Chapter Three The Second Mode of FESF: Epistemology and Structural Elements

Calvin, Ritch

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-32470-8_4

Ritch Calvin⁵

Part of the book series: Studies in Global Science Fiction ((SGSF))

748 Accesses

Abstract

In this chapter, Calvin develops the second of four modes of FESF, in which epistemological concerns are raised by means of structural elements of the narrative, including the “person” of the narrator, the “time” or chronology of the narrative, and the “perspective” of the narrator. Calvin argues that each of these three structural components of the narrative is used by feminist writers in order to raise epistemological concerns. Calvin offers examples from Joanna Russ, Margaret Atwood, and Laura Bynum to illustrate how these structural elements raise questions of knowledge and epistemology.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this chapter

Log in via an institution

eBook: USD 16.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Softcover Book: USD 54.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Hardcover Book: USD 54.99; Price excludes VAT (USA)

Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout

Purchases are for personal use only

Institutional subscriptions

Notes

1.
The shift toward New Criticism and away from author (and therefore, any criticism based upon the author) appeared at a time when women, people of color, and other heretofore marginalized individuals were beginning to make claims on inclusion.
2.
Monika Fludernik (2006) offers a more comprehensive definition of narrative. Zhe writes, “A narrative … is a representation of a possible world in a linguistic and/or visual medium, at whose centre there are one or several protagonists of an anthropomorphic nature who are existentially anchored in a temporal and spatial sense and who (mostly) perform goal-directed actions (action and plot structure). … The narrator or narrative discourse shape the narrated world creatively and individualistically at the level of the text, and this happens particularly through the (re)arrangement of the temporal order in which events are presented and through the choice of perspective (point of view, focalization)” (6).
3.
By far the least common narrator function in western literature (including science fiction), the second-person narrator tells the story of the narratee. While a second-person narrator seems to be directly addressing the reader, in fact, in some cases, the narrator may be addressing another character in the story. One of the most frequently cited examples of a second-person narrator is Italo Calvino’s If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, which seems to be directly addressing the reader, but, in the end, seems to be addressing another character.
4.
See, for example, Helen Merrick’s essay “The Female ‘Atlas’ of Science Fiction,” in which zhe discusses the debates regarding sexism in science fiction, including the “round-robin” correspondences among authors regarding the issue in 1974–1975 (55–61).
5.
Tom Moylan (1986) writes that, according to Marilyn Hacker’s introduction to the Gregg Press edition of The Female Man, work on the novel began in 1969. However, Moylan also writes that Samuel R. Delany told him in personal conversation that Russ had actually begun work on it in 1966 (57, 219).
6.
Russ relates some of the details of this colloquium at Cornell in zher interview with Larry McCaffrey (201).
7.
For more on the response to The Female Man, see Ritch Calvin, “‘This shapeless book’: Reception of Joanna Russ’s The Female Man” (2010).
8.
Jennifer Burwell (1997) suggests that the four Js each represent a tendency of women in contemporary existence: Joanna represents the tendency to “intellectualize about the logical contradiction of being a woman”; Jael represents the tendency toward activism and/or terrorism; Janet represents a tendency to retreat into an all-female space; Jeannine represents the tendency to try to fulfill all of society’s expectations for zher (94). Although they all share the same genotype (i.e., share the same biology), they are all very different individuals precisely because of different social circumstances (the process of socialization, gender, etc.).
9.
As Jeanne Cortiel (1999) reads the novel, Jeannine’s continuum is a sort of dystopic version of our world: things might have been even worse.
10.
In the original short story, “When It Changed,” men and women had colonized another planet, but the men died off 600 years earlier from a disease indigenous to the planet.
11.
In “Joanna Russ (1937–)” Douglas Barbour argues—following Samuel R. Delany—that “[p]ut in opposition to ‘style,’ there is no such thing as content” (191). Although I am examining them separately, I would agree with Barbour (and Delany) that the style and content of the work are part and parcel of the same thing. They work together.

12.

The structure of narrators in The Female Man:

Part One	Person	Character
1.I	1st	Janet Evason
1.II	3rd	Jeannine Dadier
1.III	3rd	Janet
1.IV	3rd/1st	Joanna
1.V	3rd	Policeman
1.VI	2nd/1st	Reader
1.VII	1st	Jael?
1.VIII	3rd/1st	Whileaway/?
1.IX	1st	Janet (interview)
1.X	3rd	Jeannine
1.XI	3rd	Etsuko Belin
1.XII	3rd	Jeannine
1.XIII	1st	Joanna (though unclear until later)
1.XIV	3rd	Jeannine
1.XV	1st	Janet (interview)
1.XVI	1st plural	The three (or four?) Js
PART TWO
2.I	1st	Jael? Repeats p. 157
2.II	1st	Joanna
2.III	1st	Joanna
2.IV	3rd	?
2.V	1st	Janet
2.VI	1st	?
2.VII	1st	Janet (interview)
2.VIII	1st	Joanna
2.IX	3rd	Jeannine
2.X	3rd	Jeannine
2.XI	3rd	Cal
PART THREE
3.I	2nd/1st	Joanna
3.II	1st	Joanna (the cocktail party)
3.III	1st	Janet
3.IV	3rd	Whileawayans (one line)
3.V	1st	Chauvinist pig
3.VI	3rd	Whileawayans
3.VII	3rd	Whileawayans
3.VIII	3rd	Whileawayans
3.IX	3rd	Henla Anaisson
3.X	3rd/2nd	A. Belin/reader
3.XI	3rd	Dunyasha Bernadetteson
3.XII	3rd	Whileawayans
PART FOUR
4.I	1st	Joanna
4.II	1st	Jael?
4.III	3rd	Laura Rose Wilding
4.IV	3rd	Poodle
4.V	3rd	Janet/Laura
4.VI	3rd	Whileawayans?
4.VII	1st	Janet? Jael?
4.VIII	3rd	Women in the US congress
4.IX	3rd	Laura
4.X	3rd/1st/1st plural	Janet/Laura/Jael
4.XI	1st/2nd	Laura/reader (last line)
4.XII	3rd	Dunyasha Bernadetteson
4.XIII	1st/3rd/1st plural	Janet/I
4.XIV	3rd/1st	Janet/Laura though Jael butts in
4.XV	3rd	Young women
4.XVI	1st	Janet
4.XVII	3rd/1st	Janet/the author
4.XVIII	3rd/1st	Whileawayans/Js? (last line)
PART FIVE
5.I	1st	Janet? (though not clear until later section)
5.II	1st	Transcript of dialog
5.III	1st	Janet
5.IV	1st	Janet/Jeannine
5.V	3rd	Whileawayans
5.VI	1st	Joanna
5.VII	1st	Transcript of conversation b/w Janet and Jeannine
5.VIII	1st	Unclear. Not Jeannine?
5.IX	3rd
5.X	1st	Joanna?
5.XI	1st	Janet
5.XII	3rd/1st/2nd	Whileawayans/Janet/reader
5.XIII	1st	Whileawayan?
5.XIV	3rd	Whileawayans
5.XV	3rd	Whileawayans
5.XVI	3rd	Whileawayans
5.XVII	1st	Jael? (the other three went earlier)
PART SIX
6.I	3rd	Jeannine
6.II	1st	Joanna?
6.III	3rd	Jeannine
6.IV	1st	Janet/Jeannine
6.V	3rd/1st	Women/Joanna?
6.VI	3rd	Jeannine
6.VII	3rd	Jeannine
6.VIII	3rd	Women
6.IX	3rd	Jeannine
PART SEVEN
7.I	1st/2nd	Joanna (zhe directly addresses the reader)
7.II	1st/2nd	Joanna (zhe directly addresses the reader)
7.III	3rd	Anticipates critics’ complaints
7.IV	1st	Joanna But slips into Janet (143) “Joanna knits (that’s me)” (146)
7.V	1st	Joanna? (though refers to Joanna in 3rd)
PART EIGHT	1st	Jael (repeated from Part Two)
8.I	1st plural	Joanna/Janet/Jeannine re: Jael
8.II	1st	? on Alice-Jael
8.III	1st/2nd	? on Alice-Jael
8.IV	1st	? on Alice-Jael
8.V	1st	Jael—monolog from Jael (except next-to-last line)
8.VI	1st	Joanna
8.VII	1st	Joanna—“I’m the author and I know” (165). Jael in dialog: “I’m the spirit of the author and know all things” (166) Jael—another italics section that has the thoughts of Jael (169)
8.VIII	1st	Joanna; the “other Jael” (180); Switches to Jael: “I produce my own” (181); “Joanna is ashamed of me” (182)
8.IX	1st	Jael, the “grown woman,” the “man-woman”
8.X	1st/2nd	Jael (has killed many men); also addresses the “idiot reader” (194)
8.XI	1st	Jael
8.XII	1st	Jael
8.XIII	1st	Jael
8.XIV	1st	Jael
8.XV	1st	Jael
PART NINE
9.I	3rd	“This is the Book of Joanna.”
9.II	1st	Joanna + boy “in training”
9.III	1st	Joanna
9.IV	1st	Joanna
9.V	3rd	“Learning to despise one’s self.”
9.VI	1st	Joanna (young), with “Laur”
9.VII	1st plural	“We got up and paid our quintuple bill; then we went out into the street. I said goodbye and went off with Laur, I Janet; I also watched them go, I Joanna; moreover, I went off to show Jael the city, I Jeannine, I Jael, I myself.”

13.
Frances Bartkowski draws this connection between the newspaper headline which announces “WOMAN APPEARS FROM NOWHERE ON BROADWAY, POLICEMAN VANISHES” and the fact that Janet inhabits a “utopia”—a place which exists nowhere (55).
14.
Bartkowski points out that, according to Rachel Blau DuPlessis, the names of all three of these protagonists mean “gift from God” (56).
15.
In zher interview with Joanna Russ, Larry McCaffrey says, “In a number of your works you’ve teased the readers about the relationship between the ‘real’ Joanna Russ and your various fictional incarnations. I sense that you do this to remind the readers that there are real associations between your literary texts and reality—that your works are not conceived as ‘pure entertainment,’” to which zhe replies, “Exactly. […] I want to bring the reader in line with my feelings and thoughts—that’s one reasons why I sometimes let down my authorial disguises (or pretend to)” (188).
16.
“Although the Js […] are all variations on the same genotype (Jeannine, Joanna and Janet being, in Jael’s view, the Young, the Weak and the Strong) they do not form the different parts of one whole. For Joanna Russ’s view is not a holistic one: her concern is not to construct ‘whole’ or consistent self, but instead to deconstruct, to pick apart, to open up” (LeFanu 191).
17.
I resist here the temptation to invoke Derrida’s concept of “invagination.”
18.
Other books in the Canongate Myths series include Sally Vickers’s Where Three Roads Meet: The Myth of Oedipus (2008) and Jeannette Winterson’s Weight: The Myth of Atlas and Heracles (2006). A similar project can be seen in Christa Wolf’s Cassandra (1988).
19.
Within the science fiction community, Atwood has frequently been criticized for zher attitude toward and zher perspective on “science fiction.” Many see zher view of science fiction as too narrow and too limited. Zhe defines “science fiction proper” as “books with things in them we can’t yet do or begin to do, talking beings we can never meet, and places we can’t go” (“The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crake ‘In Context’” 513) and argues that “speculative fiction” “employs the means already more or less to hand, and takes place on Planet Earth” (513). Atwood also addresses the controversy in zher nonfiction book, In Other Worlds (2011).
20.
In zher essay “Transgressing Genre,” Coral Ann Howells (2000) suggests that Atwood was influenced by a number of genres, including “the dystopia, the kunstlerroman, the fictive autobiography, the Gothic romance, and the historical novel” (139).
21.
For further discussions of The Handmaid’s Tale as dystopia, see Frances Bartkowski’s Feminist Utopias (1989); M. Keith Booker’s Dystopian Literature: A Theory and Research Guide (1994); Marleen S. Barr’s Future Females, the Next Generation: New Voices and Velocities in Feminist Science Fiction Criticism (2000); Dunja M. Mohr’s Worlds Apart?: Dualism and Transgression in Contemporary Female Dystopias (2005); Fiona Tolan’s Margaret Atwood: Feminism and Fiction (2007); and Gregory Claeys’s The Cambridge Companion to Utopian Literature (2010).
22.
Although (or, perhaps, because) it does not seem to be Atwood’s concern, zhe does not adequately provide the context for how the Republic of Gilead could have emerged, or how the reproductive ritual might have developed, especially within a staunchly conservative regime. Zhe also does not explain how or why this small enclave can persist within the larger US society.
23.
Indeed, novelist and reviewer Norman Spinrad (mistakenly, I think) calls the codex a “schlocko sci-fi afterword in a silly tone at variance with everything that has gone before” (Science Fiction 51).
24.
The reviews tend to agree that it is an interesting novel if not a great one. Several reviews remark upon the rather predictable and far-too-easy ending.
25.
Paratextually, the 27 chapters are separated by nine vocabulary words from the list of Red Words. The list of nine appears each time, though only one word is defined at each occurrence. The definitions themselves make clear why they are forbidden, but they also explain something about Harper, zher personality, and the events of the coming chapters.

26.

The temporal structure of Veracity:

Chapter	Date
1	2045 08 04
2	2026 06 00
3	2045 08 04 Late
4	2045 06 14 Early
5	2045 08 04 Night
6	2045 06 18
7	2045 05 23 Early
8	2045 08 05 Early
9	2045 06 1 Afternoon
10	2045 08 05 Evening
11	2012 08 00
12	2045 08 05 Night
13	2054 05 22 Early
14	2045 08 06 Night
15	2023 09 00
16	2045 08 07 Early
17	2045 05 29 Afternoon
18	2045 08 08 Early
19	2045 08 08 Evening
20	2045 08 12 Early
21	2045 08 14 Night
22	2045 08 15 Afternoon
23	2045 08 29 Afternoon
24	2045 08 31 Early
25	2045 08 31 Afternoon
26	2045 07 4 Early
27	2045 10 25 Early

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

SUNY, Stony Brook, Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Stony Brook, NY, USA
Ritch Calvin

Authors

Ritch Calvin
View author publications
You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

Copyright information

About this chapter

Cite this chapter

Calvin, R. (2016). Chapter Three The Second Mode of FESF: Epistemology and Structural Elements. In: Feminist Science Fiction and Feminist Epistemology. Studies in Global Science Fiction. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32470-8_4

Download citation

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-32470-8_4
Published: 12 September 2016
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-32469-2
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-32470-8
eBook Packages: Literature, Cultural and Media StudiesLiterature, Cultural and Media Studies (R0)

Publish with us

Policies and ethics