Writing in subversive space: Language and the body in feminist science fiction in French and English Item Type text; Dissertation-Reproduction (electronic) Authors Sauble-Otto, Lorie Gwen Publisher The University of Arizona. Rights Copyright © is held by the author. Digital access to this material is made possible by the University Libraries, University of Arizona. Further transmission, reproduction or presentation (such as public display or performance) of protected items is prohibited except with permission of the author. Download date 05/10/2021 19:58:23 Link to Item http://hdl.handle.net/10150/279786 INFORMATION TO USERS This manuscript has been reproduced from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer. The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction. In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion. Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand comer and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overiaps. Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographicaliy in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in this copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order. ProQuest Information and Learning 300 North Zeeb Road, Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 USA 800-521-0600 WRITING IN SUBVERSIVE SPACE: LANGUAGE AND THE BODY FEMINIST SCIENCE FICTION IN FRENCH AND ENGLISH by Lorie Gwen Sauble-Otto Copyright © Lorie Gwen Sauble-Otto 2001 A Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the DEPARTMENT OF FRENCH AND ITALIAN In Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements For the Degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY WITH A MAJOR IN FRENCH In the Graduate College THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA 2 0 0 1 UMI Number: 3016491 Copyright 2001 by Sauble-Otto, Lorie Gwen All rights reserved. UMI ® UMI Microform 3016491 Copyright 2001 by Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company. All rights reserved. This microform edition is protected against unauthorized copying under Title 17, United States Code. Bell & Howell Information and Learning Company 300 North Zeeb Road P.O. Box 1346 Ann Arbor, Ml 48106-1346 2 THE UNIVERSITY OF ARIZONA GRADUATE COLLEGE As members of the Final Examination Committee, we certify that we have Lorie G. Sauble-Otto read the dissertation prepared by_ ej^titled Writing in Subversive Space: Language and the Body in Feminist Science Fiction in French and English and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy • UAUfrr. Monique t^ttig Date Robert I Lew <—^ Date Jon. gack ^ Date Myra Dinnerstein Date Date Final approval and acceptance of this dissertation is contingent upon the candidate's submission of the final copy of the dissertation to the Graduate College. I hereby certify that I have read this dissertation prepared under my direction and recommend that it be accepted as fulfilling the dissertation requirement. _lA_pju^ 2jzi Jo-d- Dissertation Director Moni^e Wittig Date 3 STATEMENT BY AUTHOR This dissertation has been submitted in partial fulfillm.ent of requirements for an advanced degree at The University of Arizona and is deposited in the University Library to be made available to borrowers under rules of the Library. Brief quotations from this dissertation are allowable without special permission, provided that accurate acknowledgment of source is made. Requests for permission for extended quotation from or reproduction of this manuscript in whole or in part may be granted by the copyright holder. SIGNED: ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This project would not have reached its present state of completion without the insight and direction of Monique Wittig. For patient support and inspiration, thanks to the members of the committee, Robert Ariew, Jonathan Beck, and Myra Dinnerstein. 5 TABLE OF CONTENTS ABSTRACT 7 1. SEX AS CLASS 9 1.1. The Materiality of Oppression 9 1.2. Sex as Class in the Text: Charnas and Vonarburg 19 1.3. Destabilizing the Notion of Sex as "Natural". 36 1.4. Sex as artificial in Carter's The Passion of New Eve 42 2. WOMEN'S WORK 4 9 2.1. Systems of Labor: Rochon's "Canadoule" and Bersianik's "Le Circuit integre" 49 2.2. "Sexage": The Materiality of Labor 55 2.3. (Re)Production in Feminist Science Fiction .. 59 2.4. Alternative (Re)Productive Visions 63 2.4.1. American Classics: LeGuin, Russ, Piercy and Tiptree 63 2.4.2. Charnas' Motherlines and Vonarburg's Le Silence de la cite 77 2.4.3. Subversive Birth and Pregnancy Scenarios in Butler's "Bloodchild" and Rochon's Coquillage 93 3. REBELLION OF THE DOMINATED 100 3.1. Those Rebellious "Bodies" in Wittig's "Le jardin" 100 3.2. Representing Rebellious Bodies 110 6 TABLE OF CONTENTS - Continued 3.2.1. Getting Out of Control: The Subversive Body in the Text 110 3.2.2. Rage, "Madness", Resistance and Revenge. 123 3.2.3. Bodypolitics in Vonarburg'" s Le Silence de la cite 154 4. FIGHTING WORDS 178 4.1. Rebellious Writing 178 4.2. The "Mark of Gender" 185 4.3. Linguistic Experimentation and Creation: Elgin and Vonarburg 196 5. CONCLUSION 215 APPENDIX A: ELECTRONIC INTERVIEW WITH SUZY MCKEE CHARNAS 223 APPENDIX B: ELECTRONIC INTERVIEW WITH ELISABETH VONARBURG 234 REFERENCES 241 7 ABSTRACT This dissertation examines the themes of subversive language and representations of the body in an eclectic selection of feminist science fiction texts in French and English from a French materialist feminist point of view. The goal of this project is to bring together the theories of French materialist feminism and the theories and fictions of feminist science fiction. Chapter One of this dissertation seeks to clarify the main concepts that form the ideological core of French materialist feminism. Theoretical writings by Monique Wittig, Christine Delphy, Colette Guillaumin, Nicole-Claude Mathieu provide the methodological base for an analysis of the oppression of women. Works by American author Suzy McKee Charnas and Quebecois author Elisabeth Vonarburg provide fictional representations of what Wittig calls "the category of sex". Imagery that destabilizes our notions about sex is studied in Angela Carter's The Passion of New Eve. French materialist feminism maintains that the oppression of women consists of an economical exploitation and a physical appropriation. The second chapter of this 8 dissertation looks at images of women working and images of (re)production in science fiction by Quebecois authors Esther Rochon, Louky Bersianik, Elisabeth Vonarburg, and American authors Ursula Le Guin, Joanna Russ, Marge Piercy, James Tiptree, Jr., Suzy McKee Charnas and Octavia Butler. The third chapter examines the theme of justified anger, as expressed in feminist science fiction, when women become aware of their own oppression. In addition to authors already mentioned above, I take examples from works in English by Kit Reed & Suzette Haden Elgin, and in French, by Marie Darrieussecq, Joelle Wintrebert and Jacqueline Harpman. Chapter Four seeks to show the importance of the act of writing and producing a text as a recurring theme in feminist science fiction. Highlighted examples from works by many authors including Elisabeth Vonarburg and Suzette Haden Elgin are representational of what Wittig calls "the mark of gender", the use of pronouns, marked speech and linguistic experimentation and invention. 9 1. Sex as Class On ne nait pas femme: on le devient. Simone de Beauvoir 1.1. The Mat:ejrlalitY of Oppression During the last ten years, the construct of sex has increasingly come under academic scrutiny. As a society, we do not have too much difficulty in understanding gender, or sexualized roles, as being socially and historically constructed. What seems to be so impossible to fathom is that sex is itself more and more understood as "a socio- historical product, rather than a fixed, trans-historical, or taken-for-granted category" (Leonard & Adkins 15). Some of the most groundbreaking theoretical origins for this calling into question the artificiality of the "category of sex" lie in the philosophy of French materialist feminism (Wittig The Straight Mind 5) Radical French materialist feminism provides insight into the ways in which sex itself is constructed, assigned, " Wittig's essay, "The Category of Sex", was first piiblished in Feminist Issues in Spring 1982, pp. 63-8. 10 not according to physiological sexual differentiation but to what Laqueur refers to as "the rhetorical exigencies of the moment" (243). In rethinking the debate on the biological basis for sex, I relied early on in my research upon Laqueur's historical account of the rhetorical construction of sex throughout the centuries. In Making Sex: Body and Gender from the Greeks to Freud, Laqueur traces the construct of sex from Galen's one-sex body model, to the two-sex model which became more accepted by the end of the 17^^ century. In short, Laqueur concludes that sex, and discussions of sexuality have always been based on relations of power and on political rhetoric and not on biological evidence. Sex is "situational" and "explicable only within the context of battles over gender and power" (11). Nonetheless, according to Leonard and Adkins, there has occurred "a sidelining of French materialist feminism" as represented by the work of Guillaumin, Delphy, Wittig, Tabet, Mathieu and a few other theorists (Sex in Question 9).