Anna Carey’s Eve: Mapping the Utopian Dream of Gender Equality Within Young Adult Dystopian Fiction by KELLI ANNE GUNN Thesis submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the Degree of Master of Arts (English) Acadia University Spring Convocation 2017 © by KELLI ANNE GUNN, 2016 This thesis by KELLI ANNE GUNN was defended successfully in an oral examination on 6 December, 2016. The examining committee for the thesis was: ________________________ Dr. Zelda Abramson, Chair ________________________ Dr. Graham Murphy, External Examiner ________________________ Dr. Jon Saklofske, Internal Examiner ________________________ Dr. Andrea Schwenke Wyile, Supervisor _________________________ Dr. Jessica Slights, Head This thesis is accepted in its present form by the Division of Research and Graduate Studies as satisfying the thesis requirements for the degree MASTER OF ARTS (ENGLISH) …………………………………………. ii I, KELLI GUNN, grant permission to the University Librarian at Acadia University to reproduce, loan or distribute copies of my thesis in microform, paper or electronic formats on a non-profit basis. I, however, retain the copyright in my thesis. ______________________________ Author ______________________________ Supervisor ______________________________ Date iii Table of Contents Introduction……………………………………………………………….. 1 Chapter 1: Subverting Traditions by Blending Genres…………………… 7 1.1 .Separating Utopia as a Literary Genre from Utopian Desire…… 9 1.2 Young Adult Literature and Utopian Impulses………………… 14 1.3 Fantasy and Speculative Fiction……………………………….. 23 Chapter 2: Mapping Traditions and Progress.................................................. 29 2.1 Revisiting 20th Century Feminist Literary Critique…………….. 32 2.2 Evolution of Gender Representation Within Literary Traditions 50 Chapter 3: Moving Beyond Traditional Gender Binaries…………………. 59 3.1 Heroic Quest……………………………………………................ 61 3.2 Challenging the Male Hero…………………................................. 72 3.3 Deconstructing Hero Gender……………………………………. 73 Conclusion…………………………………………………………….......... 81 Works Cited………………………………………………………………… 84 iv Abstract Young adult literature needs to see an increase in the volume and variety of gender-fluid heroic figures to combat the almost exclusive glorification of the male hero. More focus needs to be placed on the unconventional ways young adult heroes succeed on their quests without adhering to traditional stereotypes that limit characters based on their gender. Anna Carey’s Eve presents a young adult female hero who survives based on her own ability to change and adapt, as well as a willingness to rely on her friends and to help them in return. Eve and her friends are compassionate characters who use their agency to transform The New America from an oppressive state to a democracy that does not emphasize or enforce gender-based roles, as well as positively influence YA literature as a whole by challenging gender stereotypes. Eve influences YA fantasy literature for the better, and emerges from gendered stereotypes in the process. This thesis focuses on 1) factors that reinforce patriarchal hegemony in YA heroic narratives, particularly in dystopian, post-apocalyptic settings, and the preference of conglomerate publishers to choose manuscripts where the protagonists perform masculinity and 2) how blending genres in young adult literature can result, as is the case with Eve, in marketable novels with less conventional heroic figures, which are relatable to a wider audience of young readers. At the root of Eve is a utopian vision for a society that places less emphasis on gender prescription and more on basic human growth, development, and acceptance. v Anna Carey’s Eve: Mapping the Utopian Dream of Gender Equality Within Young Adult Dystopian Fiction Introduction “Utopia is about how we would live and what kind of world we would live in if we could do just that.” (Levitas 1) Anna Carey’s young adult dystopian trilogy comprised of novels Eve (2011), Once (2012), and Rise (2013) challenges outdated gender representations in young adult fiction. The heroic quest within the narrative serves dual purposes by following the journey of a teenaged, female protagonist named Eve, as well as symbolizing Eve’s personal and societal progression away from patriarchal practices that bind physiological sex to certain gender roles toward a fluidity of gender, where individuals are free to choose their roles based on their personal skill sets and desires, rather than following the status quo. Within the dystopian landscape and quest narrative of the trilogy, which will henceforth be referred to as Eve, Carey reimagines a society that fights and overcomes a totalitarian regime that dictates the futures of orphans based on their sex. Literally, Eve’s quest is to rescue other girls from being used as birthing machines. In addition, Eve’s quest symbolizes Carey’s desire for a progression away from Young Adult (YA) genre limitations and traditions. Carey`s approach to gender and genre limitations makes her Eve trilogy a noteworthy intervention in YA fiction. Set only thirteen years in the future, after a deadly plague has wiped out almost all of the people in the United States, the novel features the King of The New America rebuilding a city on the site of what used to be Las Vegas, by using orphaned boys as slaves and orphaned girls as baby-making machines. Because the government bombed all the cities to eradicate the unnamed disease, the King must start from scratch, and to do that, he uses orphaned boys as slaves to build his city, and girls as “sows” to repopulate. Eve, a star student at her School, discovers, the night before her graduation, that she is destined to become one of these sows. Following this discovery, she runs away into the Wild, vowing to return to the School and to rescue her friends from being victimized and exploited by the King’s regime because of their ability to have children. Likewise, the male characters are victimized and mistreated by the King, which suggests that, unlike some of her predecessors, Carey’s feminism takes into consideration and acknowledges the damaging effects of patriarchy on men, as well as women. The King tries to force the boys and girls into set roles within his new society based on their physiology, while Eve proves how arbitrary those roles are as she acts according to her personal strengths and weaknesses and encourages others to do the same. Dystopian fictions like Eve serve as a critique of the present when authors construct futuristic and imaginative settings to reflect real world problems, such as imbalances in power due to patriarchal values. Rather than constructing a mirror image of reality, authors of such fictions exaggerate problematic aspects of real life in an attempt to 2 comment on, and critique, such conditions. Specifically, in the Eve trilogy, Carey prods at issues of power through mild disruptions of the heteronormative gender roles that the Western hero formula is founded on. The representations of Eve, Arden and Caleb can thus be read as somewhat subversive to patriarchal hegemony. Dystopian narratives are commonly set in a world that has been devastated by an apocalyptic tragedy where leaders are trying to reestablish order by enforcing societal control and conformity. It is against the totalitarian control of these leaders that the protagonists exercise their individuality and agency. Characters who live in post- apocalyptic dystopian societies have the chance to shape a society in its formative years, just like young adult literature has the opportunity the shape the minds of young readers by challenging them to think critically about the literature they read and how it reflects real life, in the hope of educating them against mindlessly accepting the status quo. The Hunger Games by Suzanne Collins, Divergent by Veronica Roth, and The Forest of Hands of Teeth by Carrie Ryan are all examples of YA fictions in which political leaders enforce tight restrictions and rules that are then subverted by the protagonists and set the stage for them to stand out as progressive characters, but the overreaching ideologies within the narratives are not necessarily progressive in terms of the roles the characters play in respect to gender stereotypes. Eve has a distinct, although subtle, progression in character development that goes beyond coming-of-age and beyond the heroic quest journey, which challenges many typical gender representations. Dystopias, particularly those set in a post-apocalyptic world like Eve, are infused with utopian longings that encourage growth and change, represented by the main character’s resistance to an oppressive force. The force may be a totalitarian leader, bleak 3 environmental conditions, starvation, slavery, or any number of other situations, but the narrative exists to prove that those conditions can be overcome. Raffaela Baccolini asserts that “utopian [longings are] maintained in dystopia, traditionally a bleak, depressing genre with no space for hope in the story, only outside the story” (520). The subversive element, that aspect of Eve’s narrative which suggests, however implicitly, that Eve ultimately succeeds in overcoming her father’s patriarchal hegemony, can be identified as Carey’s utopian dream or longing: This dream consists of a wish for a female hero who can move beyond the limitations of the patriarchal heroic genre and so feed into the larger utopian dream of gender equality and fluidity in literature, one that can be “enjoyed