Like a couple people mentioned before, the J-characters in this novel seem to represent different aspects of the female psyche: Jeanine seems to play the role of want-to-be submissive housewife, Janet portrays a rational and scientific mind, Jael represents a violent rebel and would-be conqueror, and Joanna seems to be the contemplative observer. \u00a0As the writer and a character in the novel, I think that Joanna’s sensibilities present her as the most fully human character in the novel; that is, she seems the most realistic, and while she does not always appear as an agent of action she seems aware of and has more access to other perspectives and possibilities (perhaps I’m attributing too much of Joanna, the writer and creator of the world and everything in it, to Joanna the character). \u00a0All of the major characters, including Joanna, seem to be extremes: overly submissive, overly rational, overly aggressive, overly meditative. \u00a0Their extremes make them more into archetypes than characters, inorganic representations rather than organic people.<\/p>\n
These archetypes of female possibility, the fragmented structure of the novel, the intense interest in feminine and masculine identity, and the meta-fictional aspects of the novel draw attention to the work as an artificial construction. \u00a0Science fiction does not always draw attention to itself as artificial; most times in sci-fi, we give ourselves over to willing suspension of disbelief and simply accept that the mechanics of the world are different. \u00a0This novel draws does not disguise the fact that Russ is using the sci-fi genre as a platform for experimenting and investigating gender identity. \u00a0I think that Anastasia and Alyssa are correct in reading the novel as a satire or parody since these forms of writing usually depend on generalizations. \u00a0How can Russ not be poking fun at gender constructions when she lists in quick succession the names of women whose identities are imbedded right in the name? (“…Clarissa, who will commit suicide…” I think is a reference to the title character of the novel Mrs. Dalloway by Virginia Woolf, a modern writer and feminist (34).)<\/p>\n
Anastasia and Alyssa’s comments remind me of the Toni Morrsion book Playing in the Dark, which I read an excerpt from recently in my theory class. \u00a0One of the things that Morrison insists upon is that she recognizes that African American voices are marginalized in literary scholarship, but she does not want to trade a white Euro-centric perspective for a strictly African or African American perspective. \u00a0Both white and black need to be acknowledged to understand one another, just as female and male are needed to understand one another (Janet Evanson might disagree with me, but in our world of two sexes, two genders, both must be incorporated in the whole of humanity). \u00a0I think that Russ comes to a similar conclusion at the end of Female Man when Jael’s crusade to overthrow male domination comes across as extreme and just trading misogyny for misandry. \u00a0While much of post-modern literature is inconclusive (I don’t think that Joanna formally allies herself with Jael and her war plans) I think we are right to question the anti-male domination view at the end.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Like a couple people mentioned before, the J-characters in this novel seem to represent different aspects of the female psyche: Jeanine seems to play the role of want-to-be submissive housewife, Janet portrays a rational and scientific mind, Jael represents a violent rebel and would-be conqueror, and Joanna seems to be the contemplative observer. \u00a0As the … Continue reading Characters and Satirical Experiment<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":16,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[54],"tags":[27,23,21,49],"class_list":["post-415","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-week-9-female-man","tag-morrison","tag-satire","tag-science-fiction","tag-sex"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=415"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":464,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/415\/revisions\/464"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=415"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=415"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.samplereality.com\/gmu\/spring2009\/660\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=415"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}