Here’s what I’m wondering. Is it possible that Jeannine, Joanna, Jael, and Janet are all the same person? I don’t mean the same genetic material living on different worlds in different times. I mean, is there only ONE of her and the rest (or all) are schizophrenic creations of an oppressed mind? Yes, I realize that they all have their own stories and it doesn’t seem like they would mesh well into one brain in one time period. But here’s my theory: Joanna (I’ll use her for the sake of argument; it could really be any of them I guess) is a woman living in 1969 under the patriarchal values of a capitalistic, technology-driven society. She goes to parties where men spout misogynistic rhetoric at her and call her a “prude” for not putting out. Her “doctor….lawyer…janitor…president…manager…etc.” are all male. Her brother (keep in mind they’re all the same person) tells her that she should marry anyone, it doesn’t matter who. She is called “bitchy, castrating, unattractive, neurotic, etc.” when she expresses her opinion. She is expected to sit idly by while a man she does not like nuzzles her ear and gropes her. She is sexually harassed. She is raped and feels massive guilt because rape is what females live with and what males “get away with.” Couldn’t living in this world drive anyone crazy? Perhaps that is what Russ is trying to tell us. Joanna (or Jeannine or Janet or Jael) creates alternate selves to deal with each different reality that she encounters. Jeannine is the “feminine” one who DOES want marriage and children, but is confused. Jael HINTS at being there from the beginning, but doesn’t show up until the end where she is depicted as a warrior who kills men and uses them for their bodies. Is that what the rape victim in Joanna wants to do to males? Janet is the only semi-happy character and she lives on a planet where none of this is possible. Is this the escapist in Joanna? Are all of these separate, yet equally important urges within the same person? And because of these different urges did the subject have to split into different personalities to cope?
The part I feel where it is most evident of a multiple personality is when Janet sleeps with Laura Rose. The narrator says she is there in “spirit,” but lives among the rafters. If it is multiple personalities then this scene almost seems as if Joanna has an out-of-body experience while watching herself do something that is “wrong”—such as lesbian sex.
Well, there you have it. It’s not too well-thought out, but just a suspicion I was harboring while reading the book. I don’t know…it seems like an interesting episode of Law and Order: SVU (not that I put the TV and novel on the same level)or a companion to Fight Club. Feel free to tell me I’m wrong…