Marge
Piercy´s Body of Glass and the Cyborg-Humanan relationship : fear or hope for the twenty-first century? *
Prof. Miguel
Nenevé _ UNIR
Nayara Gomes _ UNIR
As
it is wrong to give birth to a child believing that child will fulfil your
inner aspirations, will have a particular talent or career, so it is equally
wrong to create a being subject to your will and control. In the myth of
Pygmalion, we assume that she she would
love her sculptor, but Shaw knew better. Each one of us wants to posses
ourself; only fools willingly give themselves away. Slavery produces the slave.
Avram and Yod killed each other. Yod loved me, or whatever simulacrum of
attachment he felt, because I had let go. ( Piercy, p. 418),,,,
Originally
published in 1991, under the title of He
, She and It in the United States, the novel Body
of Glass was released in the UK a year later and won the Arthur C. Clarke
Award in 1993 A
scene of court battle unfolds a " disconcertingly new world " (
Nordgren , 2004). We argue that Margie
Pierce´s novel suggests several thoughts on gender , identity and other
cultural constructs of traditional
cultural categories . The organization narratives in a frame, so that the
stories are told in analogies and in different
historical times , offers alternative visions of two historical periods : the
Jewish ghetto of Prague during the Middle Ages and a possible future of our
planet in the year 2059, after an ecological catastrophe. The novel purports a destabilization of naturalized concepts of
culture , which can be evidenced by the contrasts that the "continuity of
human experience " ( Nordgren , 1996) provokes by manifesting itself in two narratives
focalizations tied by Malkah´s speech.
The parallel stories present similar
historical moments regarding the insecurity of living space as well as the
creation and manufacturing of life . The shared experiences seem to point to
the artificial factor of the constitution of the realities that would not be
predetermined for alleged linearity and uniqueness of "progress "
history as Sargisson (1996 ) advocates .
Future alternatives realities.
These narratives
promote the construction of alternative realities to the actual reality of the characters from
the strangeness of gender categories and production of other spaces that
challenge the naturalized epistemological categories and cultural practices
that have determined how to produce and understand new social and scientific
ontologies . It is on these models that
the novel Body of Glass (He, She, It) can provide the
reader with new material for other
possible meanings . The very title themselves evoke the existence of other
identity categories ( He, She and It) , as expressed by the pronoun
"it" , and speculation about the concept and role of the body (Body
of Glass ) in a post- human world , as Glover contends (2009).
Although science
can provide pathways for the de-familiarization of representations of bodies
and identities in essentialist conceptions, the simple application of technologies in the
spatiality of the novel Body of Glass
is not presented as the solution to elude immutable categories . It may be limited by the resources and human
knowledge , when based on universalistic
assumptions and [ the ] commitment to objective , pure and neutral knowledge , who investigates the involvement of religion
and magic in the production of knowledge . The author also argues that this
novel destabilizes the usual hierarchies of knowledge and mode settings of
Science Fiction ( SF ) , based on the value of different sources of knowledge ,
suggesting a much more fluid definition of this literary mode as the concept of
reality.
We argue that
the novel suggests that the body is a place of knowledge production from
establishing relationships and interaction with the space , which seems to
suggest transgressions representation between the limits of conceptual
compartments of mind and body , which would function as a metaphor to undermine
the logic grounded in oppositional poles . To highlight the erosion of the boundaries
between emotion and reason , respectively connected with the body and mind,
Sargisson (1996 ) cites Alison Jagger, who proposes an epistemological model
underpinned by the non-hierarchical combination of excitement and knowledge.
According to the
author, the concepts of emotion and reason have traditionally been separate. The
continuity promoted by naturalization of such tradition is also related to
other dyads involving the mind, the public space and the universal in an
isolated sphere of emotions and irrationality, the body and the natural as well
as isolated from private space to which the female has been associated for a
long time in Western culture. However , according to Jagger (quoted by Sargisson
, 1996) , emotions actually are culturally variable and relate to the process
of socialization , in which individuals learn appropriate responses to certain
situations , which are judged according to the conceptual images of the subject . Emotions
thus also help to actively engage and build our world. The traditional
separation between reason and emotion reflect the interests of dominant
sections of society. According to the author, quoted by Sargisson (1996) our perceptions can be expanded by means of
emotions located outside the dominant values , which may offer alternative
culture and experience . In this context, the analysis of collected excerpts of
Body of Glass seems to suggest that the body is a site of knowledge production
from the appreciation of the experiences, judgments and individual emotions.
In order to
offer a critical reading of this novel, it seems to be crucial, for the present
study, to investigate how Body of Glass
destabilizes and transgresses naturalized order that governs our world
experiences and concepts which we construct based on traditional
representations of places, usually arranged in a dichotomous way. As the core
of the discussion, the concept of transgression, according to Jeha´s notions (
2010a , 2010b , 2010c ) and Sargisson (1996 ) , appears as the main argument for
the proposed definition of science fictions and for the concept of reality. These concepts may
illuminate gender issues that can be observed through discursive strategies of
the work pertaining to science and cognition .
In this context,
it seems to us that some concepts of science and cognition, as well as the
implications they have in the definition science fiction and reality. Therefore
an analysis of representations of scientific production and its relation to the
discursive places of knowledge production in the novel seems to be relevant
here. The dualist demarcations seem to be effective in characters such as Avram
and Malkah, scientists responsible for the operation of robotic and cyborg Yod,
as well as the images of Rabbi Judah Loew, who respects the separation between
the power of ha - Shem the power of human science – for example his
granddaughter Chava, an intellectual who also holds the office of a midwife. This
role attached to the body may work as a device to emphasize the task of the rabbi
and his granddaughter in the spaces configured as public and private ones. This
duality, however, seems to blur because of the characterization of the novel characters and the socialization of the cyborg
and the golem , involving the combination of alleged objectivity of science and
subjectivity of experience and the creation of life by mystical means and process.
Based on presented
articulations which are also suggested through the destabilization of rigid
demarcations mainly related to biological classification of characters, we
suggest that the novel seems to offer opportunities for discussion on the
concepts of humanity and identity. This justifies the clippings for analysis
that focus on the body and a forging identity. Representations of science from
Body of Glass may allow speculation on the cultural borders, posing constructed
fluid images (susceptible to transformation) beyond these boundaries, which may
lead to new realities and alternatives to official space-time dimension. This
may be evidenced from the conceptual transgression operation throughout the
work.
Some concepts of Science: visions and revisions
Although the expressions science fiction was coined in
1929, with the creation of the magazine Science Wonder Stories, by Hugo Gersnback, and even though productions that can be classified as
“science fiction” have swarmed in pulp magazines, the academic interest in
these productions took some time to come out, as Gunn ( 2005) points. This scholar
begins his volume devoted to science fiction with the argument that "
science fiction is to define how to measure the properties of an electron: you
may think you are measuring a solid object, but it is really a wispy cloud. Even
its name leads to disputes. " ( P. IX ) Attempts to set the sc.f. , as Gunn´s (2005 ) quotation points out, seem to be
rooted primarily in the scientific content that fictions can present and
impossible to categorize. The traditional view has changed mainly due to the
way science is considered and to studies which rehabilitated Science fiction ,
such as those research pieces produced
by Scholes (1976 ) and Suvin (1976 ) .
These scholars,
together with Gunn (2005 ) have produced
materials that illuminated the importance of this mode for literary criticism.
However, the he studies developed reduce science fiction the cognitive aspects
and thematic linked to technology, excluding other modes of knowledge
production and the implications of how such knowledge is shared. Such a reduction , however, seems to be due to the
time period elapsed between the original publication of these studies and more
recent publications such as the object of study of this work . The context of
production on which Scholes (1976 ) and Suvin (1976 ) pored probably referred to the duality of representations of
science and technology that alternated between optimism and relations of power
and violence , as Amaral and Oliveira ( apud GOMES , 2011) write about the
development of the story of mode . What sustains the thesis of the two
theorists , therefore, seems to be the positivist concept of cognition that
would be evaluated in fictions with this subject , which certifies a view of
science that seeks to achieve a pre -cultural fact, prior to any human judgment
. However ,both works proved to be important because of the displaced images
and representations of the space-time dimensions that the both explore in
relation to science fiction .
In response to
this traditional view of science as an objective inquiry, feminist scientists
and science fiction writers have produced alternative to science , considering
the differences , multiplicity , complexity, bias and location of discursive
knowledge ( Cavalcanti , 1999; DE LA
Rocque , 2007; WIGHT , 2007) . The choice to analyze the
representations of knowledge production , therefore, is justified by the fact
that the novel offers a fictional world in which various forms of
experimentation around the world seem to be accepted as a means of knowledge,
which can be perceived , Thus , as an ongoing process of discovery. The very
structure of the novel seems to suggest this process to switch the focus of the
narrative between two characters and display spaces that initially appear to
simulate an almost evolutionary gradation of social forms , in which knowledge
and applications of technology resources support the superiority of objectivity
and rationality as a prerequisite for development and progress , which can be
perceived from the first descriptions that characterize the Glop (short for
megalopolis ) only as an extremely polluted area , where people live off the
waste produced by the domes , the free cities as places located in unstable
regions and the Black Zone as a major radioactive territory.
Although
rationally organized spaces , which represent, in the novel the production centre
of the whole knowledge basis upon which the concepts of truth and reality are
constructed , corporate enclaves have deconstructed their position gradually deconstructed
throughout the novel. The reader realizes that Piercy´s work increasingly emphasizes
the existence of multiple knowledge to destabilize the hierarchical systems of
knowledge and oppression that they engender , as pointed out by Wight ( 2007 )
.
The introductory
scene of Body of Glass presents a scene of legal battle , the disclosures allow
the perception of predictable forms and types usually associated with the mode
of science fiction :
Josh , ex -husband of Shira , sat immediately
in front of her on Domestic Justice room while watching the display screen ,
waiting for the verdict on the custody of Ari their son . a bead of sweat slid down the
furrow of his spine – he wroe a backless
business suit, white3 for the formality of the occasion, very like her own now
to keep from delicately brushing his
back with her scarf to dry it. The Yakamura Stichen dome desert in Nebraska
As one can see
this is a space typically related to the expected stories of science fiction : an environment affected by natural disaster
that is controlled with applications of science and technology. The initial
settings of the narrative present inhospitable places due to the occurrence of a
nuclear holocaust , with several enclaves within which life is made possible by controlling the
weather. These places are subjected to multinational companies , which have
replaced our current forms of government . Outside corporate domes , survival
was almost impossible because the ozone layer was destroyed , the fertile lands
were covered by oceans and became deserts or places without security, people
were under constant threat of being attacked by organ traffickers .
The deconstruction
of space seemingly closer to the ideal
can be observed mainly from their relationships with other places in the
narrative , as Tikva , where scientist Malkah lives. Malkah tells the story of
the golem Joseph to cyborg Yod . The
representations of the two artificial beings are established on an analogy that
involves both the characterization of their creators and socialization
processes . Yod is displayed when Shira goes back home , to the free city of Tikva after losing custody of her son Ari
and finding that the ex -husband moved to a lunar platform with the child .
Alone in the dome of the YS , she accepted the invitation of her grandmother
Malkah to work at home . When she was hired to socialize the cyborg Yod , created as
a weapon to defend the city , Shira establishes a relationship with him which
questions the criteria for humanity , gender and nuclear family . When she asks
if he Yod is considered a living being , it (he?) evaluates :
- I am aware of my existence . I think , I plan
, I feel , I react . I consume them extract nutrients and energy. I grow
mentally, except physically , but the inability to gain weight makes me less
alive? I feel the desire for companionship . If I can not play , too many humans
can not . ( 126).
Being designed to look like a
real human being , Yod is very close to what is perceived as real human
appearance and it (he) establishes emotional ties with Shira , Malkah who produced its operating system , and
Ari when the child is kidnapped by his
mother to live in Tikva . The personality of Yod is thus forged between the “program” and what he learns during socialization
process . The family that they imply and small achievements of the cyborg , as
the paycheck that goes receivable and days off service for which it was created
, revise , according Graham (2002 ) , the possibilities of relationships
between men and women and as the integration between humanity and its
environment, reducing the alienation between her and her artifacts .
The socialization of Yod , however, is not the only instrument of the
character´s subjectification . The second level of narrative in Body of Glass ,
the story of the Golem of Prague , seems to allow the creation of social ties
to the free city after recognition of
their condition ( GOMES , 2011) . Joseph is also a created being to protect a
community , through magical religious rites . As pointed out by Graham (2002 )
, both are products of human artifice, created to defend his people from
external threats .
He, She and may suggest that the
condition of these beings is manufactured from two systems of gender and
knowledge traditionally arranged in opposing pairs whose combination can
configure a third discourse , alternative space to those naturalized cultural
practices , in which the concepts of gender identity and categories of
knowledge can be redefined . The title suggests that the contrast between these
two systems of gender condemns a limited
masculinist definition of science fiction and knowledge as well as celebrating
a broader feminist approach that embraces multiple sources of meaning These distinctions seem to also be denied by
Malkah , which is recognized by the creation and development of defense
information bases ( called chimeras ) and circulating knowledge in a virtual environment
programs . Products developed by character based on the transgressions of
traditional frames seem to operate and used in the production of Yod . The
mutability of Malkah , for example, allowed it to penetrate the basis of YS to
steal information . Although the program used by them is not a chimera , the
scientist soon realizes that entering the enemy base requires adaptation to
established frameworks . " We have to accept his metaphors and incorporate
them . " ( Piercy , 1992 , p . 367 )
Final Remarks (in progress)
Trying to explain the concept of metaphor to Yod, Shira asks him (it) is
he(it) has seen a Rose. The cyborg answers that it(he) has information in his
program. Then Shira takes it(him( to the garden of her grandmother where the
cyborg recognizes the rose from the information that it is stored in the
program.
It [Yod] took hold of one rose and deftly plucked it, bringing it
towards its face. ‘It has colour, fragrance and form, just as my memory
instructed me. But it also has a curiously pleasant tactile quality. I think
you might describe it as... like velvet, perhaps? Am I using a simile
correctly?’
The Rose that Yod finds in Malka´s garden, for example, only starts to
offer hin(it) new significnaces after the subject re-positioning: the contact
with the Rose, beyond the information implanted, offers a new objective
organization which allows the cyborg to compare the velvet texture of the
flower with the sensation of the petals. The experience, therefore, may be
understood as a common construct of all forms of life, which is mediated by the
interpretation and modeled by other constructors, such as language and culture.
When objectified and contextualized in a wider web the relations shared
by its (his) cognitive beings, the
experiences integrate our cultural consciousness. It is from here that fiction
take material for their constitution. According to Jeha (2010b) this process
projects “several alternatives which encourage multiple interpretations”
(5) and at the same time, orient the senses
which relate to the text. The
personal experiences and those
experiences shared by the reader allow the text to construct meanings in a
fictional work and , based on internal
references which transmit the expressive
value of the text, it presents new
references as well as textual emptiness.
The fictional space of science fiction in this case, present new
ontologies through other ways and methods which go beyond our experience and
culture. In this sense that Jeha
proposes that it is impossible to classify a text to a single genre. Science
fiction can manifest itself in several literary forms broadening our
possibilities of shared experiences which make part of our cultural universe.
The analogy between the woven construction and development of Yod and
Joseph also shows what motivated the fabrication of both and their
personification throughout the narratives , involving the attempts of social
and emotional acceptance , as well as identity construction and the position of
the other they occupy. During the socialization process and the search for
freedom, Yod and Joseph bump in almost indelible categorization of non -
humanity thrust upon them . The way Joseph is presented also ratifies the
awkwardness between the frontiers of knowledge , offering intriguing
possibilities of " exploration of aspects of religion, culture and gender
" ( Graham , 2002, p. 102 ) . Even part of religious mythic narratives ,
the golem Body of Glass also embeds scientific perspectives in its construction
process .
Marge Pierce´s Body of Glass suggests
a very important discussion on the relationship between cyberculture,
cyberspace, science fiction as well as utopia and dystopias. Can technologies
save humanity or just do the opposite. The same meanness and egocentrism seem to be the biggest problem in the future era, as
suggests the novel, through Avram: “ I mae him and I can unmake him….Yod was
created to protect and to defend us”(386).
It reminds of Robinson speaking
about Friday. He thought the language for the savage to be useful to
him. Therefore it seems to be possible to conclude that Marge Piercy suggests
that advances in cybernetics and technology may bring fear or hope, depending
on our human attitude towards them.
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Robert (ed). Bridges to Fantasy: Essays
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* Este artigo foi apresentado em Conference na Oxford University e posteriormente publicado pela Interdisciplinary net. no endereço: http://www.inter-disciplinary.net/critical-issues/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/nenevevisionspaper.pdf
