in the way it repositions the subject in relation to wider culture.

If translation is merely the process by which a text in one language is substituted for a text in another, the effective translator must attempt equivalence in effect and meaning, "hying to adapt the multiple layers of information in a text to a new reception environment" (Tymoczko 21). Origin-language meanings become replaced with alternate receiver language meanings (Catford 35-42), and as famously noted by Walter Benjamin, the act of translation, then, in itself must always be a failure. As objectivity is impossible with translation, the choice of words and meanings in the produced work rest in the hands of the tianslator. The work of translation becomes an ongoing process, "there can be no final translation, no final interpretation" (Tymoczko 22). Once one is aware that judgements have been made with regards to word choice, one must keep in mind possible alternatives to the choice presented. When the choice is not successful, it

"demarcates intersubjective limits" (Apter 6), highlighting points of untranslatability. Theorists, such as Kenneth Rexroth, have advocated for translations that are not work-for-word transcriptions, but that rest upon

"assimilabihty" (19), pleading on behalf of the text. The translator "uses the particulars of the text as a springboard from which to launch an imaginary universe" (Soderlind 104), thus engaging in a creative act.

How then, does an author come to feel comfortable with the process of translation itself? The giving of one's work into another's hands to be 47 reinteipreted or re-imagined cannot be an easy process. The relationship between original text and translation, as well as between author and translator, has the potential to be fraught with tension and unease. Gabrielle Roy, in her coirespondence with Joyce Marshall, states that "I would have a nice, comfortable feeling if I knew you were at work on my manuscript" (Everett 36). Roy's relationship with her translator is such that she categorically suggests to Marshall that "[you] do as you please with the translation" (Everett 40), and even refers her publishers to Marshall as the "better judge of what should be done" when they approach her about revising or retranslating her works (Everett 74). This level of trust and reliance is revealed to be highly unusual when, later in the correspondence, as Roy expresses her anxiety that a new translator must be found:

Jack is searching for a new translator for me. Somehow I feel a

little disinterested. [...] Have you heard of her? Have you an

opinion on the matter? If there were some important news you

wished to convey to me on the subject, would you be kind enough

to phone, or perhaps write immediately. [...] I'm always

somewhat tormented when a new translator has to be found for me.

(Everett 166)

Since a translator cannot always be trusted to adhere to the original text, there

"remains an x-factor of untranslatability that renders every translation an impossible world or faux regime of semantic and phonic equivalence" (Apter

210). The act of translation, the giving of one's text to another to be translated, for the author, functions as an act of surrender. 48

Huston does not allow her works to leave the sphere of her control. She need not rely on another's interpretation of her work; rather, in translating the work from her second language, French, into her first language English, all choices of phrasing, tone, and interpretation remain within her control. Self- translation is not the same creature as translation by a third-party, who must "tear himself away from his linguistic habit and force him to throw himself into the mind of the original author" (House 14). Rather, as loanna Chatzidiinatiroii comments, she engages in self-translation, which creates a privileged space (25).

In her exploration of Limbes/Limho: un homage a Samuel Becket,

Chatzidimatiiou concludes that "what self-translation achieves in addition to the structurally and thernatically detenitorializing practices is the destabilization of the original by its not-yet-reached translational horizon" (27). In effecting her own translations, Huston moves beyond conventional translation: "L'auto- traducion se distingue de la traduction conventionelle car elle n'est ni traduction, ni ecrifure" (St. Onge 13). Even as self-translation problematizes the relation between source text and translation; it emphasizes "translation's ability to open passageways not only between but also within languages" (Whitford 295). Hie two texts become joined in a unique way, transgressing the boundary between source text and translation.

While, in comparison, the texts do exhibit differences in terms of style

(specifically the style in which dialogue is presented) and syntax, some of the most interesting translational choices Huston makes highlight the states of linguistic ambiguity in which both Saffie and Erra live by foregrounding the 49 issues of language and emotional connection. In The Mark of the

Angel/L 'empreinte de Vange, a great deal of emphasis is placed on the names given to parental roles. For example, ternis for motherhood represent the divisions Saffie has created in her life between her past and present, and the breakdown of her emotional barriers.

Quand Eruil se mettra a parler, il Pappellera non pas Mutti rnais

maman. C'est terrnine Mutter, et la Muttersprache avec:

suspendues, une fois pour toutes... (Huston, L 'empreinte 108)

When Eniil starts to talk, he'll call her not Mutti but Maman.

Mutti is over and done with and so is Muttersprache, both have

been suspended, once and for all... (Huston, Mark 67)

In the French, maman, un-capitalized, is used. This form of the name for mother represents both the general concept of motherhood as well as the 'name' Saffie will be called by her son. When Huston translates the passage into English, the word becomes capitalized, this being a difference in convention between the languages. Both imply the same level of formality.

However when referring to the German, the French version of the text uses the term Mutter. The transition from Mutti to Mutter to Muttersprache has the effect of encompassing all aspects of motherhood- the intimate, the formal, and the role in general. Mutter is modified to Mutti in the English. The more formal term is replaced with the more casual usage. The result of this is repetition in the

English version, as well as another intensification of the sensation of dislocation. 50

The more intimate terrn is used, implying a greater sense of devastation. The sense of encompassment in the English version is maintained with the reference to

Muttersprache, but is not emphasized as much as in the French.

When Emil speaks to his mother, an intimate tone is maintained, however the word for mother does not appear so frequently — rather, it is more often absent in L 'empreinte de 1 'ange: "'Dans les bras!'" (Huston, L 'empreinte 231) and'" <^a fotte! Qafotte, mamanV" (250). In, The Mark oj'the Angel, the more intimate form of 'Mother' is used - Mama. "'Up, Mama! Up in your arms!'" (153) and

"It can float, Mama! It can float!" (167). The colloquial word for mother is used one more time in the English version. Moreover, the use of the French 'maman' is not continued in the English text, in spite of the importance placed upon the interpretation of the word 'mother' and meaning transitions across languages.

This comes to imply a greater degree of intimacy in the mother-child relationship in the English version of the text, where in the French, with the elimination of the intimate term; the child's words evoke a greater sense of disconnection, and even a more prevalent tone of demand.

This use of "maman", as opposed to colloquial valiants of the word mother, remains a point of interest in Fault Lines/Lignes de faille as well. When, in Fault Lines, Krissy is referred to as "Mommy" (158), and Kristi's adoptive

German mother is referred to as "Mama" (265), the French version uses 'maman' almost exclusively. The result of this differentiation in the English version is the individualization of the mother figure, as each mother has her own special name bestowed upon her by her child. In the French, the figure of mother becomes a 51 more generic title, again emphasizing a state of emotional removal. One must question why French colloquial versions of mother are not used in the French- language text.

Perhaps the most significant name-translation that takes place is the change that is made from AGM in the French version to G.G. in the English. The abbreviations represent the same concept in a different language; it is Sol's name for his great-grandmother, and each term is a contraction: AGM for arriere- grande-mere and G.G. for great-grandmother. What becomes problematic is why the change is made - presumably, whether in English or French, Sol would refer to Erra by the same name. Translation would not necessarily make a difference.

While the pronunciation of AGM invokes a feeling of intimacy in its pronunciation, sounding like "a j'aime," this feeling of connection is disrupted as the name is changed from one text to the other. The name change from AGM to

G.G. is a change made solely for the audience of reception, so that the reader can decipher the meaning behind the contraction.

Each translation differs from its text of production in terms of the level of intimacy ascribed to personal relationships via the moniker. Even as Saffie and

Erra maintain indifferent relationships with their children, and strive to create a separation from their own traumatic histories, the space created between the source text and translation reveals situations of emotional ambivalence towards filial relationships. The tension of this space that is revealed as one examines the different versions of the texts reinforces the state of division in which Saffie and

Erra exist, and pursue, while they attempt to renegotiate their respective self- 52 concepts. Additionally, while at once emphasizing the emotional distance that

Huston has cited as being necessary to her process of writing, the degree of emotional connection present in the work as compared to the French belies her rejection of English as "bland, transparent" ("Towards" 258).

Translation, as a creative, inter-lingual, inter-cultural exercise, will never completely equate the meaning ascribed to words in one language to the meaning ascribed to words in another; complete translation is impossible - complete comprehension of translated meaning is unattainable as it works in the "delay and deferral" of meaning with relation to signifiers (Banting 216). Translation, when undertaken or examined, highlights the ambiguity surrounding meaning; it emphasizes the space encompassing words in which meaning exist. Thus, translation brings to light the necessity of choice.

Each translational choice affects the work itself, and the difference between texts foregrounds this space, and the way in which the translation acts in reference to, but differs from, the original text. Perhaps the most difficult aspect of translation is that it "practices difference, deferral and delay between signifiers"

(Banting 218). While self-translation eases the tension that must necessarily exist between translator and author, it does nonetheless position the text within a space between translated text and original work.

As both identity and language exist caught across past and present, language of birth and language of choice, a lirninal space of fractured and multiple existence emerges. In both texts, this space is reinforced by the translated natuie of the works. The divisions that result, while creating a situation 53 of emotional distance and disconnect, also establishes a new space. This new space is rife with the potential for new creation - the establishment of new narrative and the constiiiction of new lives and identities. 54

Chapter III

The Translingual Voice: Expression and Possibility

The figure of the translingual individual exists poised between languages and cultures. The translingual functions as a cyborg; Haraway comments, "we are all chimeras, theorized hybrids of machine and organism" ("Cyborg" 150). The space between culture and language, and the attempted divisions of identity that occur are both the source of the trap and possibility in wliich the cyborg exists, for the adoption of the new language and culture is "a violation, and illegitimate production that allows survival" (175). The translingual attempts to renegotiate her own identity, in a foreign and possibly hostile environment.

It is in this environment, however, that the potential for the new exists.

Exploring previously forbidden modes of communication becomes a possibility.

Lives may be crafted and discarded at will, different modes of creation investigated. In the "struggle for language and the struggle against perfect communication" (176), fresh possibilities for meaning and existence arise. This chapter will examine the possibility of translingual writing - both through the writing process and the establishment (as exemplified by Saffie and Erra) of alternate life narratives. 55

Translingual Writing

Steven G. Kellrnan, in The Translingual Imagination, examines the phenomenon of writing in a language or languages other than one's native tongue.

The space created by the translingual writer is, like the figure of the cyborg,

"about transgressed boundaries, potent fusions, and dangerous possibilities"

(Haraway, "Cyborg" 154). Kellrnan explores the abandonment of the mother tongue as being "not only painful but unnatural, almost matricidal" (3). It is a situation in which individuals are caught between their childhood tongue and the language in which they either choose, or are forced, to live. For the writer, this situation creates a further dilemma; "there [are] no clear-cut markers; no obvious signposts" (Lemer, Wliy 40). The writer exists in a state of ambiguity.

Therefore, it is here, in this unstable condition, that the potential of the translingual writer exists. Writing/living in translation or across languages is "a form of self-begetting, as the willed renovation of an individual's own identity"

(Kellman21). The writer is able to establish "a new voice" (Kellrnan 20). That which was unutterable in the language of origin becomes less crude, less forbidden, less fraught with emotional implications in the second, third, or fourth tongue. One is able to act and to say tilings that would be impossible without the reconceptualization of identity through the translingual process. Thus, writing in another language results in a kind of "emancipatory detachment" (Kellrnan 28); the writer is freed from the constraint of the mother tongue and able to explore new authorial choices and modes of expression. 56

In Writing Zero Degree, Roland Barthes discusses this kind of detachment with reference to neutral modes of writing. Language is the tool the writer possesses. It is a "natuial ambience wholly pervading the writer's expression" but does not "[endow what is written] with fonn or content" (9). Language is the tool that giants stability to the writer's expression and the writer is bound by the syntactical structure of the language. Language functions as a border, a frontier which may, however, be transgressed. Style, Barthes conceptualizes as a

"vertical dimension", the figures of speech the writer may utilize and become trapped within, the writer's "glory and prison, [.. .his] solitude" (11). Style is at once unconcerned with society and visible to society; for Barthes, it is not the product of choice.

Modes of writing become the choice available to the writer. They are the

"writer's consideration of the social use which he has chosen for his form and his commitment to this choice" (Barthes 15). The mode a writer uses, his or her ecriture, becomes the method by which the writer conceptualizes literature as a whole, the writer's creative act. Writing as freedom, or free conceptualization, acts as a fleeting moment as it cannot be disconnected from history or society.

Literature, defined by these three aspects - language, style and ecriture -

"remains the currency in use in a society apprised, by the very form of works, of the meaning of what it consumes" (Barthes 32).

Neutral writing, says Barthes, attempts to disengage literary language; it strives to exist as "colourless writing, freed from all bondage to a pre-ordained state of language" (76). The possibihty of neutial writing "reaches a state of pure 57 equation" (78); the writer moves towards the potential of the ability to achieve pure creation. The writer, however, becomes easily trapped by a reversion to learned mechanical habits and conventions of style; ultimately, the writer is a prisoner of the myth of literature. Barthes posits that modem writing "is a truly independent organism which grows around the literary act" and commits to a

"double mode of existence" (84). Like the translingual individual, writing and literature become inextricably tied to multiple worlds; like the translingual identity, writing becomes a constant process of recreation and renegotiation.

The circumstance of iinmigiation is one undertaken for various reason, and upon occasion, is not one chosen by the individual immigrating. For example,

Erra is relocated to Canada at the end of the Second World War as a result of the existent political climate. Immigration is often also the result of specific trauma — relocation and rejection of the past for the possibility of a new future. While this movement from one nation to another, one geography to another, is one that

Saffie chooses, it is still the "product of vast historical forces over which the individual has little control" (Kellman 17).

Relocation, however, is not always linked to personal tragedy. Huston, in

Desirs et realties, relates how her own immigration was not undertaken for reasons related to trauma, war or far-reaching world events:

Pas de bombes. Pas de persecution, pas d'oppression, pas de guerre

coloniale, de coup d'Etat, d'exode, pas de lois rn'asservissant ou

humiliant mes parents, aucun risque, aucun danger m'acculant a

l'exil, me forcant a fuir, m'enfoncant le nez dans une autre langue, 58

une autre culture, un autre pays. Non. Je suis une privilegiee, il faut

que les choses soient claires et claironnees des le debut. (231)

Her immigrant state is one of choice, a deliberate separation from the world of her childhood for a world of new potential in a different country. This being said,

Huston, as a translingual writer, is still subject to the same states of linguistic division and identity conflict. The translingual individual, like Barthes' modern writing, becomes subject to "double modes of existence" (Barthes 84), states of cyborg identity where the self is composed of disparate, and often conflicting, parts.

In Losing North, Huston discusses her difficulty in oral communication, the hybrid state that she exists in, and the constant state of Otherness to which all false bilinguals are subjected. She finds comfort in the written word and in the process of writing itself. Moreover, the hyper-awareness of language that develops in the false bilingual, that is, the bilingual who learned one language in childhood but lives her adult life in another, is conducive to writing. The translingual state "incite[s] you to pay an unusual amount of attention to individual words, figures of speech, manners of speaking" (31). The patterns of language, the phonetic linkages between words, become more apparent to the non-native speaker because the "historical traces and hidden patterns of a language become evident in the mirror of a translation" (Tawada 150).

This hyper-awareness of language can free the bilingual nomad to speak.

Huston refers to writing in her second language as "a smooth, homogeneous, neutral substance, with no personal associations whatsoever" (49). The second 59 language does not cany with it the same emotionally loaded terms for the writer or speaker as does her mother tongue. As Eva Hoffman comments, "it is easier to say forbidden things in a language that does not brim with childhood associates and taboos" (51). The constraints placed upon the tongue of the false bilingual in day-to-day oral communication are loosed, making it possible to communicate more in this second language than in the mother tongue. No subject is untouchable. The functionality of language becomes apparent; it can be used deliberately as both a tool and a toy. Perhaps it is for this reason that Huston asserts, "I'm a foreigner and I intend to remain one forever, preserving a certain distance between myself and the world around me, taking nothing about it for granted" ("Reassuring" 226). It is through this detachment, the separation the false bilingual experiences, that the modes of writing that Barthes asserts are the basis of the creative act of the writer become open possibilities.

The translingual individual is both aware of and distanced from language, and this results in a "heady sense of freedom" (Huston, Losing 49). As Frank

Davey relates with regards to Huston's writings, "she jokes.. .that her use of another language than English has given her the illusion of privacy, rendering most of her texts 'illisible a ma famille' and placing herself beyond reproach"

(17). The constraints by which some writers are bound, waiting for a certain period of time or until the death of a family member to write, do not hamper

Huston in her pursuit of the written word.

Writing in another language, though, is not only a matter of linguistic hyper-awareness and freedom from social and cultural norms. Even as writing 60 frees Huston from constraints and convention, an intense connection with the adopted language is not present. She states that "the French language in general

(and not only its forbidden lexicon) was to me less emotionally fraught, and therefore less dangerous, than my mother tongue. It was cold, and I approached it coldly" (Losing 49). This results in a loss of personal attachment to her own writing, and the language in which she lives her everyday life. The language does not touch her - it is remote. "It did not talk to me," she writes, "sing to me, rock me, slap me, shock me, scare me shitless. It was indifferent" (Losing 50). There is no love-relationship, cultural or historical connection to the phrases of the second tongue. As a false bilingual, Huston is caught between languages and identities; "je suis une fausse Francaise, une fausse Canadienne" (Lettres 96), divided among several selves.

However, this too allows for greater potential of writing and exploration of forms of wilting. As Anton Shammas observes, "You cannot write about the people whom you love in a language that they understand; you can't write freely.

In order not to feel my heroes breathing down my neck all the time, I used

Hebrew" (qtd. in Kelhnan 25). What Huston explores in Lettres parisiemies, along with Leila Sebbar, is this state of hybridity, in which the dislocation she experiences from her language of choice allows for a kind of tension viewed as necessary to her writing (195). The distance provided by the new language for the creation of new narrative and writing establishes the potential to explore that which is forbidden or difficult to engage with in the translingual author's original language. 61

This being said, the choice to write in a new language is not innocent.

Writing in a second language, writing across languages, results in exoticisation - the subject exists in a state of Otherness. That which is different can create a state of appeal and desirability even as it can repel, just as Saffie's strangeness and alien nature attract Raphael. Even that which may seem normal and commonplace carries the potential of this exoticization. As Marshall writes to

Roy: "I was amazed to learn (by television) the other night that 'Canadian food' is currently all the rage in Paris; there is even a big restaurant on the Champs that sells nothing else. [...] Frenchmen (and women) were pictured happily eating this stuff- drinking large glasses of Canadian whisky, of course" (247). The foreign, no matter how banal it may be perceived in its culture of origin, has the potential to hold appeal in a culture not so intimately familiar with it. The implications of this state of exoticism can be positive. As Celeste Kinginger comments, "A gifted Anglophone writer who freely elects to write in French, and in so doing praises the civilising qualities of the language, is veiy likely to be well received" (165). Not only is the foreign new and exciting, but it reaffirms the position of the language of choice in the current power structure. As the potential for greater commercial success, for publication, exists, the translingual author may deliberately employ a strategy of positive exoticisation to further her own goals.

Writing, for the translingual individual, carries the same potential as the figure of the cyborg - the possibility of new fusions, new boundaries being explored and new waters tested. While the abandonment of the mother tongue 62 may be traumatic, the writer becomes open to new spaces of ecriture, new modes of writing that would otherwise be inaccessible. The defamiharization process the translingual author undergoes, "the critical role of displacement" (Proulx 87) and the resultant emotional detachment, makes this possibility of new writing

accessible, one can say/write that which previously could not be conceptualized or

expressed. The translmgual writer takes advantage of the "postmodern admiration

for hybridity, flexibility and mutability of the self (Kinginger 166), re-

emphasizing that, with its potential for new exploration, the process of writing

across languages is one undertaken deliberately.

Saffie's New Narrative

The potential exists for the franslhigual writer to explore new modes of writing and new possibilities of identity; she "hints at the possibility of world

survival not because of her innocence, but because of her ability to live on the boundaries, to write without the founding myth of original wholeness" (Haraway,

"Cyborg" 176). Saffie is both a translingual figure and a cyborg as she inhabits a

lirninal linguistic space, attempting to establish a new identity for herself in post­ war France. As she becomes a mother, the emotional detachment and boundaries

she previously established begin to dissolve; Saffie is overwhelmed when she can no longer maintain her stance of cold indifference to the world around her.

Saffie is forced to interact with a world larger than the one she has established for herself. When Raphael sends Saffie to take his flute in for repair, 63 she encounters Andras. The relationship she establishes with him further shatters her emotional barriers. Through their affair, Saffie is able to interact with her traumatic past and to engage with the life she attempted to destroy. Andras,

Saffie, and Ernil become a kind of family; Ernil is the vehicle through which

Saffie is able to structure the new relationship with Andras and become part of a new family of choice.

The role of mother gives Saffie the legitimacy and ability to move throughout Paris unhindered, as Ernil grants her both immunity and invisibility.

Moreover, through Ernil, Saffie is able to rewrite the narrative of her life. He is the "possibility of [her] reconstitution" (Haraway 181), and becomes the embodiment of her agenda of regeneration.

It is as Saffie interacts with her infant son that her emotional barriers begin to disintegrate, as she can no longer control her own reactions. Even the most mundane tasks now become full of memory. While doing laundry, for example,

Saffie "gets lost" and is enraptured with recollections of a happier time: "She's helping her mother hang up the washing outdoors, in the garden behind their house, it's springtime [...]. What fun they had that day! The wind kept teaiing the sheets out of their hands before they could pin them to the clothesline, and they'd run to pick them up on the lawn, laughing uncontrollably" (Mark 66),

The reader is confronted with a very different Saffie, a carefree girl who can laugh and run and sing with her family in the sunshine. The contrast between this idyllic scene and Saffie's current emotionally withdrawn state is remarkable. The resurgence of memory indicates the failure of her agenda of historical elimination. 64

Whatever Saffie may have anticipated from motherhood, the resultant unavoidable connection to her child forces an interaction with past remembrances and experiences.

Not all of the memories that resurface as a result of this breakdown are as idyllic in nature - along with memories of family and love, more traumatic memories emerge, and, gradually, some of the reasons for "the willed renovation of [Saffie's] own identity" (Kellman 21) become apparent. Her recollections of family togetherness and integration are inextricably linked to horrific images of

Nazis murdering babies. The image of the Nazi man gradually metamorphosed in

Saffie's mind, "turning at last into little Emil" (70). The national guilt Raphael's mother ascribes to Saffie becomes embodied in her son. Saffie's positive filial associations, both from her childhood and with her son, are tainted by nationality and history. When the reader learns that Saffie's first lover revealed of the worst atrocities of the Second World War, how he shared everything he learned from

"innumerable horrifying newsreels of the camp liberations and Nuremberg trails - proofs of the German guilt" (69) with Saffie as part of their lovemaking, it becomes apparent that Saffie's concept of physical intimacy is inextricably linked to images of death and violence perpetrated by her own people.

Saffie's emotional barriers become destabilized even as she maintains her front of detachment. Raphael does not recognize that anything has changed for

Saffie and in his desire to alter Saffie's state of absence, in his dream of "the fabrication of a heterosexual mate, [...] the organic family" (Haraway, "Cyborg"

151), sends Saffie and Emil to deliver Raphael's flute for repair, thus out of the 65 safety zone Saffie has so carefully crafted. Outside of the carefully constructed life she has established, Saffie meets Andras. In him, Saffie finds "a companion, and 'equal' with whom to share the bmden of self- constitution" (Stevenson 101).

He, like Saffie, is an immigrant to France. However, Andras is a Hungarian Jew. scaned by the war like Saffie, but from a different perspective. In his foreignness, in his disordered contrast to her structured world, Saffie finds a new possibility and power, "the power to love this man and to make him love her" (92). Her emotional barriers collapse and she recognizes that, like all cyborgs, she too is

"needy for connection" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 151).

Consequently, a startling transformation occurs in Saffie: "[she] takes an initiative" (93); she is freed from her silent obedience and non-resisting acceptance. This becomes evident when Andras tells Saffie that his father also repaired instruments; she does not hesitate to disclose her father's occupation, eagerly revealing that "My father was a doctor for animals" (95). This disclosure contrasts sharply with her earlier revelation of her father's occupation, where

Raphael had to almost force her to speak about her past.

The erosion of her emotional barrier continues and her connection with

Andras grows. Ernil is instrumental her disguise, as Raphael believes it is the walks with her son in the city that have so improved Saffie's health. He believes his concept and enforcement of the family structure has succeeded, and he

"rejoices" ( 99). This new health, however, is a result of the freedom Saffie has found through her new relationship. In Andras's home "she has the right to be merely 'Saffie'" (101). Here the potential exists to "create a new identity from 66 and through a different language" (Kellman, Translingual 40); Saffie is free to craft the identity narrative she chooses without reference to the desires of anyone else.

Saffie feels the freedom to exist as purely herself. Her relationship with

Andras allows not only this, but also allows her to relate her past. Just as Andras is able to share with her his personal tragedies, Saffie is able to share with him the traumas she keeps most deeply hidden:

And then the Russians came. [...] They grab my mother and throw

her down on the kitchen floor, right in front of me. They take the

hot iron from the stove and press it.. .here, on her chest. There are

two of them on top of her. She doesn't scream. She is.. .you

know, holding her teeth together tightly so the little ones won't

hear... (120)

Saffie reveals that not only was her mother raped, later committing suicide, but that the eight-year-old Saffie was also raped by the soldiers.

Through her relationship with Andras, Saffie is able to explore and relate the reasons for her disconnection, her deliberate withdrawal, from emotional attachment, even to Emil. When Andras questions Saffie about not singing to

Emil, she responds "But he's a French child! [...] And I don't know the words to

French songs!" (130). Saffie, as previously discussed, is disconnected from the language of her childhood, estranged from emotional attachment; she cannot sing to her son in German. The songs of her childhood are, for Saffie, associated with death - the death of her mother, the death of the neighbourhood animals, and the 67 death of her innocence. As she explains, "when you sing that to a child, it means she's going to die.. .Every night when I went to bed, it was like getting into my grave - and in my dreams, the flowers on my bed-cover got all mixed together and started to rot...." (137). The German language and those childhood songs hold the memories of Saffie's despair and trauma; they are "an archeological site of emotions, a pipeline to [her] infant self (Sante 144).

Saffie's emotional barriers further disintegrate, and her ability to connect with the world around her grows. She develops a bond with her son. As she begins her affair with Andras and opens up emotionally to her child, Saffie explores the ways in which she can express her feelings. Emil, who "worships" his mother (153), opens Saffie up to exploring the possibilities of living as emotionally connected to the world around her. Her use of German when referring to her son (153-154), reveals that the filial connections which she previously thought to be detrimental to the re-establishment of her identity have become essential. Saffie, Andras and Emil form a family of choice; Andras becomes Emil's adoptive father. Ernil is her connection to this new state of animation, this state of living. He "brings her back to reality", we are told; he is the reason she "must keep herself from floundering, giving into the old vertigo"

(190). Saffie has established a life narrative in which she can not only exist, but thrive.

Although Saffie is immersed in this idealized narrative that she has constructed for herself, she is not aware of or concerned with events outside of her own sphere of creation. When Andras tells Saffie of the injustices occurring in 68

Algeria, he is astonished at her ignorance: '"You live in a country at war. France spends a hundred billion francs each year to fight Algeria. You even know where it is? Algeria?' says Andras, almost shouting now. [...] 'The war is over,' she says in a nearly inaudible voice. 'No! The war is not over!"' (106). For Saffie, nothing beyond her established fiction matters. She remains focused on that which continues to influence her life, ignorant of current events.

Even tins new fictional life she creates is revealed as being highly unstable when her connections to Raphael give lie to the "autonomy of the self (Haraway,

"Cyborg" 177). When Raphael discovers Saffie's affair, he is enraged.

Moreover, Emil rejects Raphael, saying, '"Let me alone.. .You never paid any attention to us anyway. He's my real father'" (212). Raphael drops the child out a train window. With Emil's death, Saffie's connection to her regenerated life is shattered. Her constructed fictions, both the structured, distancing life she established with Raphael and the vital, restorative life she estabhshed with

Andras, dissolve. She resumes her ghostlike state and disappears — "there

[remains] not the slightest trace of Saffie's passage through Raphael's existence.

[She] simply [vanishes] into thin air" (217-218). Her life in France, estabhshed as a means of survival and regeneration, ends, even as does the narrative of the work.

The way in which Saffie simply ceases to exist in France, as if she had never been, "[denies] the existence of the stable self (Kellman, Tramlingual 33). The detachment produced by Saffie's translingual state allows her to write a "new" life narrative through a renewed connection with both her past and her emotions, but this new crafted existence is easily shattered and disposed of. 69

Erra's New Song

Erra, like Saffie, is able to craft a new life-narrative as a result of her translingual, cyborg state and the space of detachment that consequently occurs.

Whereas Saffie manages to move beyond the structured existence she has established for herself, the distance Erra establishes for herself from past languages and history allows her to function according to her own desires without reference to the larger society. When Erra is relocated to Canada, and assumes the Rrissy persona, the lack of connection she feels with her new adoptive culture and language allows her to function outeide of social mores. She is able to pursue a non-traditional career without fear of repercussion from a family or parts of a world to which she does not relate. In establishing her singing career, she is able to create a positive environment, filled with persons who both admire her and support her own personal goals. Despite this, Ena exhibits a lack of attachment to this crafted environment which allows her to dispose of it easily — when it becomes an inconvenience, Erra simply moves on.

Ultimately, through her singing career, Erra is able to move to a place beyond language. She is able to explore a new ecriture, a new mode of creation beyond language; words, if used in her singing are used seldom and are almost unrecognizable. Her career brings her in contact with Mercedes, and, through their relationship, Erra is able to reconnect with words in her singing. This being said, she maintains the emotional distance she has established for herself, and the 70 division from her past. Moreover, this new narrative, this new identity she has crafted for herself, is revealed as being ultimately unstable; when she returns to

Gennany, the personas she has crafted crumble and she reverts to a childlike state.

Erra, when she comes to Canada, exists in a state of disconnection from the society around her. She feels little attachment to her second adoptive family, the Kryswatys. Although the Kryswatys' home is characterized by convention and observance of social mores, Erra does not adhere to its standards. Assuming the Kxissy persona, she gets "mixed up with Mort and his beatnik crowd who were much older than she was" (162). This group engages in a lifestyle in which they are "obsessed with playing music and diinking wine and smoking kerouac"

(162), and Krissy joins them unhesitatingly, submerging herself in their subculture. Not only does Krissy's enactment of subcultuie lifestyle represent her rejection of her adoptive parents world, but her adoption of the subculture's slang emphasizes the totality of this rejection. As Arthur Koestler comments,

"Language serves not only to express thought, but to mould it; the adoption of a new language [...] means a gradual and unconscious transformation of [...] patterns of thinking, [...] style and [...] tastes, [...] attitudes and reactions" (291).

Erra, in rejecting the English of her convention-loving adoptive parents, and throwing herself into the English world of the young counter-culture of the time, appropriates the English language and it's use for herself.

Her ability to reject the mores of the Kryswatys' household is a direct result of Erra's division from language as well as her division from personal history. As a person whose connection to previous family has been so 71 traumatically disrupted, and whose identification with any particular language group has been destroyed, Erra feels free to assume or dispose of any particular role, family connection, personal or cultural involvement she chooses. Her perhaps erroneous believe in her disconnection grants her the power to choose her own path and define her own identity (which Erra does through the exploration of various personas, as previously discussed) on her own terms. This she can do without reference to or concern for others - assuming a stance of disconnection from the culture that surrounds her, she is free to forge a new state of being.

This ability is emphasized as her daughter Sadie recollects one of her mother's early boyfriends: "For a while Mommy has another boyfriend named

Jack who was a schoolteacher without a beard, [...] he and Mommy quarrelled because he wanted Mommy to stop singing in public and she finally put her foot down (as she told me later), saying 'Jack, there are some things I can live without.

Singing is not one of them. You are'" (162-63). Krissy, having chosen the non- conventional, and perhaps not respectable, career of a singer does not hesitate to dispose of a personal relationship that may interfere with her personal agenda.

She does not consider that "[singing] in public" (162) may contravene the acceptable social standard of the circle she has been raised in or has connection to.

This desired freedom from constraint is further emphasized by Krissy's abandonment of her daughter. She leaves her child to be raised by the Kryswatys, and when she returns, maintains her distance from both her child and adoptive family, "Mommy won't be coming to Saint Josaphat's with us" (177). This is not only a refusal to engage in an important family and religious ritual belonging to 72 her Canadian adopted family, but also a deliberate separation from her false- family in Germany, where her first and favourite musical experiences occurred in

Church. After all, language and semiotic representation "implicates its user in the values and vision of a pailicular culture" (Kellman, Translingual 46). By refusing to engage in this type of interaction and discourse, Erra attempt to extricate herself from connection to her surrounding culture and is able to pursue her own goals without fear of personal attachment. She is able to "transcend the template"

(Kellman 46) that has been established for her.

Just as Haraway's cyborg "is about transgressed boundaries, potent fusion, and dangerous possibilities" ("Cyborg" 154), Erra is able to transgress the boundaries of cultural mores, and historical and linguistic identification. When she leaves the Kryswatys' home, she estabhshes a new state of living — that which has been previously referred to as Krissy's fairy world. In this realm, she is a kind of goddess: "when people talk to [Erra] they have a special tone of voice as if they [are] in awe of her, and the minute she opens her mouth they fall totally silent to listen, and when she jokes they laugh louder than for anyone else's jokes"

(194). She is able not only to remove herself from an undesirable environment, but gains the capacity to construct an environment conducive to the maintenance of her personas, her agenda of the elimination of her personal history, and the furtherance of her goal to establish herself as a professional singer with a sustainable career.

A career based upon singing, that is, upon the relation of language via song, may seem contradictory for an individual disconnected from language. Erra 73 disposes of this problem by eliminating words from her singing — for her, language has no place. The effect is otherworldly:

Mommy's voice slips into the middle of the chord and gets a grip

on its notes, then bounces into the sky - they're off. She slides on

a jerky rhythrn from achingly sweet high notes three octaves above

middle C all the way down into the deep dark waters of the bass,

where she moans gently, longingly, as if her life were seeping

away from her. [...] She seems to be telling me a story - not only

the stoiy of her life but the story of all humanity with its wars and

famines and struggles, its triuinphs and defeats [...] no one has

ever used their voice like this before. (185)

Ena moves beyond the question of language — which language to use, which language to relate to an audience with - by transcending language itself. She moves into a form of tonal expression; perhaps the only true ecriture she can pursue as she is unwilling to verbalize emotional ties to persons, language, or culture.

By disposing of verbal language, Erra disposes of the "line which separates that which is forbidden from what is allowed" (Barthes 56). Through pure voice, Ena can relate her own person, transcending cultural, historical, and linguistic divisions to establish a space of commonality with her listeners. Her song, like Barthes's neutral writing, is "freed from all bondage to a pre-ordained state of language" (76). Ultimately, and ironically, her voice and song establish the very same emotional connections she has attempted to separate herself from. 74

The moment of the creation of song is explored when Erra and her grandson Randall play music together:

Using both hands, I play some black notes softly and slowly. [...]

A few seconds later I hear a low hum coming from her chest. Then

when I keep on playing she responds to each of my notes with a

note of her own, either in harmony or disharmony, and it's as if we

were walking slowly through the woods together and hiding behind

trees. My fingers gradually gain speed and so does her voice but

we go on respecting the rule about softly, so it's as if we were tap-

dancing together in the snow. (107)

This moment of spontaneous production is the moment of pure song. Although

Randall does not have any musical training, he is able to produce music - music without any relation to history, politics or what musical convention dictates. He, like Erra, is able to take part in a spontaneously joyful creative act. The unstructured song represents the "chimerical possibility of thinking beyond any language" (Kelhnan, Translingual 62) and the expression of the new identity Erra has crafted.

However, even as Erra crafts a life narrative around this wordless and ahistorical song, she gains the ability to reconnect with language. This occurs as a result of her relationship with Mercedes, the lover she finds in her old age: "I've started using words in my singing.. .thanks to Mercedes. She's a word magician."

(108). Erra is once again able to access the magic of words; a magic that,

Mercedes maintains, is in "what happens between people" (108). Erra gradually 75 introduces lone words and syllables to her song - she establishes a direct connection with language once again. This connection with words, however, cannot transcend the boundary between different languages: "Mercedes' magic only works among users of the same language, her magic it tied to common understanding through a shared idiom. "If she'd said ct/ervo muerto instead of dead crow Randall would have seen nothing" (109). Erra's wordless song remains her true mode of expression. Her pure voice belongs to no language and thus she cannot be divided from it. Her voice becomes the ultimate representation of her translingual expression and the aspects of her identity she has chosen to privledge.

The space created by the translingual writer allows for the potential to create new modes of expression. Saffie and Ena, although they create sepaiation from their pasts, function in the same maimer as the translingual writer and are able to establish new lives. The possibility exists in these new lives to establish new formats for existence and communication, as each is able to transcend the boundaries established as mechanisms for survival and explore new spaces rife with potential. 76

Conclusion

Haraway's cyborg disputes totalizing concepts of established identity.

The cyborg is a figure defined by lirninality, resting upon the union of multiple parts, which can renegotiate its own identity. The situation of migration and immigiation increases the possibility of the occurrence of Haraway's cyborg state where the individual finds herself poised between one or more concepts of self and states of being. Caught between cultures and languages, the migrant exists in a liminal space, a whole composed of conjoined yet differentiated parts. If one examines the situation of the migrant in terms of Haraway's cyborg, it is possible to explore the act of cultuial self-location and self-concept reconstruction. Nancy

Huston's works, which offer not only incidences in which characters exist in states of transition and reinvention, but also function as translations, provide an excellent point of investigation.

In the first chapter, examining The Mark of the Angel and Fault Lines. I discuss how both Saffie and Erra represent these migrant figures, uprooted from their pasts and attempting to regenerate their identities. Each exists in a fractured state, attempting to suppress or deny her past. In Tfte Mark of the Angel, Saffie is attempting to assimilate herself into French society, hiding and denying her past in an attempt to establish a new life and identity. Two worlds exist within Saffie: the public neutral face Saffie presents in her attempt to create a new state of being for herself, and the private suppressed side of Saffie, that of her childhood and 77 past. The roles Saffie assumes in her life with Raphael in an effort to maintain her new identity exemplify the disconnect that exists within her person.

As a maid, Saffie is granted a certain degree of invisibility, as the role falls within that traditionally held for women, that is, with the establishment and maintenance of the space of the home. In this role, she not only maintains her level of neutral detachment, she becomes almost robotic in her function, as if she were not truly a person. However, even in this state of absence, it is emphasized that Saffie is neither innocent, nor a victim, since the assumption of this role is a deliberate choice in her attempt to eliminate her past. When her role tiansitions to include that of sexual object, her state of neutral submission is maintained. This state of non-resistance is further emphasized when the potential to legitimize the sexual relationship is offered and Saffie accepts Raphael's proposal with complete ambivalence. While it appears that her role does not alter greatly, one significant step is achieved in Saffie's goal of separation from her past- she is able, legally, to eliminate her connection to the German people. The reader is confronted with her agenda, the elimination of her personal history, and the division she has established within her own person. Through Saffie's pregnancy it is revealed that the many worlds that exist within her cannot be so easily separated. The potential of the return to the family unit, to deep emotional involvement, is not welcomed; cyborgs, after all, are concerned with regeneration, not with traditional reproductive strategies (Haraway, "Cyborg" 9). When her attempt to terminate her pregnancy fails, she functions as the unwilling incubator for her child, her assumed passivity in her relationship with Raphael reinforces the existent 78 situation of dominance and power, even as it previously promoted her agenda.

Ultimately, Saffie is unable to function as a mother. Her relationship to and understanding of the concept of motherhood is tied up in the past she strives so actively to deny, and as her new role evokes unwelcome emotional responses, the instability of the divided life she has established is revealed.

While Erra does not exhibit the same kind of emotionless neutrality that so characterizes Saffie, she does undergo similar role transformations in her attempt to establish new identities. These transforrnations occur not only through the assumption and transition through various archetypal female roles, but through the establishment of a series of personas. Erra, in a similar manner to Saffie, embodies a kind of self-mutilation. When she returns to Germany to reunite with her estranged sister, her carefully established persona is exposed as she reverts to a child-like state. The instability of the identity she has carefully established is revealed; while her past may be mysterious to her offspring and something she has tried to eliminate, it cannot be completely disposed of. Her strategy of suppression and elimination of personal history becomes evident as additional personas are revealed.

Living publicly as Erra, she estabhshes for herself a fantasy world disconnected from reality, unwilling to engage in unpleasant realities or with past experiences, even when this refusal to relate her personal history damages her relationship with her only daughter. It is as Krissy that she estabhshes this world, and the disposability of her personas and craned life are emphasized with the ease with which she ends her relationship with Peter. Her persona is exposed as 79 crafted when she cannot help but react intensely and emotionally in her reunion with Lute/Janek. She becomes unrecognizable to the world she has established - the aspects of herself she has attempted to suppress become evident. Ultimately, the past Ena worked so diligently to suppress is revealed in the exploration of

Kristi/Klarysa. The reader learns about the trauma experienced by her as a child, finding out she is a Lebensbom baby, the further divisions from established identity that occur when her cultural identification with Janek is disrupted and she is denied the opportunity to explore her identity as Klarysa. While she identifies with Janek, and maintains this identification tliroughout her life, this is a matter of choice and reveals the way in which cyborg identity can be formed and pmsued in a strategy of regeneration and survival. Ultimately, the roles that both Saffie and

Ena assume reveal the fiactuied natuie of their identities, their state of dislocation and their attempt to reconstitute their worlds, in which the disparate parts of their identities confront each other.

In the second chapter, I discussed how both Saffie and Erra exist in a state of linguistic dislocation, caught between the world of their past and the world of their future, a situation, which when examined, reveals the liminal state of their existence. The fractured state they experience from an identity perspective spills over onto linguistic questions. They, as cyborg figures, are caught between languages, but do not belong to one particular idiom, but to many. They are engaged in "the struggle against perfect communication, against the one code that translates all meaning perfectly" (Haraway, "Cyborg" 176); they are in a constant state of translation and transition. 80

Saffie, caught between German and French, is caught between two positions— speaking and silence. Her lack of linguistic ability initially makes her desirable to Raphael, the exotic Other in an otherwise ordinary world. On the one hand, her speech appears to emphasize Raphael's situation of dominance. She becomes essentially silenced; her speech is primarily rnimiciy; she operates as a minor to reflect and reinforce the established power structure. On the other hand,

Saffie challenges this power structure by utilizing her silence as a means of maintaining her emotional detachment, and this destabilizes the power dynamic of her relationship with Raphael. This power dynamic shifts further as Saffie develops greater facility with the French language and speaks; she asserts her own agency, transcending previously defined roles and expectations and revealing the way communication can be used as a tool to invert situations of dominance and power.

Erra exists in a state of division from language; her ability to utilize and identify with a particular linguistic group is disrupted even as her connections with people and concept of personal history are altered. Her experience with the

German language becomes tainted as she learns of her inclusion in the

Lebensborn program; she becomes divided from the language of her earliest memory and experience. Although she is able to identify with Polish as a result of her deep connection to Janek, this association is destabilized when it is revealed that she is not Polish, but Ukrainian. The Ukrainian language holds the potential for the linguistic identification Erra craves, but the opportunity to explore this connection is denied her. When she is taught English, and sent to an 81

Anglophone environment in which to shape her future, she is forced to move towards a new beginning without a strong connection to any linguistic inheritance. Ultimately, Erra exists poised on several linguistic multilingual divides which further emphasize her numerous states of separation.

Not only do both Saffie and Erra exist in translation, the works themselves function within the same liuiinal space as they fimction as tianslations. As works translated by the writer from one language to another, they exist in a state of hybridity, caught between pure translation and creative work, even as the differences between the language texts highlight the impossibility of complete transfer of meaning. The ambiguous linguistic state and the situation of emotional disconnect that Saffie and Ena exist in are reinforced by the translated status of the works themselves.

Tim Mark of the Angel/L 'empreinte de I 'ange and Fault Lines/Ligiies de faille, as they operate as translations, highlight situations of linguistic ambiguity.

As works translated by the original author, they exist on the borderland between pure translation and new work; the author is free to create or maintain connection to the original work as she pleases. The differences between the texts emphasize the impossibility of true translation and the way in which concepts differ as they are translated from one language into another. The works, like Saffie and Erra, operate as liminal constructs, that is to say, they too are "joined structures"

(Haraway, "Cyborg" 150), at once whole and disparate.

In the third chapter, I discuss how while the cyborg inhabits a liminal space between animal and machine and experiences a fractured state of self, a 82 new space of existence emerges in which the cyborg thrives and the possibility for exploring new meaning and writing new modes of existence arise. This is the space of the translingual individual, the iinrnigrant/rnigrant who writes between and across languages. Potential for the exploration of the becomes possible; lives may be crafted and discarded at will. Modes of communication, perhaps previously forbidden, may be explored. Saffie and Erra both function as translingual writers, attempting to establish new modes of meaning and existence through the adoption of new language/culture.

Kelknan's conception of the translingual explores possibilities of expression beyond uni-lingualisni — writing between and across languages creates the possibility of the emergence of anew voice, new creative possibihties because the writer exists in a state of ambiguity. These new possibilities, like Barthes' modem, neutral writing, remain inextricably linked to the surrounding world, attempting to renegotiate the creative process in order to explore new modes of writing and existence. The hanslingual writer is faced with a situation of emancipatory detachment from language; style and convention in the new language become evident to a greater degree, and the writer is able to explore aspects of writing which were previous closed to them. This detachment, as discussed by Huston, is perceived as being necessary to the creative process. This process, like the cyborg, is not an innocent one. Rather, it is a deliberate mechanism employed for the regeneration and renegotiation of self, identity, and representation. As well, that which is foreign may hold allure, even as it may 83 cause revulsion, for the consuming public, as the translingual writer reinforces the status of the adoptive tongue.

Saffie and Erra, through their hybrid states of existence, create a space in which the exploration of new possibilities and new narratives becomes possible and exemplify the cyborg's ability to "live on the boundaries, to write without the founding myth of original wholeness" (Haraway 176). As Saffie's emotional barriers weaken, and she is forced out of the stable, yet restrictive environment she has constructed for herself, she encounters the opportunity to craft a new, regenerative life with Andras and Emil. In this life, she is able to explore her own emotional depths and re-establish a connection to the larger world. When her new state of existence becomes exposed, and Raphael kills Emil, her connection to this narrative is dismpted. Saffie, instead of engaging with this new tragedy, unable to dissociate from this part of herself, herself disappears frorn the text. The detachment produced by her cyborg, translingual state, while it allows her to craft a new life narrative and re-establish connection with both her past and emotions, also allows for the summary disposal of this safe crafted life. This is not to say

Saffie achieves a state of resolution, but rather the fractured cyborg state allows her to (potentially) pursue new identity concepts apart from the one that has been recently disrupted.

Erra is also able to establish a new life narrative as a result of her own translingual cyborg status. The distance she establishes between her past and present, from language and history, allows Erra to function, for a time, according to her own desires without reference to the larger society; she is free to 84 conceptualize her life narrative as desired, and is able to construct an existence that supports her own agenda and goals. Additionally, she is able to pmsue both a non-traditional lifestyle and career without fear or repercussion from a family or world to which she denies attachment. In pursuing her wordless song, Ena is able to transcend the question of language. This becomes her ecriture, freed from any pre-ordained state (Barthes 76). Even as Erra is eventually able to re-establish a connection with language via her relationship with Mercedes, her pure voice remains her choice mode of expression. Belonging to no language and to no history, it is unassailable; Erra cannot be divided or disconnected from it. She has established a neutral place of expression, a new mode of creation, intimately linked to, but free from the shackles of her past.

The division of identity that both Saffie and Erra pursue works to further their goals of self-reconceptualization, and when examined, highlights the instability of their carefully crafted new lives, emphasizing the liminal state of the migrant/cyborg construct. The relation of each character to language highlights situations of ambiguity, and emotional disconnection. This is further emphasized through an examination of the translated state of the texts themselves, which function at once independently and as joined formations. As self-translations, they inhabit the space between new work and translated text. The differences in the texts themselves reinforce the emotional disconnect both Saffie and Erra establish and attempt to maintain.

While the separations established and existent within both Saffie and Erra do function as a form of self-censorship and self-mutilation, the space formed 85 between these separations, and the resultant potential of this liminal existence, allows for self-regeneration. It becomes possible for the transliagual writer to explore new modes of writing, both Saffie andErra are able to revise their identity narrative and establish new modes of living and creation - each can transcend the boundaries established as mechanisms for survival, exploring new opportunities and new spaces full of potential. 86

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