LITERARY LABORATORIES: A CAUTIOUS CELEBRATION OF THE CHILD-CYBORG FROM ROMANTICISM TO MODERNISM Eva Lupold A Thesis Submitted to the Graduate College of Bowling Green State University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS August 2012 Committee: Dr. Erin Labbie, Advisor Dr. Piya Pal Lapinski © 2012 Eva Lupold All Rights Reserved iii ABSTRACT Dr. Erin Labbie, Advisor Constructions of children and constructions of cyborgs in literature and other textual representations are very similar; both identities are liminal since they exist outside the realm of adult human experience and both identities also serve as vehicles through which adults can experiment with their own conscious or unconscious fantasies or fears. Because of these similarities, the figure of the child and the figure of the cyborg frequently become linked in popular culture. Although the figure of the cyborg offers many liberating opportunities for alternative hybrid identity formations (as posthumanist Donna Haraway has pointed out), linking the figure of the child with regressive constructions of the cyborg can have many harmful consequences. Often, the figure of the cyborg becomes a site for the fears and phobias of adults afraid of the future. And since children are already sometimes marginalized in adult texts, or get used as adults experiment with their own anxieties about the present or the future, linking the figure of the child with the figure of the cyborg in some situations can theoretically create a doubly-differentiated “other.” Arguing that the merging of the figure of the cyborg and the figure of the child has become much more popular in recent decades, this project will attempt to analyze the evolution of the child-cyborg from Romanticism to Modernism by discussing representations of the “child-animal cyborg,” the “preternatural child-cyborg,” and the “mechanized (or robotic) child-cyborg.” It will then conclude by interrogating from a sociological perspective how regressive representations of child-cyborgs may affect real child bodies, positing that more progressive constructions of child-cyborgs are both possible and desirable. iv In loving memory of Kenneth E. Lupold, Harold F. Williams, and Eva M. Williams v ACKNOWLEDGMENTS My sincere appreciation and thanks go to my parents, David and Mary Lupold, and my sister Emilee Lupold, for their indefatigable support, love, and selflessness throughout the duration of my academic career; to Dr. Erin Labbie who has been a limitless well of source recommendations, support, and scholarly advice during the duration of this project; to Dr. Piya Pal Lapinski for her carefully considered and nuanced criticism; to Brian Keilen for helping me to keep all of the ships I’m sailing at any given time on an even keel with his generous love and good-nature; to Christopher Barnes for his inexhaustible ear, unassuming advice, and personal as well as professional support; to Alexander Monea for his mobilizing conversation and contagious sense of intellectual rigor; to Christina Yaniga for her willingness to critique my work over coffee and for her encouragement and friendship; to Nicole Sickinger and Heather Trahan, the girlfriends and gypsy-goddesses who help me to keep things in perspective; to Dr. Kimberly Coates and Dr. Stephanie Gearhart who continually inspire me to set the bar higher; to Dr. Courtney Weikle-Mills, Dr. Amy Murray Twyning, Dr. Marah Gubar, and Dr. James Kincaid for instilling in me an appreciation for childhood studies early on in my academic career; and to Gabrielle Owen and Loring Pfeiffer for encouraging me to enroll in a graduate program and for demonstrating how to approach graduate studies with grit, generosity, and grace. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page INTRODUCTION…………………………………………………………………………. 1 “The Cyborg”…………………………………………………………………….... 8 “The Child”………………………………………………………………………… 13 Similarities Between Children and Cyborgs…………………………… .................. 16 CHAPTER I. MANUFACTURING TOTS AND ROBOTS: A GENEALOGY OF “THE CHILD” AND “THE CYBORG” IN WESTERN SOCIETY…………………………… ... 23 The Classical Age ...................................................................................................... 25 The Middle Ages........................................................................................................ 30 The Emergence of the Modern Child and the Mechanization of the Body ............... 33 Proto-Industrialization ............................................................................................... 36 The Industrial Revolution and the Romantics ........................................................... 40 The Victorian Era ....................................................................................................... 44 The “Century of the Child” ........................................................................................ 49 CHAPTER II. INTO THE WILDS OF CHILDHOOD: ROMANTICISM AND THE ANIMAL- CHILD CYBORG IN WILLIAM BLAKE…………………………….. .................…….... 60 Innocence ................................................................................................................... 68 Experience………………………………………………………………………….. 76 Reverberations……………………………………………………………………… 81 CHAPTER III. CREEPY CHILDREN: THE UNCANNY AND THE PRETERNATURAL CHILD-CYBORG…………………………………………………………………………. 89 Irony and Criticism in The Turn of the Screw............................................................ 97 vii Sight and Possession in The Turn of the Screw ......................................................... 100 The Uncanny and the Disciplined Body in The Adventures of Pinocchio ................. 112 CHAPTER IV. ROBOTIC BABIES: AN ANATOMIZATION OF MECHANIZED CHILD- CYBORGS IN MODERNIST TEXTS……….……………………………………... .......... 122 Children and Futurity ................................................................................................. 124 Mechanized Children and Brave New World............................................................. 128 Robotic Children and Ender’s Game ......................................................................... 138 CHAPTER V. CONSIDERING THE CONSEQUENCES: CONCERNS FOR REAL CHILD BODIES……………………………………………………………………………………. 151 Medical Practices ....................................................................................................... 153 Labor Practices........................................................................................................... 159 Sexual Practices ......................................................................................................... 163 Conclusion ................................................................................................................. 168 BIBLIOGRAPHY……. ......................................................................................................... 170 viii LIST OF FIGURES/TABLES Figure/Table Page 1 “Bourgeois Wedding Couple – Quarrel” ................................................................... 1 2 "Cut with the Kitchen Knife Dada through the Last Weimar Beer Belly Cultural Epoch of Germany”…………………. ...................................................................................... 2 3 “The Lamb”…. .......................................................................................................... 70 4 “Spring”…….. ........................................................................................................... 72 1 INTRODUCTION It is quite possible to train the baby to be an efficient little machine, and the more nearly perfect we make the running of this machine, the more wonderful will be the results achieved and the less trouble it will be for the mother. -- Myrtle Meyer Eldred and Helen Cowles Le Cron, For the Young Mother Like many Dadaists of the Weimar Republic, Hannah Hoch regularly incorporated images of the grotesque into her work. Frequently featuring depictions of disassembled bodies in her photomontages, Hoch also often worked with images of cyborgs, women, and children as she assembled her collages. Because Hoch was part of a culture in which artists were increasingly consumed by themes of industrialization, alienation, and automation, it is not surprising that her assemblages often feature these themes in her work. Hoch’s work is similar to the work of many other Dada artists in the sense that it reflects a growing concern for the techno-organic hybridized human body at the beginning of the twentieth century; but it is also of interest because it incorporates images of child bodies in conjunction with these themes. For instance, in her photomontage “Bourgeois Wedding Couple – Quarrel” (1919), Hoch places an image of a child’s enlarged head upon the body of a female athlete (presumably a “bride”). Next to this image is an infantilized male athlete (the “groom”), who virtually disappears under a large feminine-looking hat. Both of these images are foregrounded against a backdrop of various housecleaning machines, which suggest that the Figure 1: “Bourgeois Wedding Couple – Quarrel” (1919), published in Biro, Matthew. The Dada Cyborg: Visions of the New Human in Weimar Berlin. University of Minnesota Press: Minneapolis. 2009. Print. 2 young couple has become consumed not only by their own gender roles and the prospect of children, but also by the vast array of household appliances available to them. In this way, Hoch’s collage is a commentary on the increasing mechanization of the family and the household in early twentieth century Germany. Likewise,