Review

AMERICAN, BRITISH AND CANADIAN STUDIES
Volume Thirty • June 2018
LUCIAN BLAGA
UNIVERSITY PRESS
American, British and Canadian Studies, the Journal of the Academic
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Contents
Editorial 5
Pleas for Respectability: Eighteenth-Century Women Writers

Theorizing the Novel
AMELIA PRECUP 9
The Mammies and Uncles of the South: The Subversive Tales

of Joel Chandler Harris and Kate Chopin
IULIA ANDREEA MILICĂ 27
Spaces of Identity: Gender, Ethnicity, and Race in

Salome of the Tenements (1923) and Quicksand (1928)
ANCA-LUMINIŢA IANCU 51
The Formation of Race and Disability in

Philip Kan Gotanda’s I Dream of Chang and Eng
YASSER FOUAD SELIM 76
Material Excess and Deadly Dwelling in E.L. Doctorow’s

Homer and Langley
ANAMARIA SCHWAB 93
The Quest of Young Turkish Playwrights: In-Yer-Face Theatre

ELIF BAŞ 114
Breaking the Contract between God

and the Visual-Literary Fusion:
Illuminated Manuscripts, William Blake and the Graphic Novel
ANDREEA PARIS-POPA 133
The Remediation of the Epic in Digital Games:
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
VLAD MELNIC 153
Welcome to the Desert of the Anthropocene:

Dystopian Cityscapes in (Post)Apocalyptic Science Fiction
HATİCE ÖVGÜ TÜZÜN 171
Reviews 194
José Luís Jobim, ed. Literary and Cultural Circulation.

CAMILA HESPANHOL PERUCHI 195
Aloisia Şorop. Moiré: Fluids and Fluidity in Romantic Poetry:

William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge.
DRAGOȘ IVANA 202
Notes on Contributors 207
Call for Papers 211
Call for Membership 216

5 American, British and Canadian Studies
Editorial
Most unthemed journal issues are, to some extent, a reflection of the current
state of knowledge in their discipline. This issue is no exception. As new
fields of study emerge, young researchers are eager to send out their work.
Thus, we have received submissions analysing graphic novels, video games,
science-fiction movies, and informal theatrical performances, alongside the
usual assortment of articles addressing comparatively more traditional
themes, such as women’s fiction and representations of race in the United
States. The other striking feature of this issue is that its contributors, with
only three exceptions, are women, and all come from non-Anglophone
cultures (Brazil, Egypt, Turkey, Romania). The proportion of male to
female scholars is similar to that in Romanian English studies, and the
national make-up of our submissions varies greatly from one issue to another,
so a pattern is hard to discern. What is significant is that, despite the gender
and nationality of the contributors, only two submissions focus specifically on
women’s writing and only one addresses the influence of an Anglophone
cultural phenomenon outside its national borders; the others participate in
literary and cultural debates that are neither gender-specific nor
transnational.1 Thus, while thematically the articles included here testify to
their authors’ awareness of and engagement with current issues and fashions,
their approaches signal a tendency away from marked authorship. In other
words, many of our authors prefer to be read as specialists in British and
American literature or cultural studies, rather than as Romanian or
Turkish or women scholars. Themed issues and collective volumes, in
which many of the contributions included are in fact commissioned, do not
always afford the luxury of unmarked authorship. It therefore behoves
unthemed issues of scholarly journals to accommodate as wide and free a
diversity of papers and scholars as possible and then reflect on the tendencies
that may emerge from their pages.
American, British and Canadian Studies / 6
In themed and themeless volumes alike, the multitude of essays in film

studies, visual culture and gaming testifies to the indelible attraction of the
new media. What renders the new media so appealing is the addictive
technology that makes it possible, a technology that has become almost
prosthetic and whose absence, even temporary, often causes withdrawal
symptoms. One of our contributors to the current issue, Vlad Melnic, quotes
Janet Murray who submits that the digital world enables a higher level of
immersion than text-based media: “The enchantment of the computer creates
for us a public space that also feels very private and intimate … wherein
computers are liminal objects located on the threshold between external reality
and our own minds” (166). While this offers a plausible explanation for the
fascination that has gripped especially the younger generation, Hatice Övgü
Tüzün proffers a cautionary view of the displacement of human agency by
state-of-the-art technologies, a view she derives from her reading of two
dystopias, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
(1968) and Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007). By turns
celebrative and angst-ridden, scholarship devoted to this, our posthuman
condition is becoming a staple of cultural and literary studies. In the past
year in Romania alone two influential journals of cultural studies have
dedicated large sections to investigations of recent literary and cultural
productions that reflect the tastes and anxieties of the age: the
Transylvanian Review included a series of articles on “Utopia –
Dystopia and the Global Order of the Image” in its December 2017
supplement, and Caietele Echinox devoted its first 2018 issue to
“Posthumanist Configurations.” American, British and Canadian
Studies, too, included a few submissions treating similar topics in its
previous unthemed issue (December 2017) and does so again here.
The contributions focusing on the new technologies in this volume
check the cultural credentials of the texts they investigate, whether against
their appurtenance to genres that have had a long tradition, or against a
posthumanist ethics. Thus, Melnic is interested in how video games translate
elements of the heroic poem to the computer screen, while Andreea Paris-
Popa shows that graphic novels originate in the illuminations of medieval

Scriptures and the non-dogmatic mysticism of William Blake’s illuminated
poetry. Tüzün, on the other hand, follows Rosi Braidotti and Claire
Colebrook in regarding posthumanism as an affirmative condition rather
than a terminal crisis of humanity. Accordingly, the posthumanist subject is
a relational and collaborative entity, one that is more tolerant of diversity and
divergence than the earlier, anthropocentric views of subjectivity ever allowed
for.
Several of the articles included here interrogate representations of
subject formation, whether they focus on the intersections of race and
disability or race and gender. Anca-Luminiţa Iancu looks at the process of
identity construction in spaces of in-betweenness marked by gender, race, and
ethnicity in the novels of Anzia Yezierska and Nella Larsen. Iulia
Andreea Milică discusses the significant role played by male and female slave
narrators in subverting the racial discourse in stories by Joel Harris
Chandler and Kate Chopin. In his analysis of Philip Kan Gotanda’s play I
Dream of Chang and Eng, Yasser Fouad Selim examines race and
disability as social and political constructs. To Anamaria Schwab, the
senseless accumulation and consumption of the two protagonists who died
crushed under their house in E.L. Doctorow’s Homer and Langley is a
correlative for America’s own definition of progress as excessive capitalism
and self-sufficiency.
Finally, two essays are devoted to historicising generic innovations
whose significance is bound up with the context in which they emerged.
Amelia Precup reads the prefaces written by the women novelists of the 18th
century for indications of how they established their credibility and
respectability. In their effort to predicate plausibility on factual realism and
the witness account, these women participated not only in shaping and
popularising a new literary genre, but in creating the theoretical discourse that
was to legitimise that genre. Writing about contemporary Turkish
adaptations of British theatrical experiments, particularly black-box and in-
yer-face theatre, Elif Baş gives an account of how cultural imports reflect the
socio-political realities of the adopting country and how censorship and

limited resources engender creativity and experimentation.
If all these contributions could be said to have one thing in common, it
is without doubt their shared awareness of how literature both reflects and
participates in social change. From the romances written by 18th-century
women to the heroic sagas of video games and the subversive themes of in-yer-
face theatre, the texts dealt with in this volume bear witness to a changing
world, in which differently abled persons and technologically enhanced
humans, like gender and racial minorities, are considered carefully in terms
of subject formation as much as the construction of identity. Evincing an
awareness not only of the wondrous diversity of humanity, but of the
relational and intersectional nature of subjectivity, the articles included here
participate in the ethical move of recognising the agency of cultural artefacts in
effecting paradigmatic change.
The Editors
Notes:
1It may be worth mentioning parenthetically that the institutional affiliations of both
our editors and our peer reviewers are equal shares anglophone and non-
anglophone, and that the selection of submissions is doubly blind.
9 Pleas for Respectability
Pleas for Respectability:

Eighteenth-Century Women Writers Theorizing the Novel
AMELIA PRECUP
Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Abstract
The emergence and development of the modern novel used to be viewed
as a largely masculine affair. However, over the past few decades,
researchers and scholars have started to re-evaluate and acknowledge the
importance of women’s literary and theoretical work to the rise and
evolution of the genre. This article adds to these revisionist efforts by
contributing to the ongoing discussion on the theoretical legacy left by
some of the most notable British women writers of the long eighteenth
century. The article analyses several texts (prefaces, dedications,
dialogues, essays, reviews) in which they expressed their perspectives on
questions situated at the core of the eighteenth-century debates concerning
the novel. The critical and theoretical perspectives advanced by these
writers are approached as contributions to the novel’s status as a
respectable literary genre and, implicitly, as self-legitimizing efforts.
Keywords: eighteenth-century British novel, women writers, novel

beginnings, theory of the novel
The long eighteenth century1 is seen as a crucial moment in the history of

the novel. Viewed either as the point of origin or, at least, as a
revolutionary stage in the evolution of the genre, the eighteenth century
has undoubtedly brought a significant and consequential contribution to
shaping the modern novel. As Michael McKeon noted, if today’s scholar
can defend the thesis of the ancient roots of the genre,2 for the eighteenth-
century writer the emphasis was on the novelty of this type of prose
fiction (“Prose Fiction” 238). Understandably, this newness also became
the greatest challenge because the rules of classical theory were no longer
of assistance, although many writers of the day derived their theoretical

accounts of the novel from the classical tradition. This provocative new
way of writing that some found intriguing, while others seemed
determined to stigmatize, invited stimulating debates and discussions
among the writers and the critics of the day, and thus began to create its
own theoretical foundation. Since the novel was, at the time, perceived as
a new literary genre, women writers were not newcomers to an ongoing
discussion, but direct contributors to its generic shaping and
consolidation.
The development of the novel and of the critical and theoretical
discourses it engendered used to be seen as a male-dominated affair.
British literary histories tended to credit Daniel Defoe, Henry Fielding,
and Samuel Richardson as the begetters of the genre, a thesis advanced by
Ian Watt’s influential work, The Rise of the Novel. Watt does note that
“the majority of eighteenth-century novels were actually written by
women” (298), but presents the facts from a purely quantitative
perspective, with no interest in any qualitative exploration. This attitude
towards women’s writing was perpetuated by many critical and historical
approaches to the novel throughout the twentieth century (K. Williams
113). However, since the 1980s, new research intent on reconsidering the
contribution of eighteenth-century British women writers3 to the theory
and practice of the novel has produced a series of canonical mutations.
The impact of these writers, though ignored for a long time, proved
significant enough to change the traditional thesis on the eighteenth-
century British novel. As John Richetti points out, the claim can be made
“that the novel represents and promotes a feminizing transformation of
British culture” (190). It is to these revisionist efforts4 that my essay adds
by exploring the critical and theoretical perspectives expressed by some of
the most notable and prolific eighteenth-century British women writers
with regard to the definition, generic parentage, aesthetic standards,
purpose, and social impact of what was then seen as an emerging literary
genre.
The eighteenth-century cultural scene offered women writers the
occasion to thrive, and an increasing number of women made a living by
their pen. However, despite the financial opportunities offered by the book
market, women writers had to work in a rather unfavourable critical

climate and seldom were their literary or critical efforts taken seriously.
Women writers used to be seen as second-rate citizens of the ‘Republic of
Letters,’ tolerated, but unworthy of consideration. Their efforts were
continuously discouraged by societal constraints and by the contempt
displayed by fellow male writers and critics, all the more so in the field of
literary criticism and theory (Castle 434-38). The disparaging attitude
towards the critical and theoretical contributions of women writers was
not necessarily related to the quality of their work. Rather, as Terry Castle
argues, it “drew much of its particular animus … from larger impinging
professional jealousies” and from what was perceived as a “sort of
illegitimate hankering after authority” (436-37). Throughout the long
eighteenth century, women writers worked in and expressed critical
opinions on a variety of literary genres. The case has already been made
that, as practitioners, “much of women’s best writing was in forms other
than the novel” (Staves 2). However, as critics, women tended to prefer
“more demotic and inclusive genres” and their “most heartfelt advocacy
… was reserved for the novel” (Castle 447). Thus, the rise of the
professional woman writer and that of the novel have something important
in common, namely their claim to a respectable status on the literary
stage. Arguably, the critical and theoretical efforts made by eighteenth-
century women writers to promote the novel’s respectability can also be
construed as self-legitimising. Therefore, the impact of their work is, in
the case of the novel, different from their contribution to other literary
forms.
In the eighteenth century, the commentaries on the novel were
presented either in the paratext of the novels or in independently
published texts, such as reviews, dialogues, pamphlets, or essays.
Prefaces, introductory chapters, and dedications were often used for
authorial self-explanation, which stresses the critical and theoretical
responsibilities that eighteenth-century writers seemed to have implicitly
assumed (Nixon 61-62), while the reviews, pamphlets, and essays created
the space for the dialogism of the eighteenth-century critical and
theoretical discourse. The discourse thus emerging builds upon a set of
key aspects: the definition of the novel in relation to other genres and the
establishment of the rules of writing, plausibility as the guiding principle

of narrative and character construction, the development of a critical
lexicon, compliance with the Horatian dictum that good literature should
both instruct and entertain, and the social impact of the novel. The debates
fuelled by these aspects can be subsumed under two large preoccupations,
ultimately meant to establish the novel as a respectable genre with a
legitimate place on the literary stage, namely generic kinship and moral
purpose. Women writers contributed valuable insights to both of these
theoretical lines of discussions, in some cases even as pioneers.
While the eighteenth-century theoretical approaches to the novel
did consider it in relation to other genres, they borrowed most of their
substance from the comparison with the romance and the epic. The
attempts to define the newly emerging genre through the exploration of
generic relationship with the romance started very early, in the last
decades of the seventeenth century, when the novel did not even know
itself by this name, and continued, arguably in more nuanced manners,
throughout the eighteenth. As Ioan Williams explains,
Eighteenth-century criticism of prose fiction in England falls into two

sections, dividing at the year 1740. The century began with the rejection of
the previously popular heroic romance. The first forty years was a period
of great activity and experiment, but was marked by a lack of confidence
on the part of novelists and a generally hostile attitude on the part of the
critics, who were offended by the frivolity and immorality of such
contemporary fiction. This period ended suddenly with the publication of
Samuel Richardson’s Pamela (1740) and Henry Fielding’s Joseph
Andrews (1742) …. These two writers consolidated their achievement with
Clarissa (1748) and Tom Jones (1749). Together they demonstrated that
fiction could be popular and yet have artistic and intellectual appeal. (1)
The new way of writing positioned itself as anti-romance, as a reaction

against and rejection of the ideology, techniques, and standards of what
was then often referred to as ‘the old romance.’ The pillars of this
distinction are the claim to truth assumed by the emerging genre and the
techniques of mimetic achievement it was beginning to develop.
The strategy of withdrawing narratives from the field of fabrication
by reinforcing their referential status and representative power was a
dominant practice among eighteenth-century writers, and most women
novelists embraced and nuanced it in their writing. It was a strategy meant

to establish generic rules and standards, but also to imprint some sense of
respectability to the new genre that was seen as lacking legitimacy on the
literary stage. As McKeon explains,
The claim that narrated events really happened is of fundamental

importance in the early theory of the novel, for it signifies the commitment
of the nascent genre to a rigorously empirical model of truth that was
distinct (contemporaries believed) from traditional standards of truth-
telling. By this way of thinking, the as-yet-unnamed genre might coexist
with traditional literary genres like romance and epic, but it was sharply
distinguished from them by its strict fidelity to, its immediate
representation of the realm of the real. (“Prose Fiction” 241)
Historicity, truthfulness, plausibility, familiarity, and everydayness are the

notions that generated the critical lexicon of the eighteenth-century
commentaries on the novel, thus defining the new genre in opposition to
the idealizing strategies and the extraordinariness of the romance. The
claim to truth and historicity5 started with the titles and subtitles of the
prose works that were trying to depart from idealizing and sensational
narratives. Many such texts were assigned the mark of authenticity by
being labelled with phrases such as ‘history,’ ‘true history,’ ‘historical
novel,’ ‘secret history,’ or ‘true relation.’
One of the first writers to rely on the claim to historicity as a means
of distinguishing between the improbable plots of romances and the
immediate representation of reality is Aphra Behn. Her narrators always
begin their stories by vouching for the veracity of their accounts. For
instance, in the dedication of Oroonoko, or, The Royal Slave. A True
History (1688), Behn stresses the truthfulness of her story and
distinguishes between her kind of writing and the extraordinary character
of the adventures in romances:6 “If there be anything that seems
Romantic, I beseech your Lordship to consider these countries do, in all
things, so far differ from ours that they produce unconceivable wonders;
at least they appear so to us because new and strange” (5). Behn’s proto-
novel begins with the same claim to truth; her narrator always specifies
the sources of her knowledge of the events and insists on their reliability:
“I do not pretend, in giving you the history of this Royal Slave, to entertain
my reader with adventures of a feigned hero, whose life and fortunes fancy
may manage at the poet's pleasure; nor in relating the truth, design to adorn
it with any accidents but such as arrived in earnest to him ... I was myself
an eye-witness to a great part of what you will find here set down ...” (6)
The claim to truth and historicity in narration was embraced by an

increasing number of authors as the eighteenth century progressed in
Britain, and nuances began to enrich the writers’ approaches to truth-
claim strategies. The critical discourse has gradually introduced
plausibility or verisimilitude as the guiding principle of writing. One of
the first writers to subtly expose the semblance of truth as the model for
the authorial truth-claim is Penelope Aubin. In the “Preface” to The
Strange Adventures of the Count de Vinevil and his Family (1721), Aubin
writes: “As for the Truth of what this Narrative contains, since Robinson
Crusoe has been so well receiv’d, which is more improbable, I know no
reason why this should be thought a Fiction” (67). The subversive
implication of her argument reveals the naïve empiricism of the claim to
historicity,7 while also hinting at the futility of interrogating the truth-
value of fiction and already suggesting the kind of aesthetic distance that,
a century later, Coleridge will call the “suspension of disbelief.” The
techniques of verisimilitude employed by this new kind of writing are thus
exposed as relying on a bargain with the reader, who is invited to
participate in the recalibration of the epistemology of truth. In this new
model, acceptance and plausibility draw ahead of factuality and add
nuances to the claim to historicity.
Eliza Haywood, one of the most prolific writers of the eighteenth-
century, also tries to persuade her readers of the factuality of her accounts.
Her methods are reminiscent of both Behn and Aubin. In the preface to
The Fair Hebrew, for example, she defends the reliability of the sources
she had used for the story, but her views on the subject often reveal more
sophisticated insights into the matter. In some cases, Haywood uses
verisimilitude as the main criterion for the definition of the novel against
the romance. In the preface to the second edition of The Disguis’d Prince:
or, the Beautiful Parisian. A True History (1733), a work translated from
the French, Haywood writes:
Those who undertake to write Romances, are always careful to give a high
Extraction to their Heroes and Heroines; because it is certain we are apt to
take greater Interest in the Destiny of a Prince than of a private Person. …
As the following Sheets, therefore, contain only real Matters of Fact, and
have, indeed, something so very surprising in themselves, that they stand
not in need of any Embellishments from Fiction: I shall take my Heroine
such as I find her, and believe the Reader will easily pass by the Meanness
of her Birth, in favour of a thousand other good Qualities she was
possess’d of. (87)
In other works Haywood employs the claim to truth as an argument meant

to bolster the educational purpose of fiction. The dedication of Lasselia
(1723), for instance, ends with a reference to the writer-reader pact on the
responsibility to contribute to the fulfilment of the moral purpose of the
novel. The moral charge of the novel relies on the claim of verisimilitude:
“…but where I have had the Misfortune to fail, must impute it either to
the obstinacy of those I wou’d persuade, or to my own Deficiency in that
very Thing which they are pleased to say I too much abound in – a true
Description of Nature” (79). Consequently, the writer is seen as bearing
the responsibility for perfecting the techniques of representation, but this
attempt needs to be complemented by the reader’s disposition to accept
the semblance of truth.
The principle of plausibility as definitive of the generic relation
between the novel and the romance also guides the more mature and
informed theoretical commentaries of the last decades of the century.
Clara Reeve, for instance, dwells on this distinction in her attempt to
establish the standards for the gothic novel, a subcategory that Reeve sees
as a crossbreed between a novel and a romance. Although the reliance of
the gothic novel on exuberance of imagination is acknowledged, Reeve
pleads for the distribution of the resources of literary representation in
such a way as to preserve the semblance of truth. Starting from an
evaluation of The Castle of Otranto, in the preface to The Old English
Baron (1778) Reeve defines the gothic novel as
an attempt to unite the various merits and graces of the ancient Romance
and the Modern novel. To attain this end, there is required sufficient
degree of the marvellous, to excite the attention; enough of the manners of
real life, to give an air of probability to the work; and enough of the
pathetic, to engage the heart in its behalf. (229)
The attempts to establish the novel’s generic kinship were not

restricted to evaluating its relationship with the romance. Older generic
models were approached and affinities were explored in the attempts to
define the novel in such a way as to render it more respectable by linking
it to a highly appreciated classical genre. The epic seemed the most
suitable candidate for the classical parentage envisaged by the supporters
of the new genre and the famous definition of the novel as a “comic
Romance” which is but “a comic Epic-Poem in Prose” (3) given by
Fielding in his preface to Joseph Andrews (1742) has made an enduring
career. The association established by Fielding derives from a brief
exploration of the techniques of generic composition, meant to outline the
conventions of the novel.
The generic association proposed by Fielding in Joseph Andrews
was embraced by some, but met with suspicion by others. Elizabeth
Griffith, for instance, seems impervious to the benefits of such an august
lineage. In the preface to The Delicate Distress (1769), she makes her
disregard clear:
I know not whether the novel, like the épopée, has any rules, peculiar to
itself – If it has, I may have innocently erred against them all, and drawn
upon myself the envenomed rage of that tremendous body, the minor
critics. … Sensibility is, in my mind, as necessary, as taste, to intitle to
judge of a work, like this; and a cold criticism, formed upon rules for
writing, can, therefore, be of no manner of use, but to enable the stupid to
speak, with a seeming intelligence, of what they neither feel, nor
understand. (4-5)
In her rejection of the classical predecessor, Griffith is consistent with the

attitude common among women writers, namely the appreciation of
individual talent above the writing techniques informed by classical
education. As Castle explains, since these women could not benefit from
institutionalized instruction and were “untutored in the rules of and
prescriptions of classical rhetoric,” for them “[t]rue poetic genius ... did
not inhere in erudition, or in the slavish concern with correctness, but in a
spontaneous overflow of native wit and imagination” (446). The case can
be made that Griffith’s rejection draws more energy from the satisfaction
of launching a pre-emptive attack against critics. However, her intuition is
correct: the novelistic experiments of the previous decades had already
proved the genre’s unconventionality and potential to subvert and
challenge whatever rules the critics might establish. Griffith’s attitude is,
in some respects, reminiscent of Fielding’s position, as expressed in the
first chapter of the second book of Tom Jones (1749), where he is very
categorical in claiming the newness of the genre and the authority of the
writer over generic rules: “for as I am, in reality, the founder of a new
province of writing, so I am at liberty to make what laws I please therein”
(68).
Involved in the discussion of the generic affiliation of the novel,
Reeve includes both the romance and the epic. In The Progress of
Romance (1785), the first extensive study on the generic connections of
the novel, through the voice of Euphrasia, Reeve proposes an evolutionary
model of literary kinship: “As a country became civilized, their narrations
were methodized, and moderated to probability. – From the prose recitals
sprung History, – from the war songs Romance and Epic poetry” (14). Her
study then follows the relationship between the novel and the romance
and advances a set of criteria meant to outline the generic borders.
The word Novel in all languages signifies something new. It was first used
to distinguish these works from Romance, though they have lately been
confounded together and are frequently mistaken for each other. ... The
Romance is an heroic fable, which treats of fabulous persons and things. –
The Novel is a picture of real life and manners, and of the times in which
it is written. The Romance, in lofty and elevated language, describes what
never happened nor is likely to happen. The Novel gives a familiar relation
of such things as pass every day before our eyes, such as may happen to
our friend, or to ourselves; and the perfection of it is to represent every
scene in so easy and natural a manner, and to make them appear so
probable, as to deceive us into a persuasion (at least while we are reading)
that all is real, until we are affected by the joys or distresses of the persons
in the story as if they were our own. (110-111)
Reeve’s definitions and distinctions are neither new, nor revolutionary;

they articulate the main ideas that had informed the theoretical discourse
on the novel throughout the eighteenth century. However, her work is not
without merit. The Progress of Romance is a valuable and documented

history of narrative forms, which also puts forth solid and well-argued
critical perspectives. At a time when the novel was a tolerated, rather than
a celebrated literary genre, Reeve contributes to the effort of consolidating
its place among respectable literary genres. Of particular notice is her plea
for a reconfiguration of the critical models of aesthetic assessment, by
arguing that aesthetic value is to be found in the works themselves, not in
their generic category. “[T]here is a certain degree of respect due to all the
works of Genius, by whatever name distinguished,” Reeve argues (25),
thus pleading for more flexibility in critical judgement. Her observation
obliquely invites the appreciation of individual talent over the hieratic,
classically informed practice.
Definitions such as Reeve’s, rendering plausibility, familiarity, and
referential discourse as generic lowest common denominators, guided
much of the literary criticism of the day. For instance, the standards for a
good novel implied by poet and literary critic Elizabeth Moody in her
review of The Denial; or, The Happy Retreat (1790) rely on a definition
derived from the same principles:
The story of a novel should be formed of a variety of interesting incidents;

a knowledge of the world, and of mankind, are essential requisites in the
writer; the characters should be always natural; the personages should talk,
think, and act, as becomes their respective ages, situations, and characters;
the sentiments should be moral, chaste, and delicate; the language should
be easy, correct, and elegant, free from affectation, and unobscured by
pedantry; and the narrative should be as little interrupted as possible by
digressions and episodes of every kind. (370)
Indeed, after a century of critical and theoretical debates, the genre

seemed much easier to define and the rules of composition much easier to
prescribe. Thus, the exploitation of familiar scenarios with the assistance
of compelling characters in a well-structured narrative became the
standard of novelistic practice. Such definitions became increasingly
popular, but even if they seemed to offer solid generic evaluation criteria,
the critical discourse they engendered became rather formulaic and
repetitive. It emphasized boundaries, rather than potentialities and was
therefore too conservative and restrictive for such a protean genre as the
novel – and the proof actually comes from the same century and literary
culture.
Besides the exploration of generic kinship, the other strategy of
reinforcing the novel’s respectability as a literary genre was the defence of
its moralizing potential. Both writers and critics were aware of the
transformative potential of fiction and, therefore, of the dangers it could
pose to the naïve and easily impressionable readers who could now
identify with characters and trust the probability of the plot. In order to
resist the uncomplimentary and repudiating rhetoric of those who rejected
the new kind of writing, the novel had to demonstrate its power to
promote virtue and teach moral lessons – which it had already done by
mid-century thanks to the work of Richardson and, according to some,
Fielding.
In rather self-legitimising efforts, women critics were the most
vocal defenders of the moral principle in fiction, sometimes even to the
detriment of verisimilitude (Castle 449). In a dialogue that extends the
quarrel between the Ancients and the Moderns to encompass the novel,
Elizabeth Montagu resorts to the novel’s instructive capabilities as the
sole generic defence. The discussion between Plutarch and a bookseller
designed by Montagu in “Dialogue XVIII” from Dialogues of the Dead
(1760) touches upon important theoretical aspects, such as authorship and
authority, the education of aesthetic taste versus the commodification of
literature, questions of genre and the impact of books on women, the
novel-romance relationship, or the exemplariness of heroes. The
bookseller’s arguments are immediately deconstructed by Plutarch, and he
can only build a case for the novel with arguments derived from its ability
to offer models of morality. The examples used by the bookseller are, of
course, the works of Richardson and Fielding.
Writers and critics agreed, from the very beginning, that novels
should offer both entertainment and moral instruction, but the methods by
which this purpose was to be achieved quickly became one of the main
subjects of the theoretical controversy. The debate was fuelled by the
opposition between the writing techniques of Richardson and Fielding,
and it concentrated on the construction of characters. Setting good
examples was essential for many, since affective identification was seen
as the guiding force of reading strategies. Seductive characters could

bypass the moral imperative and ultimately usurp the reader’s sense of
moral behaviour. Consequently, careful consideration of character
construction and development was recommended by the large majority of
critics and writers. In most cases, this vulnerability and impossibility to
discern between fiction and reality was attributed to women,8 which gives
even more relevance to the theoretical standpoints expressed by women
writers.
The theory of character was polarized between those who supported
faultless characters, perfect models of virtue, and those who advocated for
mixed characters who would ultimately redeem their vices or whose
virtues would prevail over their faults. Women writers participated in the
debate on both sides, contributing insightful arguments to the polemic.
Sarah Scott, for example, in the preface to The History of Sir George
Ellison (1766), positions herself against the composition of mixed
characters. She supports plausibility and familiarity as the basic principles
of fiction since, in her opinion, common people and situations create
efficient examples for the reinforcement of moral values and respectable
conduct. However, good characters with imperfections might provide
excuses that the reader could use for his/ her own misdeeds, which leads
Scott to the conclusion that “the faults of good people do more harm than
the errors of the less virtuous, and when we would exhibit a character
proper for imitation, we should rather endeavour to conceal the failings
which may have stolen into a good heart, than industriously seek to
discover them” (120). Given the commonly shared belief in the
vulnerability of the majority of readers, arguments like Scott’s make sense
and were often used throughout the century by both men and women
writers and critics.
On the other hand, there were also those who supported a more
refined pedagogical thesis. They argued that a mixture of good and bad
personality traits represents a more accurate representation of human
nature and can therefore teach a more effective lesson. For instance, in a
letter addressed to Catherine Talbot (1749), Elizabeth Carter defends Tom
Jones as a complex and compelling character, whose qualities would most
definitely obscure his shortcomings in the eyes of the reader. Carter thus
implies that well-constructed characters should rely on more than

exemplarity:
I am sorry to find you so outrageous about Tom Jones; he is no doubt an

imperfect, but not a detestable character, with all that honesty, goodnature,
and generosity of temper. Though nobody can admire Clarissa more than I
do; yet with all our partiality, I am afraid, it must be confessed, that
Fielding’s book is the most natural representation of what passes in the
world, and of the bizarreries which arise from the mixture of good and bad
which makes up the composition of most folks. Richardson has no doubt a
very hand at painting excellence, but there is a strange awkwardness and
extravagance in his vicious characters. (125)
The divergent opinions over characters continued to fuel the critical

discourse for decades. At the end of the century, Mary Hays still had to
defend her character construction strategies with similar arguments, to
which she added the key for the lesson in conduct envisaged by her novel.
In the Preface to Memoirs of Emma Courtney (1796), Hays writes:
It has commonly been the business of fiction to pourtray characters, not as

they really exist, but, as, we are told, they ought to be — a sort of ideal
perfection, in which nature and passion are melted away, and jarring
attributes wonderfully combined. In delineating the character of Emma
Courtney, I had not in view these fantastic models: I meant to represent
her, as a human being, loving virtue while enslaved by passion, liable to
the mistakes and weaknesses of our fragile nature. — Let those readers,
who feel inclined to judge with severity the extravagance and eccentricity
of her conduct, look into their own hearts; and should they there find no
record, traced by an accusing spirit, to soften the asperity of their censures
— yet, let them bear in mind, that the errors of my heroine were the
offspring of sensibility; and that the result of her hazardous experiment is
calculated to operate as a warning, rather than as an example. (36)
By the last decades of the century, the status of the novel had,
indeed, consolidated. Even if it had not reached a position respectable
enough to compete with the classical genres, it enjoyed increased critical
interest and an ever-growing popularity among readers. The status of the
novelist had also changed, even if the writers themselves could not always
perceive it. Frances Burney, for instance, begins the preface to Evelina
(1778) by lamenting that “In the republic of letters, there is no member of
such inferior rank, or who is so much disdained by his brethren of the
quill, as the humble Novelist” (7). It is noteworthy that this lament came
from the woman writer whose “writing set the standard for novel
achievement” in her day (Runge 294). In the same preface she turns to the
already traditional arguments, plausibility and educational purpose, as
legitimising and, implicitly, self-legitimising strategies. The critical and
theoretical discourse on the novel had matured, but it seems that women
writers still needed the century-old arguments to tackle their professional
insecurities.
The critical climate might have become slightly more welcoming
with women, but their situation was still not comfortable. Consequently,
some women writers decided to instil political arguments both into their
fiction and into their critical or prefatory discourse. Thus, the educational
and moralizing purpose of the novel that had been continuously reinforced
for more than a century makes room for political advocacy. For instance,
in the Preface to Desmond (1792), after arguing the relevance of the
political discussions in her novel by claiming that they reproduce real-life
debates, Charlotte Smith writes:
But women it is said have no business with politics – Why not? – Have
they no interest in the scenes that are acting around them, in which they
have fathers, brothers, husbands, sons, or friends engaged? – Even in the
commonest course of female education they are expected to acquire some
knowledge of history; and yet, if they are to have no opinion to what is
passing, it avails little that they should be informed of what has passed, in
a world where they are subject to such mental degradation; where they are
censured as affecting masculine knowledge if they happen to have any
understanding; or despised as insignificant triflers if they have one. (134)
A particularly influential advocate of social, educational, and political

reform, Mary Wollstonecraft also used fiction and critical discourse to
express her views on the status of women. In the preface to her unfinished
novel Maria: or, The Wrongs of Woman (1798), Wollstonecraft explains
the militant intentions that guided the design of her work: “In many
instances I could have made the incidents more dramatic, would I have
sacrificed my main object, the desire of exhibiting the misery and
oppression, peculiar to women, that arise out of the partial laws and
customs of society” (157). Wollstonecraft’s design casts her novel as far
away as possible from the idealisation of romance. It also reveals her

dependence on the transformative power of fiction and on the strong
effect of representational realism to inculcate her readers with progressive
notions of domestic and public gender interaction. Such extensions of the
scope of the novel and of the prefatory discourse contribute to
emphasizing the generic capacities for political advocacy as well as the
self-legitimising efforts of women writers. Writing is also implicitly
acknowledged as one of the very few – if not the only – venues available
to women for the expression of their views on the world in which they
live, but from which they seem to be excluded.
By the end of the century, the novel had benefited from an
increasingly sophisticated critical and theoretical discourse, which
evolved towards more complex generic explorations, more elaborate
critical tools, and more sensible recommendations. Although lacking any
kind of programmatic design, the critical and theoretical discourses of
eighteenth-century British women writers did contribute to the shaping of
the new genre. Their insights and theoretical intuition were either
pioneering or, at least, nuancing. The fact that an increasing number of
novelists were women and more and more female writers also contributed
critical reviews to the best known literary periodicals of the day reflects a
slight change in their role in the literary establishment, which was still
largely a male enterprise. This is more easily seen retrospectively since, in
their day, these women were afforded little credit. However, as literary
histories are being revised from less gender-biased positions – a process
which started in the 1980s – the contribution of the female writer and
critic becomes more visible and reveals its relevance to reconsidering the
canon.
Notes:
1
The temporal boundaries of what is meant here by ‘the eighteenth century’
extend to begin with 1688, the year historically marking the Glorious Revolution
and, coincidently, also the year when Aphra Behn published Oroonoko. The
inclusion of Aphra Behn in the discussion is important since she is one of the first
writers to insist on the truthfulness of her narratives as a reaction against the
idealising tendencies of the romance, which is a fundamental concern of the
eighteenth-century theory of the novel. The phrase was coined by Frank
O’Gorman in The Long Eighteenth Century: British Political and Social History
1688-1832. For further information, see either edition of the book (1997, 2016).
2
See, for example, Margaret Anne Doody’s The True Story of the Novel (1996)
or Toma Pavel’s The Lives of the Novel (2013), first published as La pensée du
roman (2003).
3
According to Cheryl L. Nixon, in the eighteenth century, writers produced much
critical and theoretical discourse (35-36). The word ‘writer’ will be used
throughout this paper, since the women referred to here were writers, most of
them novelists.
4
Such as Jane Spencer’s The Rise of the Woman Novelist (1986), Nancy
Armstrong’s Desire and Domestic Fiction: A Political History of the Novel
(1987), Ros Ballaster’s Seductive Forms: Women’s Amatory Fiction from 1684–
1740 (1992), or more recent works, such as Making the Novel: Fiction and
Society in Britain, 1660-1789 (2006) by Brean Hammond and Shaun Regan who
tell the story of the British novel by considering prose fiction written by both
male and female writers.
5
“Claim to historicity” is the phrase Michael McKeon defines and employs. See
“Prose Fiction: Great Britain” 241.
6
According to Nixon, by using the word ‘Romantick’ (this is the spelling in the
anthology edited by Nixon), Behn refers to “the eighteenth-century understanding
of ‘romance’ as an exotic, unrealistic adventure tale that features military heroics
and amorous exploits” (64, footnotes). The case can be made that Oroonoko fits
the definition of romance, but the attempt of denying the strategies of idealization
employed by romances reveals Behn’s awareness of the potential for new ways of
writing.
7
See M. McKeon’s thesis on the emergence of the modern novel from a shift
from romance idealism to naïve empiricism and to extreme skepticism. The
Origins of the English Novel, 1600-1740, 47-52.
8
The Female Quixote (1752) by Charlotte Lennox is an excellent fictional
commentary on this vulnerability associated with female readership.
Works Cited
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and his Family.” Novel Definitions: An Anthology of Commentary on the
Novel, 1688-1815. Ed. Cheryl L. Nixon. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2009.
66-67.
Behn, Aphra. Oroonoko and Other Writings. Ed. Paul Salzman. Oford: Oxford
UP, 1998.
Burney, Frances. Evelina. London: Penguin, 2012.
Carter, Elizabeth. “Letter of Elizabeth Carter.” Novel and Romance 1700-1800. A
Documentary Record. Ed. Ioan Williams. New York: Routledge, 2011.
125.
Castle, Terry. “Women and Literary Criticism.” The Cambridge History of

Literary Criticism. Ed. H.B. Nisbet and Claude Rawson. Vol. IV.
Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 2005. 434-455.
Fielding, Henry. Joseph Andrews. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2008.
---. Tom Jones. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1996.
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Staves. Lexington, KY: The UP of Kentucky, 1997.
Hays, Mary. The Memoirs of Emma Courtney. Ed. Marilyn L. Brooks. Toronto:
Broadview Press, 2000.
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Williams. New York: Routledge, 2011. 79.
---. “Preface to The Fair Hebrew: or, True, but Secret History of Two Jewish
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Literary Criticism. Ed. H. B. Nisbet and Claude Rawson. Vol. IV.
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Commentary on the Novel, 1688-1815. Ed. Cheryl L. Nixon. Toronto:
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Michelle Faubert. Toronto: Broadview Press, 2012.
27 The Mammies and Uncles of the South
The Mammies and Uncles of the South:

The Subversive Tales
of Joel Chandler Harris and Kate Chopin
IULIA ANDREEA MILICĂ

Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, Romania
Abstract
The aim of this essay is to look at Southern racism from a different
perspective, namely the subversive influence of the black uncles and
mammies, depicted as kind, loyal and caring, in the racial education of the
white Southern children. However, these narrators, though meant to
comply with the racist requirements of their masters, take control of the
stories and, with caution and dissimulation, attempt to educate the
children they care for towards a more tolerant outlook on race. The
dangers of such an endeavor, especially at the height of segregation and
racial violence at the end of the nineteenth century (in the post-
Reconstruction South), are evident in the ambiguous critical reception of
Joel Chandler Harris’ Uncle Remus stories and Kate Chopin’s writings,
the authors chosen for analysis. Oscillating from a belief in their
compliance to their age’s prejudices and codes and a trust in their
rebellious attitudes, critics and readers reacted to these stories in different,
even contradictory manners. Our intention is to demonstrate that the use
of the slave narrator is a subversive way of teaching the white child the
truth about the plight of slavery and sway him/her into a more empathic
attitude towards racial and class difference.
Keywords: uncle, mammy, Uncle Remus, black narrative, post-

Reconstruction literature, children, Joel Chandler Harris, Kate Chopin.
The individuality of the American South largely comes from its particular
past of slavery, which has been its most distinctive feature, crucial in
separating the Southern identity from the dominant American/Northern
one, as well as its doom. This assertion seems contradictory, because it

implies that there is no Southern identity outside the acceptance of
slavery, but this very acceptance is a form of shame and failure for the
South as a culture. The Southern writers dealt with this paradox in various
ways, from glorification of the past, nostalgia and a sense of Southern
superiority to shame, failure, defeat, translated in gothic and grotesque
representations, in distortions and violence, the end-result being a
kaleidoscopic image of the South.
In this process of creating a Southern identity and maintaining its
distinctiveness in time, the second part of the nineteenth century plays a
crucial role. The end of the Civil War marked, for the American nation,
the end of slavery and the preservation of the union. For the South, on the
other hand, this period reinforced the sense of loss and failure coupled
with the shame and guilt for having to bear the burden of slavery and the
responsibility for the bloody civil strife. The liberated slaves contributed
to this feeling of unrest, as they started to challenge the long-cherished
ideas of white superiority and to compete for the positions previously held
only by the white population. To fight against these multiple problems,
the Southerners conceived a literature that integrated the issue of slavery
but also promoted sectional reconciliation. Thus, the South reached the
North on the grounds of white supremacy, peace and harmony,
“welcoming the prodigal siblings back into the fold by acknowledging the
virtues of their society and the tragedy of its loss” and convincing the
Northerners “to ignore the issue of racial justice in America, allowing the
problems of incorporating freed African Americans into society to
disappear, if only temporarily, beneath the smile of the happy darky”
(Martin 19).
One of the techniques used by the Southern writers at the end of the
nineteenth century was the introduction of the black narrator as a
spokesperson for the past, a witness of plantation days whose stories seem
to carry the message that the white Southerners want, namely that of the
white supremacy justified by the aristocratic roots of the Southerners, but
also gaining in authority and genuineness as they come through the voice
of the former slave turned into a freed but loyal servant. The presence of
the black narrator is a new element in the American fiction of the late
nineteenth century, its most prominent promoters being the plantation

crusader Thomas Nelson Page who first appealed to this technique in his
debut collection of short stories In Ole Virginia (1887), Joel Chandler
Harris in his Uncle Remus collections (the first volume being Uncle
Remus: His Songs and His Sayings, 1880) and the subversive Uncle Julius
in Charles Waddell Chesnutt’s The Conjure Woman (1899). If these
writers used this narrative technique extensively, in framed collections of
tales, others appealed to it only for some of the stories and not for an
entire collection. This choice suggests that, one way or another, either for
the sake of reconciliation and compliance or to take advantage of its
subversive power, Southern writers at the end of the nineteenth century
acknowledged the possibilities and nuances implied in the use of this
technique.
The presence of the black characters, in comparison to that of the
black narrator, was not new in fiction; the literature before the war,
Southern or Northern, appealed to them either in support of the slave
system, in Southern romances, or as an example of the Southern racism
and intolerance in abolitionist writings. Nevertheless, they were never
granted a voice of their own. The only writings in which the black slaves
told their own stories were the slave narratives, accounts of slave life by
fugitive slaves. After the Civil War, though, the importance of the slave
narrative decreases, as their primary function was to sway the opinion of
the Northerners in favor of the abolition of slavery. The plantation
romance, another space that allowed for the extensive presence of black
characters, also appears obsolete, albeit dangerous at the end of a war that
almost broke the nation apart, for they carried the seeds of rebellion and
secession. In this time of forgiveness and reconciliation, it is the black
narrator who receives a crucial role: to validate the story of the Old South
and justify slavery as a system that was more beneficial to the slave than
the modern prospects of poverty. Moreover, since the black narrator
appears to comply with the vision of the Southern order promoted by the
white, even “plead the cause of his former master” (Mackethan 11), he
seems to suggest that there is no tension between white Southerners and
their former slaves. Through his voice, the slavery of the old days is
justified, acceptable, yet never to return, thus assuaging the Northern fears
of further rebellion and secession and promoting the image of “a world of

perfect order, in which both sin and labor are non-existent” (Martin 21).
On the other hand, though, the use of the black narrators comes with
its dangers, as they decentralize the white authority creating an alternative
center of power that is subversive and may undermine the intended
message:
as frame narratives, these stories necessarily complicate narrative

perspective and destabilize control in ways that both reflect and create
dynamics of empowerment that are sometimes unexpected and difficult to
control. Particularly significant about these stories is the way they
constitute narrative empowerment in terms of region, race, and class;
specifically, they depict the plantation myth and its narratives as dually
performative, serving two different configurations of empowerment
simultaneously and addressing the desires of and empowering not only
Northerners and aristocratic white Southerners but even African
Americans. (Hagood 423)
Such dangers are further complicated when the storyteller is an adult

uncle or mammy and the auditor is a child. In these situations, issues such
as experience, authority, age and education upset the desired race and
class hierarchies. Thus, the apparent harmless use of the most famous
images of black slaves, that of the uncle or the mammy, becomes a
subversive weapon through which the young whites of the post-
Reconstruction age who listen to the stories may be taught ideas that
contradict the prevalent white Southern ideology.
The efficiency of this alternative “education” of the young
Southerner is ensured by the use of the dear and harmless image of the
older, benevolent slave. The representation of the controllable, “ignorant
and improvident, lazy and playful, submissive and loyal” (Tracy 142)
slave is common in pro-slavery literature, the writers being cautious to
avoid “the sensitive issue of sexuality by depicting servants as middle-
aged or old, beyond courting or childbearing age” (Tracy 143). The racial
issue that regulates, in the slave South, the relationships between the white
child and the black caretaker may be further complicated (and are, in the
case of Kate Chopin) by the gender component. As mentioned before, the
preference for much older or very young black characters, yet benevolent
and simple, is justified by the white supremacy ideology. The black man
is either “emasculated” (old uncle) or “infantilized” (very young and

funny, dependent, benevolent, submissive and rather simple-minded),
becoming a peaceful and reliable servant that poses no threat to the
authority of the white man (Tracy 17-8). In the case of the black woman,
the situation is more complicated:
The black woman’s position at the nexus of America’s sex and race
mythology has made it most difficult for her to escape the mythology.
Black men can be rescued from the myth of the Negro [...]. They can be
identified with things masculine, with things aggressive, with things
dominant. White women, as part of the dominant racial group, have to
defy the myth of woman, a difficult, though not impossible task. The
impossible task confronts the black woman. If she is rescued from the
myth of the Negro, the myth of woman traps her. If she escapes the myth
of woman, the myth of the Negro still ensnares her. (White 28)
She, thus, remains in an oppressive space, caught in oppressive

relationships, either economical, or sexual, or both. If she is old, she is
represented as “the mammy,” a dear symbol of the Southern plantation
which hides the real injustice that lies at its foundation. If she is young,
she becomes the “Jezebel,” the plantation’s temptress; either way, the
fictional representations of the female slave suggest that the oppression
and exploitation worked at more levels than in the case of men. The
apparent emotional relationship that exists between the child and the
slave-caretaker is also enhanced by the gender component, since the
mammy takes on maternal attributes in a literature that insists on the fact
that mammies were as close as mothers to the white child in their care.
By insisting on an emotional connection between the loyal slave and
the benevolent master, the attention is deferred from the terrible realities
of slavery, from economic exploitation and physical and emotional abuse,
suggesting that the slaves submit willingly to the benevolent rule of the
white patriarch (McElya 5). The writers implied that the fictional uncles
and mammies were, in fact, inspired by the real connections of the
Southerners with those who were closest to them in their early years and
with whom they formed strong emotional bonds. They argued that these
slaves could be totally trusted and, in fact, there was no better companion
for the young Southerners because the caretakers were supposed to adhere
to the behavior codes enforced by the white masters and to contribute to
an education that promoted racism and difference. Children are not born,
Jennifer Ritterhouse asserts, with notions of race, they have to be taught in
this direction:
That race is a man-made distinction meant to secure and explain material

and social inequalities comes into high relief when we consider that every
child born into a society has to learn race anew, that every child begins life
innocent of the very idea that there are different “races,” much less the
idea that “race” ought to matter in certain specific ways as an organizing
principle for his or her society. (Ritterhouse, Growing up 9)
Ritterhouse also insists on the fact that the “racial education” in the
American South is a very important issue and “recognizing race was
something that each generation of Southerners had to learn” (Ritterhouse,
Growing up 7). In other words, the importance of race differentiation
preceded any other historical, economic or cultural changes, especially in
the post-Reconstruction period. The children of this period had no
personal recollections of the times of slavery and, though slowly, the
South was moving towards modernity. In this context, the white southern
adults directed their efforts to create an entire culture of racial difference
for their youth: “The vocabulary, stories, texts, cultural images, and rituals
with which white southerners surrounded their children normalized white
supremacy and racial violence through perpetuating an idealized,
patriarchal vision of their future roles as white southerners” (Durocher 9).
Out of all these spaces, the home is a privileged, more controlled
environment, where, as Kristina Durocher asserts, “white southerners
emphasized economic status, as elite whites drew on their financial
standing and rich historical background to teach the next generation about
its social identity” (9). Also as elites, they were proud to display their
wealth by hiring African Americans and maintaining a sort of surrogate of
the slave system that they lost. To this end, they perpetuated from the
times of slavery a code of behavior that “outlined a fundamental pattern of
white supremacy that both whites and blacks understood” (Ritterhouse,
Growing up 25), and which was obeyed by the African Americans out of
fear of the violence from the white population (Ritterhouse, Growing up
25). Thus, children learn from a very young age this dual performance of
intimacy and difference, since their contact with their caretakers
inherently involves great intimacy from which, as they grow up, they have
to learn how to distance themselves. Problems also appear, especially in
the post-Reconstruction period, from the fact that children do not learn
about race only from their parents and other whites in a tightly controlled
environment. As they grow up, children “have their own history that is
ongoing and influential in the world” (Durocher 18) and their youthful
experiences have a tremendous impact over their ulterior development.
There are a lot of elements that can influence their perception of
difference in terms of race, class and even gender which, sometimes, may
contradict the prevalent ideology.
This is exactly the very elusive space into which the texts written by
Harris and Kate Chopin at the end of the century can be included. The
relationship between uncle/mammy and the white child is special: it
accommodates intimacy and difference, apparent harmony and possible
violence, submission and rebellion. The ritualized behavior that regulates
the relationship between the two races in the South, coupled with the past
of slavery and the fear of punishment reassure the white parent that the
black slave/servant will not break the prescribed lines. However, the
control cannot be complete and the stories told by the adult caretaker may
have various effects on the mind and the emotions of the child.
Both texts we envisaged for our approach, namely Harris’ first
collection of tales Uncle Remus: His Songs and His Sayings (1880) and
some of Chopin’s short stories from the 1894 collection Bayou Folk,
including La Belle Zoraide, appealed to the technique of the framed
narrative, using the voice of a black narrator. As mentioned before, this
technique belongs to an already established post-bellum Southern literary
tradition, aimed at regional reconciliation and the reintegration of the
Southern literature on the American literary market. These narrators
chosen by the two writers are important icons in the American
imagination: the older, benevolent and funny uncle (Uncle Remus in
Harris’ stories) and the loving mammy (Manna-Loulou in Chopin’s story).
The frame narrative is important because of the dialogue it implies
between the frame and the embedded stories, but it is also helpful to
understand the construction of the frame, the relationship established
between the story-teller and the listener, the efficiency of the story in
swaying the listener and changing his/her views. Most of the traditional
readings of such texts, as we are going to see, accept the subversive, even
rebellious message of the tales, but consider the frame more compliant
with the white ideology. Modern readings, however, are more subtle in
seeing the signs of subversion in the frames as well as in the tales.
Harris wrote, in the preface to Uncle Remus, His Songs and His
Sayings, that he was not the creator of these tales, he only collected them
directly from the source: slaves telling their own tales to someone (like
himself) who was unfamiliar with them (10). Though the collection has
never been out of print since its first publication in 1880, the critical
responses have varied over time. Initially, it was included in the
“Plantation tradition,” considering that Harris contributed to the validation
of the slave system by depicting a benevolent uncle telling stories to the
white heir of the plantation and promoting the North-South reconciliation
founded on the reinforcement of white supremacy and the subordination
of the African-American population. Thus, it appealed to the Southerners
because it promoted black subordination, through its references to the
harmonious plantation life. The Northerners were drawn by “Uncle
Remus’s personality and dialect,” feeling close to the white boy who does
not know these stories and is mesmerized by the story-telling gift of Uncle
Remus. They are thus included in a “richly ‘imagined’ intimacy between
blacks and whites in days gone by” (Ritterhouse, Reading 592).
Interesting enough, even African-American audiences were drawn to
these stories: “Indeed, for generations black southerners had been using
the Brer Rabbit tales at the heart of Harris’s narratives to teach their own
children lessons about survival in a decidedly brutal and unjust world. As
the quintessential trickster, Brer Rabbit proved that the weak could
outsmart and overcome the strong. His victories provided important
psychological benefits” (Ritterhouse, Reading 591), though there were
also many African-Americans, from Harris’s contemporaries to more
modern voices, like Alice Walker’s, who objected to what they saw as an
abuse of the African-American heritage for the benefit of the white
ideology (Cochran 22).
These contradictions in the reception of the tales suggest that they
are more complicated than they might have appeared at first and some
critics are more willing to read the text as “profoundly ambivalent,” the
“human frame” being most often seen as part of the Plantation romance
tradition, while the embedded “animal stories” are “allegorical readings of
the triumph of the weak over the strong, of the slave over the master”
(Peterson 31). Thus, “Harris’s writings ... display a persistent and
conscious manipulation of his culture’s social and literary conventions, a
deliberate tension between a surface in comfortable accord with the
dominant sentimental pieties (and related ideological projects) of the day
and a subversive subtext profoundly critical of those same pieties”
(Cochran 27). It is even more interesting that recent critical approaches
insist that we should not see such a great distinction between the frame
and the tales:
But a closer look at Harris’s first collection ... will show that the
discrepancy between framework and tale is more apparent than real, that
both Remus and his tales are subversive of the myth of docile, selfless
devotion. Moreover, the framework of teller and audience, far from being
irrelevant to an understanding of the tales, is the specific means that Harris
chose to convey the subversive impact of the tales. For the relationship
between Remus and the boy shows that Remus, for all his affection toward
the boy and his stated loyalty to his parents, uses the tales and his own
power as storyteller to serve his own ends rather than anyone else, that he
moves the boy closer to himself and to the ethic of the tales and away from
the world of his parents. (Hedin 84)
What these contradictory critical voices point out is the difficulty of

understanding the real intentions of Harris, and we might never know for
sure. However, a close reading of the text points out the problems that
arise from considering the text an apology for the plantation, and it soon
becomes clear that Uncle Remus is only apparently a benevolent “darky.”
In reality, he is a cunning man who uses the little boy to gain advantages
(food from the big house, candles, etc.), but also to undermine the beliefs
and ideas he learned from his parents and grandparents, by opening his
eyes towards a world of injustice, violence and betrayal. His attitude
towards the little boy is typical of the black “uncles”: he always calls him
“honey,” he is kind and funny, he seems protective, and he appears to
uphold the rules established by Miss Sally, the boy’s mother, such as, for
instance the interdiction to play with the Favers’ children, identified as
“white trash.” Thus, we are led to believe that Uncle Remus shares with
his white masters the same values, which makes him appear even closer to
the white family. Similarly, the gestures and the attitudes reinforce the
strong emotional connection between the boy and Remus. The collection
opens, in fact, with Miss Sally looking through the window of Remus’
cabin and seeing her son’s head “rested against the old man’s arm,” and
“gazing with an expression of the most intense interest into the rough,
weather-beaten face, that beamed so kindly upon him” (Harris 19-20).
Other similar gestures of trust are repeated all through the text: the old
man takes the boy on his knee or caresses his head. When the boy is afraid
to go home alone (because of the witch story Remus told him, of course),
he accompanies him to the big house and stays outside to sing songs with
his soothing voice until the little one falls asleep. Time and again, the boy
is depicted as mesmerized and fascinated not only with the stories, but
with everything in the life of the old man: his whims and habits, the
manner in which he smokes, his activities. Anyone would trust his/her
child with such a caretaker, and it is no wonder that the late nineteenth-
century readers accepted this narrative construct.
On the other hand, though, at a closer look, these elements can be
read as steps in the decentralization of the power of the whites and the
inclusion of the boy into a different world controlled by Uncle Remus.
The change of center is visible from the first scene, mentioned above,
which is not an idyllic representation of the white and black relationships,
but a shift of authority, leaving Miss Sally, the white adult, outside the
cabin which becomes the world controlled by Remus: “the opening scene
of the book is superficially pastoral, but it also reveals the dynamics of
power that operate throughout the book” (Hedin 86). The cabin may be
seen as a threshold between the realities of the white boy and the fantastic
world of Uncle Remus’ stories, but it is also a threshold between a world
controlled by whites and their ideas and a world controlled by Uncle
Remus whose grasp on the little boy increases with each story he tells
him. Thus, “the world that Remus tries to wean him from is specifically
the world of his parents; that is hardly the act of a loyal retainer, given that
what Remus would initiate him into is the amoral world of cunning that
the tales represent” (Hedin 85). Story after story, Uncle Remus initiates
the boy into a world of violence, cunning, cheating and stealing, in which
the small and weak animal, the Rabbit, is usually victorious. Besides
telling him that the weak (the slave) can resist authority and violence
through cunningness and dissimulation, Uncle Remus also dismantles
myths and ideas that the boy’s parents have tried to inoculate. One of
them is the Bible, as Uncle Remus tells a different story of the Flood,
refusing to acknowledge the story that the boy knows:
“Where was the ark, Uncle Remus?’ the little boy inquired, presently.
“W’ich ark’s dat?” asked the old man, in a tone of well-feigned curiosity.
“Noah’s ark,” replied the child.
“Don’t you pester wid ole man Noah, honey. I boun’ he tuck keer er dat
ark. Dat’s w’at he wuz dere fer, en dat’s w’at he done. Leas’ways, dat’s
w’at dey tells me. But don’t you bodder longer dat ark, ‘ceppin’ your
mammy fetches it up. Dey mout er bin two deloojes, en den agin dey
moutent. (Harris 34)
The dismissal of the Bible is indicative since this was one of the texts used
by the pro-slavery promoters to justify slavery. The Bible and especially
Noah’s story (Genesis 9) were read as “stories of differentiation among
Noah’s sons Shem, Ham and Japeth” because it confirmed the notion that
“humanity is comprised of essential ‘racial’ types” (Haynes 5), and the
result of Noah’s curse for Ham’s transgression is not only the right of men
to own slaves, but also the belief that there is an entire race cursed to be
enslaved by the other. In America, the story of Noah’s curse became the
pillar on which the justification of slavery rested, in spite of the many
controversies regarding the real connection between Ham’s transgression
and racism or slavery (Haynes 7). Uncle Remus’ direct mention of “ole’
man Noah” and the Flood are a clear subversion of the slave ideology.
Moreover, Uncle Remus tells the boy that there are other stories besides
the Bible and consequently, other possible ways of understanding the
world.
As an answer to his refusal to accept the biblical stories (or the
connection between the Bible and slavery), Uncle Remus comes with a
very disruptive explanation concerning the origin of the races, telling the
boy that “In dem times we ’uz all un us black; we ’uz all niggers
tergedder” (Harris 142) and the waters of a magic lake changed people’s
color. Those who reached the lake first became white, the second became
mulattoes and those who remained black were those who reached the
vanishing lake last. The contention that all the people were black
undermines the authority of the white and any claims regarding the
superiority of the white race. “The little boy seemed to be very much
interested in this new account of the origin of races,” says Harris (142),
suggesting that he already had information on this issue from his parents:
“‘But mamma says the Chinese have straight hair,’ the little boy
suggested” (Harris 143). Uncle Remus knows how to work around the
teachings transmitted by the boy’s parents in order to gain trust for his
own variant: “‘Co’se, honey,’ the old man unhesitatingly responded, ’dem
w’at git ter de pon’ time nuff fer ter git der head in de water, de water hit
onkink der ha’r. Hit bleedzd ter be dat away’” (Harris 143). The
unhesitant response of the old man has the final authority and the boy
questions him no more, showing how the white world is gradually
undermined by the ideas of the subdued population, and revealing the
tales’ success in what Raymond Hedin calls “the boy’s growth in cultural
sensitivity” (87).
Another story that challenges not only the cultural tradition of the
white but also the authority of the father in the white family comes with
the story about the witches. Southern literature appealed to the black
people’s belief in superstitions in order to imply that the African-
Americans are irrational, superstitious and inferior as a race in comparison
to the whites who are rational and enlightened (Nowatzki 25). In this
situation, it is the father who taught the boy that witches do not exist, to
which Uncle Remus replies: “‘Mars John ain’t live long ez I is,’ said
Uncle Remus, by way of comment. ‘He ain’t bin broozin’ ‘roun’ all hours
er de night en day’” (Harris 134). Uncle Remus, thus, challenges the
father’s authority with his age and experience. Since it is the patriarchal,
white system that he challenges through his stories, it is the figure of the
father that he more often attacks: “Remus, it emerges, is much more than
an ‘Uncle,’ and he has more than mere stories to present. He’s a father,
and he takes his paternal responsibilities seriously. He knows a larger
world than Mars John’s, and has a deeper wisdom to pass on” (Cochran
26). Moreover, he insists that Miss Sally and Mars Jeems (her bother who
died in the Civil War) used to call him “daddy,” and he was the one who
was granted the care of the plantation when Mars Jeems went to war:
“Daddy’ – all Ole Miss’s chilluns call me daddy – “Daddy,” he say, “pears
like dere’s gwineter be mighty rough times ‘roun’ yer. De Yankees, dey er
done got ter Madison en Mounticellar, en ‘twon ‘t be many days ‘fo ‘ dey
er down yer. ‘Tain ‘t likely dey’ll pester mother ner sister; but, daddy, ef
de wus come ter de wus, I speck you ter take keer un um,” sezee.
Den I say, sez I: “How long you bin knowin’ me, Mars Jeems?’ sez I.
“Sence I wuz a baby,” sezee.
“Well, den, Mars Jeems,” sez I, “you know’d t’wa’nt no use fer ter ax me
ter take keer Ole Miss en Miss Sally.” (Harris 181)
It is more than an emotional connection between a slave and his masters;

it is a level of intimacy that exists only within a family in which Uncle
Remus assumes the role of father and protector of the plantation, the
typical position of the white patriarch, in the absence of the “old master”
who is never mentioned in the text. As Robert Cochran aptly remarks,
“the familiar plantation romance is turned upside down, its foundational
ethnic hierarchy undone” (26). In this way, the child’s perspective is
overturned; he cannot rely any longer on what he had been taught by his
parents (and, by extension, by the white society, in general) and is forced,
in a gentle, but firm way, to widen his perspective and accept more
stories.
This rebellious attitude of Uncle Remus passed almost unnoticed for
such a long time, and especially in the dangerous period of the post-
Reconstruction South, because it is carefully achieved. Uncle Remus is
cautious and knows his limitations; he is respectful towards his
“superiors” and his undermining allusions to the other whites’
authoritative ideas are oblique (Hedin 87). This is the source of his
success, a technique that is often used by Brer Rabbit in his tales:
cunningness and dissimulation, the experience of slavery that has taught
him how to ease the hardships and even to gain advantages. It would be a
mistake, though, to reduce Uncle Remus to a mere advantage-grabber. It
is true, as many critics suggest (Hedin, Cochran, Peterson) that he
convinces the little boy to bring him food or candles from the big house,
but this is not his only aim. The emotional connection between the two
cannot be denied and, through his Brer Rabbit stories, Uncle Remus gives
the little boy a sense of empowerment in a world where a child’s word
does not count for much. Remus presents him with alternative stories and
ideas, tells him that the world is not right or peaceful, but violent and
unjust, but that there are ways of survival; he also teaches him about the
weak and the poor and he prepares him for a life in which he will not be
protected by Miss Sally or his father, or even by Uncle Remus; a world in
which the ideas of white supremacy and black submission may no longer
work, a world where open-mindedness and tolerance might be more
helpful than the typical Southern pride. Cochran acknowledges this
duality saying that “Remus here serves his own ends, of course, but he
also perseveres in his reeducation of the boy. The little boy needs it, too.
He’ll soon enough be grown, soon be out on perilous ground beyond
Remus’ protection. That dangerous world is inadequately understood by
Mars John, who has been sheltered by birth and upbringing from too
many harsh realities” (26).
Harris’ collection of stories has proven in time to be more complex
than it appeared to its first readers. The fact that the story-teller is a former
slave and the listener is a white child further complicates the issues of
hierarchy and authority, but it shows the great importance of story-telling
in the education of children and the influence it has in swaying their
minds and undermining their ideas. This can be helpful as well as
dangerous, but, in the context of the American South, the black storyteller
prepares the white boy for a different world in which racial and class
relationships are challenged under the pressure of the modern world.
Chopin’s storyteller is similarly subversive, complicating the
discussion with the gender component. Apparently a typical housewife
and a devoted mother, Chopin was far from becoming a conventional
Southern writer. Set in a multiethnic and multicultural environment, her
stories challenge the conventionally prescribed gender, racial and class
roles, so that, “what truly distinguishes Kate Chopin is her departure from
the traditional stereotypes that her contemporaries utilized” (Potter 42).
And just like Harris, her rebellion is cautious, convincing the readers and
editors that she complies with the nineteenth century genteel codes by
depicting “the other” in terms of American ethnicity: namely, the Creole
woman or the black/mixed-race slave. As Jane Goodwyn notes,

subversion is one of the main instruments used by Chopin who structures
her stories in such a way as to beguile the readers with an apparent
movement towards conventionality and closure only to surprise them with
sudden twists (4).
The short story La Belle Zoraïde, included in the collection Bayou
Folk (1894), was generally seen as a tragic account of the impact of
slavery “on both female erotic desire and maternal instinct” (McCullough
211). The heroine, the “café-au-lait” (Chopin 282) slave Zoraïde, raised
and pampered by her mistress-godmother, falls in love with the wrong
man, thus refusing to marry the slave chosen by her mistress. After the
birth of her griffe (three-quarters black) baby, her lover is sold to another
plantation and the child sent away, so that Zoraïde falls into madness.
The story, unlike the majority of others by Chopin, has a narrative
frame, Zoraïde’s tragic account being told by an old mammy to a young
white lady, Madame Delisle, who, as we understand from the text, was
raised by Manna-Loulou. The presence of the frame does not change the
meaning of the story, but adds depth to the understanding of motherhood
in the context of slavery, not only concerning the black slaves, but also the
white mistresses. There is also another aspect that is reinforced by the
frame and it proceeds from the question: “why would Manna-Loulou tell
this specific story to the mistress? What does she hope to achieve?”
Another issue that might raise some problems is the fact that
Madame Delisle is not a child, but a grown woman. Nevertheless, the
inclusion of this particular text together with Harris’ is appropriate, since
Madame Delisle’s behavior is childlike, she is “pampered (and
infantilized)” and “accustomed to being put to bed” (Castillo 64) to the
sound of her mammy, just like children do; she does nothing, but lie “in
her sumptuous mahogany bed, waiting to be fanned and put to sleep to the
sound of one of Manna Loulou’s stories” (Chopin 281). She is dependent
on the help of her slave in everything, just like a little child depends on the
mother.
Two elements of importance are established in this short beginning:
the intimacy and the difference between the black mammy and the white
mistress. The intimacy comes from the choice of the “mammy” as
narrator, a representation charged with emotion in American culture. The

difference comes from the racial and social status of the mistress and her
slave, which does not allow too much intimacy.
So, the choice of the “mammy” as narrator is very important. The
mammy is “the most widely recognized symbol of African-American
maternity” (Wallace-Sanders 7), and by the middle of the nineteenth
century, it became a national icon (McElya 9). This image is always
coupled with allusions to strong emotional bonds, and it was considered
that “the intimacy between the ‘Black Mammy’ and the children of her
owner was the closest of all relationships that existed between her and the
other persons in the household” (Parkhurst 360). In this way, the mammy
has come to represent, since the times of slavery to our contemporary
world, a symbolic reconciliation with the past of slavery. On the other
hand, though, we cannot help noticing the profound racism that permeates
this image, in spite of the appearance of love and maternal devotion. The
mammy is not a mother but a servant. A mother has a position of authority
over the child, the servant does not. This is made clear in literature with
the insistence on mammy’s role in the family “more as a loyal servant
rather than as surrogate mother” (Wallace-Sanders 7). She is expected to
love, serve and cherish the white child, to devote her entire existence, up
to neglecting her biological children, to the white family, but no more.
She has to give everything but expect nothing in return. This is the reason
why, despite her immense popularity, the mammy remains a stereotype, a
shadow and an inerasable memory of a guilt-ridden past:
The narrative of the faithful slave is deeply rooted in the American racial
imagination. It is a story of our national past and political future that blurs
the lines between myth and memory guilt and justice, stereotype and
individuality, commodity and humanity. “Mammies,” as they have been
described and remembered by whites, like all faithful slaves, bear little
resemblance to actual enslaved women of the antebellum period. [...]She is
the most visible character in the myth of the faithful slave, a set of stories,
images, and ideas that have been passed down from generation to
generation in the United States, through every possible popular medium,
from fine art and literature to the vaudeville stage and cinema, and in
countless novelty items from ashtrays to salt and pepper shakers. (McElya
3-4)
Like many other similar images, Manna Loulou, is, up to a point, a

stereotypical representation of the mammy, “black as night,” and old
(Chopin 280), calm, patient and loving, with a soothing voice and a
wealth of stories to tell. She is a symbol of a slave past that is apparently
looked upon with nostalgia and benevolence. The emotional connection
between Madame Delisle and her mammy is in keeping with the
expectations of the nineteenth century readers and is meant to reassure the
“nervous strait-laced editors of the Genteel Tradition that what follows is
merely a story of quaint old plantation days” (Castillo 65).
With Chopin, though, things are never as easy and harmless as they
appear to be. The subtle use of symbols undermines the readers’
expectations. Thus, even if the beginning of the story is set in a harmless
environment: Madame Deslile’s bedroom, the symbols connected to the
setting suggest that oppression and inequality permeate even the most
intimate spaces. At a closer look, the mammy is not only a symbol of
emotional attachment but also one of economic dependence, as a slave.
Her gestures are indicative: Manna Loulou “had already bathed her
mistress’s pretty white feet and kissed them lovingly, one, then the other.
She had brushed her mistress’s beautiful hair, that was as soft and shining
as satin, and was the color of Madame's wedding-ring” (Chopin 281). The
allusions to the luxurious lifestyle of her mistress who waits for her slave
in the “sumptuous bed” (Chopin 281), not to mention the reference to the
gold ring and the color of Madame Delisle’s hair, enhance the racial and
social differences between the two women: one black “as night” and the
other blonde “as gold.” Chopin’s subtle way of playing with the readers’
attention is exemplified by Manna Loulou’s kissing the feet of her
mistress, a gesture of submission and differentiation veiled by the adverb
“lovingly,” which balances the negative representation of slavery with the
emotional connection. In fact, it is the emotional connection that matters
here, because, in the absence of real authority, feelings, attachments and
emotional bonds are very efficient in changing one’s views, as we have
seen in Uncle Remus’ stories.
All these signs that point to dependence and submission coupled
with repeated references to emotional attachment may have two
contradictory outcomes, just like Harris’ stories. First, the frame creates
an acceptable image of slavery, in which there is no discontent and the

slaves work out of love for their masters. In fact, “one of the roles of the
‘Black Mammy’ was definitely that of orienting the children into the
culture of their group. At no time she did depart from the mores in her
relation with them” (Parkhurst 360), which means that she must educate
the white children in the spirit of acceptance of slavery and enforcement
of the system, teaching them the hierarchies of their world, so that “there
need be no fear that from her the child would not receive the sense of its
status in the social world … the proper form of etiquette, of deportment to
all of the people on the plantation, the proper forms of address and the
proper distances to maintain” (Parkhurst 361-2). In this light, though the
story of Zoraïde is both tragic and rebellious, presented by the loving
mammy, it seems more acceptable to the nineteenth century readers
because the emotional bond between Manna Loulou and her mistress
balances the cruelty depicted in the story, in an attempt to suggest that
such scenes of oppression, though they existed, were rare and belonged to
the past. The second outcome, though, is that Manna Loulou, under the
guise of submission, manages to control the story and her listener. Thus,
“this passive white dependence on black agency” (McCullough 215) gives
Manna Loulou some agency. Just as in the case of Harris’ Uncle Remus,
Manna Loulou knows how to present her characters, how to dissimulate
and veer the plot so as to make the rebellion more palatable for the white
mistress. To this aim, she directs Madame Delisle’s understanding of the
text and attachment to the characters by various devices, presenting, for
instance, Zoraïde in a pitiful light, insisting on the stereotypical image of
inferiority of the slave as a passion-ridden individual, unable to control
her instincts: “Poor Zoraïde’s heart grew sick in her bosom with love for
le beau Mézor from the moment she saw the fierce gleam of his eye,
lighted by the inspiring strains of the Bamboula” (Chopin 283). In Manna
Loulou words, passion and not discomfort with slavery is the only reason
for Zoraïde’s rebellion against her mistress’ orders: “‘But you know how
the negroes are, Ma’zélle Titite,’ added Manna Loulou, smiling a little
sadly. ‘There is no mistress, no master, no king nor priest who can hinder
them from loving when they will’” (Chopin 285). Of course Manna
Loulou is sure to stress that there is punishment for that, as Zoraïde’s
mistress forbids this relationship, just as Madame Delisle expects:

“However, you may well believe that Madame would not hear to that.
Zoraïde was forbidden to speak to Mézor, and Mézor was cautioned
against seeing Zoraïde again” (Chopin 285). The sad smile that
accompanies her words seems, however, to contradict the apparent
compliance of the old mammy to such due punishment.
In order to stress the tragedy of the enslaved woman who is denied
erotic fulfillment (in Zoraïde) and maternal fulfillment (both in Zoraïde,
who grows mad after her baby is taken from her, and in Manna Loulou,
mother for the white mistress, but not for her own children, as there is no
mention of any), Chopin juxtaposes the image of the mammy with that of
the “Jezebel.” Thus, the presence of Manna Loulou, the old mammy,
deprived of sexuality, represented as a “grandmotherly” woman, “a
beloved cook and a loving caretaker,” meant to “legitimize relations
between black women and white men as maternal and nurturing, not
sexual” (McElya 8) is contrasted against the other stereotype of the
plantation world, the “Jezebel,” in the beautiful Zoraïde, “a person
governed almost entirely by her libido” and “exceptionally sensual”
(White 29). Nevertheless, this opposition based on sexuality is
undermined by Chopin who brings these two women together on the
grounds of love and maternity. The connection between them is subtly
created at the beginning of the story, when Manna Loulou thinks of
Zoraïde after hearing the faint sound of a man singing, which brings to her
minds “an old, half-forgotten Creole romance, ... a lover’s lament for the
loss of his mistress” (Chopin 280-1). We are not told why this old love
song makes such a powerful impression on the old slave and why she
immediately thinks of Zoraïde, of all the possible tales that she could have
chosen, but it is obvious that it represents, for Manna Loulou, much more
than a mere tale of the past.
Seen together, these two women defy the stereotype that is forced
upon them. Manna Loulou is loving and loyal, but her choice of stories
and her memories speak of a past of frustration, denied love and
restriction. Zoraïde, on the other hand, is the beautiful mulatto who
refuses to bow to her mistress’ wishes and seeks erotic fulfillment. She
follows her heart and not her duties, and she is punished for this
transgression being separated both from her lover and from the baby.
Despite all this, she stubbornly refuses to surrender, falling into madness
rather than accepting the control of the master. Zoraïde la belle becomes
Zoraïde la folle, forever trapped in a special moment in time as she clings
to a bundle of rags, thinking that she holds her baby in her arms. She is
now useless to her mistress and to the plantation, forever mad, but forever
free from any further abuse or exploitation. Ironically, in her madness,
Zoraïde is freer than most slaves: she is a mother to her own baby. In
reality, though, she is denied, like most women slaves, erotic or maternal
fulfillment. She reiterates the fate of her own mother who had to give up
Zoraïde, a charming toddler, chosen by Madame Delarivière who wanted
to raise her, not as a daughter, but more as a pet. She also reiterates the
fate of Manna Loulou, the mammy of her white mistress but not mother of
her own children.
In this light, Manna Loulou and Zoraïde are not two opposing
representations of the plantation world, but two facets of the same reality:
one of oppression and “absolute control over life and health of the slave
by the master/mistress” (Goodwyn 3). Thus, Goodwyn further argues,
“the status of Manna-Loulou, the story-teller, is indistinguishable from the
subject of the story, Zoraïde” (3). Through these representations, Chopin
subtly suggests that the “Jezebel” and the “Mammy” are not real figures
of the plantation, but mere stereotypes, artificial constructs meant to keep
the black slaves under control by disregarding them as human beings. The
only resistance possible, she further seems to imply, for a slave woman in
the plantation system is either madness (Zoraïde defies the system by
rejecting it altogether) or dissimulation (Manna Loulou’s cautious attempt
to make her mistress empathize with the fate of slaves by apparently
obeying the slave-master etiquette).
We should not overlook the importance of the gender component
(not found in Harris’ stories) so vivid in Chopin’s texts. This short story
gives voice to the silent South not only of slaves, but of female slaves,
who suffered more than the enslaved men on the plantation as the
exploitation was not only economical, but also sexual. This is the reason
why Charlotte Rich sees this story, told by one of the oppressed, as “a
subversively cautionary tale against a particular evil of slavery, lack of
choice in marriage, which brings to mind a more sinister counterpart: lack

of any choice, for many female slaves, over how their bodies were used
sexually” (160).
The ending of the story that is meant to show the effects of the story
on the conscience of the young white lady, newly married and so mistress
of the plantation, received ambiguous interpretations. The story ends with
Madame Delisle manifesting her pity for the poor baby who lost her
mother.
“Are you asleep, Ma’zélle Titite?”

“No, I am not asleep; I was thinking. Ah, the poor little one, Manna
Loulou, the poor little one! better had she died!”
But this is the way Madame Delisle and Manna Loulou really talked to
each other: -
“Vou pré droumi, Ma’zélle Titite?”
“Non, pa pré droumi; mo yapré zongler. Ah, la pauv' piti, Manna Loulou.
La pauv’ piti! Mieux li mouri!” (Chopin 291)
If in the case of the white boy depicted by Harris, the effects of Uncle
Remus’ stories are powerful and immediate, in this situation, the effect is
more difficult to grasp. It is true that the story impresses the white woman
so much that she cannot sleep, as was the purpose of this bedtime ritual,
and leaves her thinking about the fate of the little baby who will grow up
without a mother. Thus, we might argue that Manna Loulou manages to
move her mistress and make her ponder upon the fate of the slaves. But
since Madame Delisle does not consider Zoraïde, but only her baby, it
might mean that, in her view, the rebellious mulatto was duly punished for
her transgression and unworthy of pity. Kate McCullough, for instance,
considers that Madame Delisle misunderstood Manna Loulou’s lesson,
coming up with a “self-protective and equally racist” interpretation, by
“turning Zoraïde’s story into the story of a poor orphaned baby” (216).
Nevertheless, the repetition of her final words in the “patois,” “the way
Madame Delisle and Manna Loulou really talked to each other” (Chopin
291), creates a common ground for the two women, a world of their own,
of stories and emotions and, in this gendered space, common issues of
womanhood, from erotic desire to motherhood, beyond class and race can
be addressed freely, outside the patriarchal control.
The two writers, Harris and Chopin, are brought together, in this
approach, on the grounds of a similar narrative technique: the use of a
black narrator who tells stories of the slave past. Uncle Remus and Manna
Loulou are supposed, apparently, to embody the humane face of slavery
represented by the emotional connection between the older caretakers and
the white children. Both texts, in fact, dwell on this emotional connection
and consciously enhance the special bond created between the white
children and their uncles/mammies. However, at a more attentive look,
this emotional dependence of the white children on the black slaves who
take care of them overturns plantation hierarchies by endowing the slave
with the power to sway the mind of the child through tales and stories.
The real purpose of the seemingly harmless tales is to create an alternative
to the white ideology, to raise the child’s awareness to the slave’s plight
and to create a path towards tolerance and empathy. Harris’ stories fall
into this type of understanding, but Chopin’s tale complicates the
understanding of the slave South by adding the gender component.
Through her story, Chopin wants to achieve more than making the white
readers sympathetic to the slaves’ fates. She points to the exploitation of
the female slaves at various levels: economic, emotional and sexual and
tries to bring women together (through the presence of the Madame
Delisle, the white listener and Manna Loulou, the black story teller) in a
common gendered space of love and maternity in order to elicit empathy
and understanding.
The Southern literature of the nineteenth century, before and after
the Civil War, has received renewed attention in the last years. Chopin has
been recognized as an important and complicated writer since the middle
of the twentieth century, while other writers are now re-read with a more
attentive eye to nuances. It has become increasingly clear that stories
relying on memories of the plantation, like the one discussed above, are
not to be dismissed as simple, melodramatic or nostalgic tales that uphold
the slave system. The fact that the writers themselves chose a slave
narrator complicates the perception, since the racial component is
complicated by others such as parental authority and education. Often the
complacency to codes that enforce racial difference appears in these
stories to be only a mask that dissimulates another purpose. Telling these
stories in a post-Reconstruction world is also significant. If white society

stubbornly clings to racism and the perpetuation of injustice, black uncles
and mammies try to veer the children into a modern world of tolerance
and empathy.
Works Cited
Castillo, Susan. “Race and Ethnicity in Kate Chopin’s Fiction.” The Cambridge
Companion to Kate Chopin. Ed. Janet Beer. New York: Cambridge UP,
2008.
Chopin, Kate. Bayou Folk. 1894. Documenting the South. 1998. Web. 10 Oct.
2010.
Cochran, Robert. “Black Father: The Subversive Achievement of Joel Chandler
Harris.” African-American Review 38.1 (Spring 2004): 24-31. Web. 20
Oct. 2013.
Durocher, Kristina. Raising Racists: The Socialization of White Children in the
Jim Crow South. Lexington: UP of Kentucky, 2011.
Goodwyn, Janet. “‘Dah you is, settin’ down, lookin’ jis’ like w’ite folks!’:
Ethnicity Enacted in Kate Chopin’s Short Fiction.” The Yearbook of
English Studies Vol. 24. Ethnicity and Representation in American
Literature. Modern Humanities Research Assoc., 1994. 1-11. Web. 11 Jan.
2018.
Hagood, Taylor. “‘Prodjickin’, or Mekin’ a Present to Yo’ Fam’ly’”: Rereading
Empowerment in Thomas Nelson Page’s Frame Narratives.” The
Mississippi Quarterly 57.3 (Summer 2004): 423-440. Web. 11 Sept. 2012.
Harris, Joel Chandler. Uncle Remus, His Songs and His Sayings: The Folklore of
the Old Plantation. 1881. Documenting the South. 2005. Web. 14 May
2012.
Haynes, Stephen R. Noah’s Curse: The Biblical Justification of American
Slavery. New York: Oxford UP, 2002.
Hedin, Raymond. “Uncle Remus: Puttin’ on Old Massa’s Son.” The Southern
Literary Journal 15.1 (Fall 1982): 83-90. Web. 12 Sept. 2013.
Mackethan, Lucinda Hardwick. The Dream of Arcady: Place and Time in
Southern Literature. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State UP, 1980.
Martin, Matthew R. “The Two-Faced New South: The Plantation Tales of
Thomas Nelson Page and Charles W. Chesnutt.” The Southern Literary
Journal 30.2 (Spring 1998): 17-36. U of North Carolina P. Web. 9 Oct.
2012.
McCullough, Kate. Regions of Identity: The Construction of America in Women’s
Fiction, 1885-1914. Stanford: Stanford UP, 1999.
McElya, Micki. Clinging to Mammy: The Faithful Slave in the Twentieth Century
America. Cambridge, MA: Harvard UP, 2007.
Nowatzki, Robert C. “‘Passing’ in a White Genre: Charles W. Chesnutt’s

Negotiations of the Plantation Tradition in The Conjure Woman.”
American Literary Realism, 1870-1910 27.2 (Winter 1995): 20-36. Web. 5
Dec. 2017.
Parkhurst, Jessie W. “The Role of the Black Mammy in the Plantation
Household.” The Journal of Negro History 23.3 (July 1938): 349-369.
Web. 7 Jan. 2018.
Peterson, Christopher. “Slavery’s Bestiary: Joel Chandler Harris’s Uncle Remus
Tales.” Paragraph 34.1 (March 2011): 30-47. Web. 20 Jan. 2018.
Potter, Richard H. “Negroes in the Fiction of Kate Chopin.” Louisiana History:
The Journal of the Louisiana Historical Association 12.1 (Winter 1971):
41-58. Web. 28 Nov. 2016.
Rich, Charlotte. “Kate Chopin.” A Companion to the American Short Story. Ed.
Alfred Bendixen and James Nagel. Chichester: Blackwell, 2010. 152-170.
Ritterhouse, Jennifer. Growing up Jim Crow: How Black and White Southern
Children Learned Race. Chapel Hill: U of North Carolina P, 2006.
---. “Reading, Intimacy, and the Role of Uncle Remus in White Southern Social
Memory.” The Journal of Southern History 69.3 (August 2003): 585-622.
Web. 15 Oct. 2012.
Tracy, Susan J. In the Master’s Eye: Representations of Women, Blacks and Poor
Whites in Antebellum Southern Literature. Amherst: U of Massachusetts P,
1995.
Wallace-Sanders, Kimberly. Mammy: A Century of Race, Gender and Southern
Memory. Ann Arbor: U of Michigan P, 2011.
White, Deborah Gray. “Ar’n’t I a Woman?” Female Slaves in the Plantation
South. 1985. New York: Norton, 1999.
51 Spaces of Identity
Spaces of Identity: Gender, Ethnicity, and Race in

Salome of the Tenements (1923) and Quicksand (1928)
ANCA-LUMINIŢA IANCU
Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania
Abstract
The 1920s marked a fervent time for artistic and literary expression in the
United States. Besides the famous authors of the decade, including F.
Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and William Faulkner, Anzia
Yezierska and Nella Larsen, among other female writers, also managed to
carve “a literary space” for their stories. Yezierska and Larsen depicted
the struggles and tribulations of minority women during the fermenting
1920s, with a view to illustrating the impact of ethnicity and race on the
individual female identity. Yezierska, a Jewish-American immigrant, and
Larsen, a biracial American woman, share an interest in capturing the
nuances of belonging to a particular community as an in-between subject.
Therefore, this essay sets out to examine the intersections of gender, race,
ethnicity, and choice in shaping individual identities in public and private
in-between spaces in Yezierska’s Salome of the Tenements (1923) and
Larsen’s Quicksand (1928).
Keywords: gender, racial and ethnic identity, individual female identity,

belonging, in-between spaces of “otherness.”
The literary scene of American modernism brought about experimentation

in content and form as a result of the changing social, economic,
ideological, and cultural environment after WWI. Particularly in the
1920s, the literary environment was marked by the fiction of such
trailblazing authors as F. Scott Fitzgerald, Ernest Hemingway, and
William Faulkner. Nevertheless, as modern critics point out, minority
literatures, African-American and Jewish-American, among others, also
occupied a literary “niche” during the time, in spite of the fact that
“minority American writers were largely unread since they were not
writing in the Anglocentric or northern European ‘voice’” (Cronin and
Berger xviii). Gloria Cronin and Alan Berger maintain that, in general,
Jewish-American literature focused on themes of “resistance, protest,
Jewish socialism, Jewish family disruptions, Jewish labor unrest, Jewish
religious orthodoxy, and Jewish assimilation” (xix). At the same time, the
Harlem Renaissance flourished during the 1920s as an artistic movement
that contributed to “a ‘Negro aesthetic,’” and, as Ann Hostetler points out,
“Harlem Renaissance writing is most often characterized by its central
concern with the subject matter of race and embodiment” (629). Similar to
the Jewish-American literature during that period, this writing
“emphasiz[es] experience over experiment in its obsession with African
American culture and struggle” (Hostetler 629, emphasis added). In the
Jewish-American and African-American literary landscape of the early
1900s, besides well-known Jewish-American authors such as Abraham
Cahan, Michael Gold, or Meyer Levin, and African-American writers like
W.E.B. Du Bois, Langston Hughes, and Jean Toomer, Jewish-American
Anzia Yezierska (1880-1970) and African-American Nella Larsen (1891-
1964) carved “a literary space of their own” as women writers.
In the 1920s, Yezierska started writing about the female immigrant
experience with a view to capturing the connections between gender and
ethnicity, while Larsen became interested in depicting the complexity of
the intersections between gender and race. Both writers enjoyed some
fame during their life time: Yezierska’s first collection of short stories,
“Hungry Hearts and Other Stories” (1920) was acclaimed by the literary
critics of the time, and Larsen became the first African-American woman
to be awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1930, as a result of her two
successful novels, Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929). Much of their
fiction is semiautobiographical as both writers used their own lives as
sources of inspiration. During the latter part of their lives, Yezierska’s and
Larsen’s fame faded, but they left a significant literary legacy
acknowledged by their literary descendants who rediscovered the
complexity of their fiction in the late 1970s. As Cronin and Berger state,
the “renewed interest in Yezierska’s writings” stems both from “the work
of feminist scholars and women’s activism” and from “a new appreciation
of her passionate portrayals of Jewish immigrants” (327), and Mark

Axelrod remarks that Yezierska “is most often recognized as initiating an
understanding of the Jewish-American experience which was, as yet, an
undefined and uncharted cultural territory” (685). Furthermore, modern
critics point out that Yezierska was mostly interested in depicting “the
impossibility of transcending cultural barriers and the inevitable failure of
such utopian enterprises. This theme reappears frequently in her work and
is entwined with the story of the immigrant woman’s struggle to become a
true American” (Naveh 327). Yezierska herself was, in Elizabeth Avery’s
words, “desperate to escape the plight of other immigrants, the
confinement of the ghetto, and the limitations of Orthodoxy”;
nevertheless, “despite her talents, intellectual connections, and Hollywood
success, … [she] never found the happiness or peace she was seeking as
an American woman” (29).1 On the other hand, Carol Kort claims that,
similar to Yezierska, Larsen became a center of renewed interest during
the 1970s as “the psychologically complex semiautobiographical novel
[Quicksand] sensitively tackled subjects such as illegitimacy and
interracial relationships, taboo topics at that time” (171), while Betty L.
Hart and Anna A. Moore remark that she was among the first women
writers to depict “the dilemma of identity for biracial women” in a
realistic way (670).2 Moreover, Susan Currell points out that “to Harlem
Renaissance writers, exiles and migrants occupied the interstices of race
and gender as well as of time and space, a liminal position of
‘inbetweenness’ examined in the many novels of racial passing such as
Nella Larsen’s Quicksand (1928) and Passing (1929),” explaining that
“novels of passing explored the migrancy of existing within and outside of
two mutually exclusive worlds, at home and an outcast in both” (40).
Contemporary African-American women writers such as Maya Angelou
and Alice Walker “have expressed their admiration for the enigmatic but
talented writer who had the temerity, in the early 20th century, to portray
candidly characters, especially women, confronting racial, sexual, and
class issues” (Kort 171). Lori Harrison-Kahan places Yezierska and her
novel in the larger context of the 1920s, arguing that “it is no accident that
Yezierska’s vogue – her literary fame and her subsequent transportation to
Hollywood – occurred in the 1920s and coincided with the ‘vogue’ of the
‘Negro’, since the decade saw an unprecedented interest in the

primitivism of ethnic minorities” (417); consequently, her statement that
“this fascination with racial others led to the objectification of ethnic
women, both black and immigrant, who were often stereotyped as exotic
and sexually free” (417) applies both to Yezierska’s and to Larsen’s
fiction.3
As the nuanced depictions of the struggles and tribulations of
minority women illustrate, Yezierska, as an immigrant woman writer, and
Larsen, as a biracial woman writer, share an interest in capturing the
intricate nuances of belonging to a particular community as a gendered in-
between subject. Rita Keresztesi points out that “Larsen’s characters
suffer physically and mentally under the stress of ambiguous identities:
Helga Crane feels suffocated by her lack of a stable racial and ethnic
belonging, and, thus, she listlessly moves between blacks and whites,
between countries and continents in Quicksand” (34), while “Anzia
Yezierska’s novels portray her heroines fighting on two fronts: against the
patriarchy of Jewish orthodoxy and against the similarly patriarchal and
oppressive culture of the New World they are so set on becoming part of”
(71). As a result, “their recurring experiences are those of exile,
relocation, and displacement; that is, being permanent strangers at home
and in the world” (Keresztesi 35). Keresztesi further argues that
“Yezierska’s commentary on America, and on modernity itself, offers an
ambivalent first-person and psychologically rich critique of the modern
condition from a Jewish immigrant woman’s perspective. Her female
characters’ restlessness is reminiscent of Nella Larsen’s frenzied plots of
always seeking and never finding” (71). Salome of the Tenements depicts
Sonya Vrunsky’s struggles to forge an individual identity and pursue her
immigrant version of the American Dream.4 A poor Jewish immigrant in
New York, Sonya navigates both the spaces of the Jewish ethnic
community and the American ones in an attempt to fulfill her desire for
beauty and her dreams of love, material comfort, and possibly assimilation
into the mainstream culture, by marrying a wealthy American. Helga
Crane, the protagonist of Quicksand, is a biracial woman (white mother,
black father) who is on a quest for an individual identity in a world that is
divided into either black-only or white-only communities. Sonya’s and
Helga’s quests for identity are shaped by physical movement and

emotional tension, as they struggle to find a space of their own where they
can reconcile the markers of their in-between identity: [n]either Jewish
[n]or American (Sonya), [n]either black [n]or white (Helga).5 Therefore,
this essay sets out to examine the intersections of gender, race, ethnicity,
and choice in shaping individual identities in public and private in-
between spaces in Yezierska’s novel Salome of the Tenements (1923) and
Larsen’s novel Quicksand (1928).
In Transcultural Imaginings, Alexandra Glavanakova points out
that “identity arises as a complex interplay between self-definition and the
definition provided by others of oneself. Whether the Self internalizes the
stigma of otherness or resists it and strives towards dissimilarity from
Otherness, the impact of an Other – internal or external – who is
simultaneously familiar and strange, will always be present” (47). She
further maintains that “identity is dynamic, complex, socially constructed:
not just ‘being,’ but also ‘becoming’” (47). In the two novels, Sonya’s and
Helga’s identities are shaped both by the physical spaces they navigate
and by the people they encounter in those spaces. From the beginning of
the novel, Helga is uncertain which community she belongs to because of
the color of her skin (light brown). She navigates American spaces – in
the North and in the South – and European spaces – in Denmark –, trying
to achieve a sense of belonging either to the black community, or to the
white, respectively. During her quest, she encounters four men – three
black men and a white one – who define her in various ways: James
Vayle, Robert Anderson, Axel Olsen (Copenhagen), and the Reverend
Mr. Pleasant Green. On the other hand, intent on assimilating into the
American mainstream, Sonya straddles the two worlds of the Jewish
ghetto and of the American upper class, in search of an ideal “democracy
of beauty” (Yezierska 27), as she calls it. While navigating these two
opposite spaces, she is surrounded by three men who crave her company
as a woman: Lipkin, the poor Jewish immigrant poet and editor whom she
has met in the ghetto, John Manning, the wealthy American
philanthropist, and Jacques Hollins (formerly Jaky Solomon), the
successful Jewish-American designer on Fifth Avenue.
Sonya’s in-between spaces are marked by social class issues,

reflected in the difference between the dreary atmosphere of the Jewish
ghetto on the Lower East Side and the elegant and aristocratic Manning
mansion on Madison Avenue. Therefore, in her pursuit of upward
mobility, Sonya disregards Lipkin’s passionate interest in her because he
is poor and cannot offer her the stylish life she dreams of outside the
constraints of the ghetto. On the other hand, John Manning is the only one
who can offer her the beautiful and elegant things she craves for in life:
custom-made clothes to reflect her personality, simple but expensive
decorative objects, etc. Priscilla Wald suggests that Yezierska does not
portray Sonya as “a golddigger,” but “carefully depicts her interest in
beautiful things as a kind of artistic self-expression, a vision that grows
out of the hunger that distinguishes Yezierska’s worthy protagonists” (64).
For Sonya, Manning’s “settlement work emblematizes the ideals that she
wants to be able to embrace,” allowing her “to bring beauty to the
settlements” (Wald 64). From the beginning of the novel, Sonya finds
herself in a gendered emotional in-between space: she is in a position of
inferiority – as a woman and as an immigrant – in her relationship with
Manning, but she is also different from other immigrant women in the
Jewish community on the Lower East Side, such as Gittel Stein. As
Harrison-Kahan aptly points out, Yezierska’s female protagonists did not
only “experience the in-betweenness, the not-quite whiteness, of being
Jews in America, but they were also doubly marginalized, perceived as
outsiders because of their ethnic or racial status and their gender” (419).
Against all odds, Sonya is determined to transcend her condition as a poor
immigrant and “make of herself a person” (Yezierska 167). Consequently,
she initiates the interview with Manning, stepping out of the comfort of
the ghetto space into a neutral space which he inhabits at the moment (in
front of the settlement house where he lives now) and considers his
subsequent invitation to lunch as the first step towards a new life. In her
excitement, Sonya disregards Gittel’s remark, “you’re crazy for power”
(Yezierska 6), dreaming only of the things that Manning can offer her,
“the luxuries of love, beauty, plenty,” and his “companionship”
(Yezierska 9), the elements that bring together her love of beauty, her
sense of a refined style, and her wish to be perceived as a true American,
not a mere immigrant. Critic Lisa Botshon argues that Yezierska’s novels
“bring a different sense of the New Woman to popular fiction as they
portray the struggles of the Jewish immigrant woman to achieve not only
a sense of American citizenship, but also self-determination,
independence, and creative and sexual fulfillment, ideals found
throughout many strains of the varied New Womanhood,” maintaining
that “it is her characters’ immigrant and ethnic status (their very distance
from American cultural norms) that helps them to liberate themselves
from traditional women’s roles” (234). In Sonya’s case, “self-fulfillment
is clearly found in creative expression” (234), as she strives to become
“‘an American’ on her own terms” (Botshon 235). In a larger context,
“when her protagonists set out to capture men who will make them
American, Yezierska indicates that the interest in the opposite sex has
little to do with heterosexual romance and more to do with the desire to
wed one’s self to America” (Harrison-Kahan 422); as a result, Sonya
strongly believes that a union with Manning will bring her both material
comfort and assimilation into the American mainstream.
Similar to Sonya, who distinguishes herself from other Jewish-
American immigrant women due to her relentless pursuit of beauty and
determination to succeed, Helga pines for beauty and color in her life,
which marks her as different from the other African-American women in
the school community of Naxos, in the American South. Amid the bleak
atmosphere in the teachers’ quarters, Helga has created an individual oasis
of beauty and color in the private space of her room: a reading lamp with
“a red and black shade,” “a blue Chinese carpet,” “a shining brass bowl”
with multicolored flowers (Larsen 1), capturing the play of light and
shadow in her room, an early indication of the white-black [light-dark] in-
between spaces she will navigate throughout the novel. Like Sonya in the
ghetto, Helga feels suffocated by the complete conformity required in
Naxos: a place where “life had died out,” a place that “tolerated no
innovations, no individualisms” (4) and discouraged “enthusiasm, [and]
spontaneity” (5). In the public spaces in Naxos, she is painfully aware of
her difference and would like to leave but does not have enough money.
Like Sonya, money only matters to her in terms of what she can buy with
it: “most of her earnings had gone into clothes, into books, into the
furnishings of the room which held her” (7). Moreover, because “all her
life Helga Crane had loved and longed for nice things” (7), the other
members of the community have labeled “this craving, this urge for
beauty” as “‘pride’ and ‘vanity’” (6). Still, perhaps in order to maintain
the appearance of conforming to expected gender roles, Helga is engaged
to one of her colleagues, James Vayle; however, unlike James, “she could
neither conform, nor be happy in her nonconformity” (7). Karsten Piep
maintains that her reluctance to conform “compels her to become a
woman-in-motion who defies societal expectations” (114). Unlike Sonya,
who is not tied to a family, only to her Jewish heritage, Helga feels that
the lack of her family – who has abandoned her because the color of her
skin did not fit in with her step family after her mother’s death – is a
defining element in her life: “No family. That was the crux of the whole
matter. For Helga, it accounted for everything, her failure here in Naxos,
her former loneliness in Nashville. It even accounted for her engagement
to James” (Larsen 8).
As a biracial woman, Helga is on a constant quest for a place of her
own, surrounded by “her people,” even if she is not sure who “her people”
are, but she longs for a substitute home, a space inhabited by a family who
accepts her for who she is as a person. In Naxos, she inhabits an in-
between space both because she craves something different from life,
particularly individuality not conformity, and secondly, because in this
black community she becomes aware that “Negro society … was as
complicated and as rigid in its ramifications as the highest strata of white
society. If you couldn’t prove your ancestry and connections, you were
tolerated, but you didn’t ‘belong’” (9). The lack of family should,
therefore, render her “inconspicuous and conformable” (9), something that
Helga refuses to be. Like Sonya, Helga craves “a social background” and
hopes that her engagement to James can provide that, although “she had
not imagined that it could be so stuffy” (Larsen 9). Her colleague,
Margaret, perceives Helga as decorative, but most of her female
colleagues look down upon her as vulgar because of her love of bright
colors: “these people yapped loudly of race, of race consciousness, of race
pride, and yet suppressed its most delightful manifestations, love of color,
joy of rhythmic motion, naïve, spontaneous laughter. Harmony, radiance,
and simplicity, all the essentials of spiritual beauty in the race they had
marked for destruction” (Larsen 17). As a result, Helga is determined to
leave this place of “shame, lies, hypocrisy, cruelty, servility, and
snobbishness” (Larsen 13) “that suppresses individuality and beauty”
(Larsen 19), even if the principal, Robert Anderson, asks her to reconsider
her decision because she has “dignity and breeding” (Larsen 20), two
qualities appreciated in Naxos. As suggested in the play of light and
shadow in her room, in the in-between space in Naxos, Helga experiences
much pressure to conform, and she feels torn between resisting
conformity and trying to somehow meet those societal expectations, as
suggested in her engagement to Vayle and her attitude towards Anderson.
Nevertheless, like Sonya who is looking forward to moving away from the
ghetto and stepping into Manning’s world, Helga feels the thrill of
anticipation upon departing from Naxos, hoping to find a place which she
can call “home,” where her qualities matter more than the color of her
skin.
In her endeavor to impress and conquer Manning, Sonya starts
refashioning herself into an immigrant woman who appreciates simple but
tasteful objects. First of all, she understands the importance of appearance
and the visual power of expensive but understated clothes. To this end,
she visits Jacques Hollins’ designer store and appeals to his Jewish self to
create an elegant suit, appropriate for her meeting with the American
philanthropist. As Hollins had also refashioned himself from Jaky
Solomon in order to become a successful designer and gain access to the
wealthy American clientele, Sonya believes that they are kindred spirits
who share a great understanding and love of beauty. In this part, Sonya
finds herself in Hollins’ in-between space – that she would perhaps,
subconsciously, like to inhabit, a space where she is surrounded by
creativity and the beautiful clothes afforded by wealthy American women,
one of whom Sonya dreams to become one day. At the same time, the
meeting with Hollins places Sonya in another in-between space, this time
between Hollins and Manning, as Hollins seems to like her too and is
jealous because Sonya only has eyes for Manning. In this space, she
becomes an object of desire because of her passionate and fiery feminine
being, coveted by both men. However, her position towards each man is
different in each space: in Manning’s world, she feels inferior, a

“nobody,” a mere immigrant who is determined to assimilate into the
American mainstream through marriage. On the other hand, during her
first meeting with Hollins, their common ethnic background sets them on
more equal footing, although he is an accomplished and wealthy designer
and she an immigrant woman with lofty ideals. Nevertheless, there seems
to be a unity between them “coming from the racial oneness of the two of
them,” as Hollins “saw in this countrywoman of his a living expression of
his ideas and ideals” (Yezierska 25), a unity that does not exist yet in her
relationship with Manning. Still, during this encounter, Hollins has the
upper hand because he is the one who recreates her so as to bring out the
beauty and passion in her; like Pygmalion, Hollins is the creator, the
giver, and Sonya is the subject, the receiver, albeit in the same ethnic
community.
During the first meeting, the opposition between Sonya and
Manning is highlighted not only in terms of their different nature, but also
of their clothes, a leitmotif that permeates the novel. Sonya is wearing a
dress “of blue serge, shiny from wear,” an attire that reflects “the nun-like
austerity of the intellectual East Side,” a uniform that cannot hide Sonya’s
flaming “personality and femininity” (Yezierska 3). She is deeply
impressed by his “cultured elegance”: “a master tailor had cut his loose
Scotch tweeds. A pongee shirt was lighter and finer than a woman’s waist.
The rich hidden quietness of his silk tie; even his shoes had a hand-made
quality to them!” (Yezierska 2). Katherine Stubbs claims that “clothing is
used as a vehicle to engage in a fascinating attempt to transgress and
transcend forms of economic and social hierarchy” (157), and for Sonya,
at least during her second meeting with Manning, the clothes allow her to
create the image of a simple but stylish immigrant woman. In this respect,
Christopher Okonkwo suggests that “as constructed in the novel, clothes
assume figurative and complementary roles, serving, on the one hand, to
conceal immigrant Otherness and, on the other, as an effective material
and psychological agency which, in Sonya’s case, reveals and fulfills the
artistic and immigrant self” (133). Sonya’s difference and “otherness” is
underscored by the expensive simplicity of the suit designed by Hollins.
Thus, the meeting of the opposite worlds represented by Sonya, the
“Russian Jewess, a flame – a longing … the ache of unvoiced dreams, the

clamor of suppressed desires … the urge of ages for the free,” and
Manning, “a puritan whose fathers were afraid to trust experience …
bound by our possessions of property, knowledge and tradition”
(Yezierska 37), ends with Sonya’s offer to work for him, to help him
create a better settlement house for immigrants. Natalie Friedman argues
that, in order to lure Manning to marry her, Sonya “presents herself as
exotically different and yet uncannily familiar … appeal[ing] to
Manning’s sexual instincts through her exoticism and to his class instincts
through her linguistic fluency” (179-180).
After their encounter in public spaces, Sonya agrees to meet with
Manning in the privacy of her room to talk about working together. In
keeping with her new image in the expensive suit, Sonya’s next task is to
redecorate her room, making it presentable for his visit, changing it from a
poor abode into a simple but tastefully decorated place. By trying to create
an image of herself that does not correspond to the real circumstances of
her life, “if he sees the dump where I live, he’ll think I’m only one of the
Ghetto millions – an object for charity and education, fit only to be
uplifted” (Yezierska 41), she tries to project an image of what she believes
to be Manning’s perception of immigrant women, thereby creating a
private in-between space which she inhabits only with Manning. Ljiljana
Coklin maintains that “Yezierska’s heroine feels comfortable exploring
the foreign potential in herself and invoking Oriental images” (148). That
is why, in this space, “Sonya Vrunsky turns her difference into a virtue;
she Orientalizes and mystifies her sexuality as a powerful tool to gain her
‘trophy’ husband” (148). Moreover, in order to subtly coax Manning to
propose to her, Sonya uses her feminine charm to persuade the men in her
Jewish community to help her: Hollins to create her designer suit, Mr.
Rosenblat, her landlord, to repaint her room, and Honest Abe, the
pawnbroker, to lend her money to buy furniture. Sonya is determined to
be “a somebody of my own making” (Yezierska 48), even when Gittel
calls her a Salome who only takes advantage of men in order to reach her
goals.6 After she goes to great lengths to create an atmosphere “of simple”
beauty in her room, Sonya is still not proposed to by Manning, and
although disappointed, she feels like a winner when he suggests that they
should work and “save our East Side” together (Yezierska 77), “our East
Side” becoming a public in-between work space, where the ethnic meets
the American.
As Sonya strives to become a significant part of Manning’s business
and private life, Helga moves from Naxos in the South, to Chicago in the
North, the place where she was born. “Helga Crane, who had no home”
(Larsen 28), at first felt that she had found her home there, but after her
encounter with her uncle’s wife (on her mother’s side), she becomes more
aware of the racism of the white community, which brings about deeper
feelings of disappointment and despair. In the end, she finds temporary
employment which results in a trip to New York, and once she settles in
and befriends Anne Grey, New York seems a great place, where “she has
that strange transforming experience, this time not so fleetingly, that
magic sense of having come home” (Larsen 40). After feeling that she had
been betrayed by her white mother’s family, Helga seems to have “found
herself” in the black community of New York: “Harlem, teeming black
Harlem, had welcomed her and lulled her into something that was, she
was certain, peace and contentment” (Larsen 40). As Catherine
Rottenberg points out, “the picture Larsen has Helga paint of Harlem can
be termed ambivalent in the sense that it is inclusive of both that which
attracts and that which repels; the neighborhood concomitantly contains
the very desirable and the very undesirable” (“Affective Narratives” 784).
Harlem becomes a new in-between space for Helga, in a different black
community, seemingly more cosmopolitan, where she feels comfortable at
first. However, while in Naxos Helga had been aware of her difference in
the black community because of her love for beautiful and colorful things,
in Harlem she is painfully reminded of her white ancestry which she has
to hide from her African-American acquaintances. On the other hand, the
receipt of her uncle’s letter and check prompts a new desire to explore
other, more welcoming or accepting spaces. Consequently, in spite of
initially enjoying Anne Grey’s beautifully decorated house and her
company, Helga becomes restless again, experiencing “a feeling of
anguish,” as if she were “shut in, trapped” (Larsen 43), isolated and
estranged, the same way she had felt in Naxos. In Harlem, she feels an
outsider in her life and in her social circle, as she does not understand or
agree with Anne’s contradictory and inconsistent position towards the

white and the black races and the constant mentioning of the race
problem, racial discrimination, and the uplift of the Negro race. On the
other hand, this in-between space is connected to the one in Naxos
through Robert Anderson, in whose presence, “she was aware, … of a
strange ill-defined emotion, a vague yearning rising within her” (47),
perhaps a slow awakening of her sexuality. Living in this in-between
physical and emotional space in Harlem, Helga questions again the idea of
belonging to the black race, although she keeps repeating to herself
“they’re my own people, my own people” (Larsen 50). Her growing
awareness that people belonging to the same race should have more
important things in common than the color of their skin prompts her to
make a major change and take a bold decision: she will give her white
heritage another chance by moving to Copenhagen, Denmark, to live with
the family of her mother’s sister.
While Helga takes a radical decision to remove herself physically
from the United States and look for a home in a completely different
geographical space, Sonya finds a space, the settlement house, where she
and Manning can connect professionally. Although Sonya was never a
supporter of the methods practiced in settlement houses, this time, she
idealizes this space because she identifies it with Manning and wants to
believe that it is different from other such places for immigrant uplift.
Sonya navigates this new in-between space of the settlement house in a
double capacity: on the one hand, she has inhabited this space as an
immigrant, who was supposed to learn how to become an American. On
the other hand, working for, and later, with Manning, grants her a
different status in the settlement environment as she intends to suggest
ways of making the settlement work better, for the real benefit of the
immigrants. Determined to emulate the American way, particularly in
order to impress Manning, she wants to make herself over, to ignore her
past and refashion herself as an American: “two weeks at the settlement
and Sonya, the unadaptable, believed that she had adapted herself to a new
race, a new culture, a new religion!” (Yezierska 84). She even tells Gittel:
“I’m an American – not a crazy Russian” (94), hoping to change from a
“Salome of the Tenements” into a “Mona Lisa” (the painting she sees in
Manning’s office) (85). Her relationship with Manning progresses; he

feels more and more drawn to Sonya, as he tries in vain to decipher her
mystery, and after they spend some time at his country estate, he asks her
to marry him. So far, Sonya has moved in this in-between space, where
she has shared ideals with Manning, almost as his equal. This space has
also offered her the opportunity to try out a new identity as an American,
more restrained in her behavior, and to adhere to American, rather than
Jewish, values.
Finally, Sonya has accomplished her goal; she has become an
American by becoming Manning’s wife. Manning is equally enthusiastic,
hoping that the union of “the oriental mystery and the Anglo-Saxon
clarity” “will pioneer a new race of men” (Yezierska 108). After the
honeymoon, she feels the thrill of anticipation of moving into Manning’s
town house on Madison Avenue, where she finds herself in yet another in-
between space: the private space of Manning’s American world. Although
now she has plenty of money to buy all the beautiful things she has
yearned for all her life, it is in this space that she becomes even more
aware of her in-between status, questioning her belonging to this place: “I
am one of them now. Am I one of them? Has our love made us alike? Just
because I am his wife, have I become his kind? Will his people accept me
– and will I accept them?” (111). Her dream of decorating the house
where they are going to live together, choosing the colors and textures that
would create a cozy home, is shattered because everything is already in
the right place; the house is more austere than she had expected, and she
does not feel at home. “Between trying to act I’m a lady for the servants
and holding myself up to the ancestors, God from the world! Where am
I?” (116), Sonya wonders, fearing that her passionate love for him would
not be enough to bridge the huge difference in social class between them.
All of a sudden, she becomes keenly aware of her difference and
“otherness” in Manning’s polished world, a fact revealed poignantly
during the reception he offers for his and her friends. She feels a complete
outsider in what should be her house; “she was lost among Manning’s
people like a stranger in a strange land” (122). Sonya experiences strong
feelings of loneliness and futility and does not know where she belongs
anymore, particularly when she overhears the harsh remarks Manning’s
friends and relatives make about her and their relationship. The in-
between space of his house is a space inhabited by native-born Americans
who perceive Sonya as a person out of place there, an exotic, savage, and
primitive “other,” wondering why Manning has chosen to marry her:
“giving a dinner for a pet monkey is one thing and marrying one is quite
another thing” (127). Hurt and feeling misunderstood both by the
American guests and by Manning himself, Sonya, like Helga in various
places, feels the need to defend her individuality, her “otherness” and her
reluctance to conform. When Manning asks her “to adjust to the form of
the society in which you have to live,” she answers vehemently: “I’m
different. I got to be what’s inside of me. I got to think the thoughts from
my own head. I got to act from the feelings in my own heart. If I tried to
make myself for a monkey, I’d go crazy in a day” (131). Still, Sonya
wants to help Manning with the settlement house work, and this time, she
steps into this in-between space as the wealthy wife of an American
philanthropist. Upon looking at this environment with more objective eyes
than before, she remembers the patronizing attitude of the settlement
workers and her initial abhorrence of their idea of social uplift, and she
realizes that she cannot change this space the way she would really like to.
Disappointed with the life she had hoped to share with Manning and
forced by Honest Abe’s blackmail, she confesses all the things she had
done in order to make Manning to marry her, and then, convinced that she
does not want to belong to his world anymore, she decides to leave him.
Sonya’s awakening to reality is harsh; her American Dream of
assimilation has turned into a nightmare; all of a sudden her world has
become bleak again; she feels helpless and a strong sense of nothingness,
afraid that her desire to escape poverty at all costs has brought her back to
a miserable life of financial struggle in the ghetto. Throughout the novel,
she has been plagued by the question: “who are my people? where do I
belong?,” even more so when she returns to the ghetto newspaper where
she had worked before meeting Manning. Her first solution is to go back
to her ethnic community, but this time her difference from them is
enhanced by her marriage choice, which puts her in an in-between
position: “I’ve come back to my own people, to my real work,” she
explains to Gittel and is stunned by her reply: “Who are your own people,
after you married yourself to a Christian? … And what’s your ‘work’ but
to vamp men?” (Yezierska 158). This prompts a crisis of self-confidence
in Sonya, who does not perceive herself as a manipulator of men through
her feminine charm and sexuality, but she does not want to be defeated;
this time, she is determined to create her own space by herself: she works
as a waitress and then in a dress shop, intent on “making of herself a
person” (Yezierska 167). She manages to create a dress, the Sonya dress,
which becomes a success. Okonkwo states that “Yezierska seems to have
adopted the Sonya model as both space and voice to tell the creative
Jewish woman’s story through her own dress. Even if the Model seems to
resemble New York’s Fifth Avenue style, it differs from it in the
distinctiveness of its immigrant artistic origins” (141). Sonya decides to
go back to Hollins only after she has created the dress, hoping that their
common ethnic heritage will bring them together as partners in business
and life, as she believes that he understands her fiery passion better than
Manning. In this context, Wald argues that “Yezierska is more interested
in how the heroine finds fulfillment by discovering the proper medium for
self-expression. Sonya becomes a fashion designer. And with the
happiness she finds, Yezierska offers her own narrative of assimilation”
(64). Still, Sonya feels torn after her experience with Manning: “she could
not rid herself of the past nor get hold of the present” (Yezierska 179). As
a result, “as the day set for her marriage to Hollins drew near, a vague,
unutterable sadness possessed Sonya. Hollins’ love gave her every reason
to be happy, but something deeper than herself sobbed and sorrowed
within her” (179). Manning’s final visit makes Sonya think more about
her relationships with both men, even if she decides to stay with Hollins:
“whom do I really love? Both or neither? Is this the price I must pay
because I want beauty? Always to be torn on the winds of doubt and
uncertainty – never have rest – never find peace?” (Yezierska 182).
Sonya’s uncertainty at the end of the novel might be considered an
implicit acknowledgement of her inner feeling of in-betweenness.
In a way, Sonya has come full circle, back into the Jewish
community, but with a different social status: while at the beginning she
was poor and craved beautiful things which she thought could be acquired
only by marrying a rich American man, at the end, she is with a rich
Jewish man, working with him in another in-between space on Fifth

Avenue, a Jewish space for American clients in the heart of Manhattan, a
space she has constructed through her own strength and determination.
This may also signify an emotional in-between space, where she tries to
make sense and reconcile, perhaps, her past experience with Manning and
her future with Hollins. At the end of the novel, Sonya has become
stronger and has perhaps achieved a clearer understanding of her own
identity; she seems to have found a space of her own, by working with
Hollins to create beautiful and affordable things for other immigrants. In
her capacity as a creative artist, she has also found a way to help “her
people”: “in the midst of the ready-mades of Grand Street, a shop of the
beautiful – that’s to be my settlement!” (Yezierska 178, emphasis added),
and this time, it is not “our” settlement (like the one she had wanted to
create with Manning), but hers, a place that will probably bear the traits of
her passionate personality.
On the other hand, after her experiences in Naxos, Chicago, and
New York, Helga feels that she has failed to connect with the black
community in the United States and hopes that she will finally find a
home in Europe, with her white Danish relatives.7 Full of anticipation, she
feels elated, dreaming of “a happy future in Copenhagen, where there
were no Negroes, no problems, no prejudice …” (Larsen 51). Her greatest
desire is to be “among approving and admiring people, where she would
be appreciated, and understood” (53), and given the loss of a family life
early in her life, she hopes never to feel “cold, unhappy, misunderstood
and forlorn” again (57). Copenhagen represents a different kind of in-
between space, which Helga, like in other places before, approaches with
anticipation, perhaps a little fear of the unfamiliar, a place where she feels
she belongs, for a while. She feels elated and happy at being received with
such warmth by her white relatives. “You’re young,” her aunt tells her,
“and you’re a foreigner, and different. You must have bright things to set
off the color of your lovely brown skin. Striking things, exotic things. You
must make an impression” (62), a good impression on the right suitors,
since her relatives intend to use her as a means to advance their social
position. Initially, Helga is shy about her appearance in Copenhagen and
would like, because of her difference, to keep her appearance as
understated as possible. This fact, however, is ignored by her white

relatives who are intent on enhancing her difference and “otherness,”
particularly in terms of the material things they buy for her: colorful, often
extravagant clothes and flashy jewelry that make her stand out, thus
underscoring her exoticism. Kimberley Roberts points out that “in
virtually every place Helga appears, her clothes mark her in some way
and, in so doing, set her apart from the company she keeps. If in Naxos
her clothes place her in conflict with those policing black female
sexuality, in Copenhagen she finds herself at the other extreme of the
interpretive spectrum” (113-114). Helga feels like a savage dressed in the
ostentatious outfits bought by her relatives, “like a new and strange
species of pet dog being proudly exhibited,” uncertain how to respond to
the guests who “show curiosity and interest” at the first tea party, leaving
her “nervous and a little terrified” (Larsen 64). Aware that the first
impression of “her dark, alien appearance was to most people an
astonishment” (67), after a while, like Sonya, Helga decides to use her
difference to her advantage and starts behaving according to their
expectations.
Unlike her room in Naxos, where she was free to display her
difference (the books, the colorful atmosphere), but tried to contain it in
her private space, in Copenhagen, Helga allows others to change her into
their image of an exotic “other” in public spaces. “She gave herself up
wholly to the fascinating business of being seen, gaped at, desired”
(Larsen 68), feeling self-important and catering to the image of
extravagant “otherness” that her relatives and Axel Olsen expect from her:
“batik dresses in which mingled indigo, orange, green, vermilion, and
black; dresses of velvet and chiffon in screaming colors, blood-red,
sulphur-yellow, sea-green; and one black and white thing in striking
combination. There was a black Manila shawl strewn with great scarlet
and lemon flowers, a leopard-skin coat, a glittering opera-cape” (Larsen
67-68). According to Pamela Barnett, “Helga herself is inscribed with
certain colors and objects just as her body on the canvas is inscribed with
pigments, shading, and shape” in Olsen’s painting (586). Gradually, Helga
becomes aware that “her exact status in her new environment” is that of “a
decoration,” “a curio,” “a peacock” (Larsen 67), an object or a colorful
bird, and she is willing to accept this situation as long as she feels that the
expensive clothes she had craved for but could not afford in the United
States highlight her difference and the exotic shade of her skin in a
positive way. Still, it is during a vaudeville show where she sees two
black men performing on the stage that she truly becomes aware of her
difference and “otherness” as something less positive: while she had
considered herself as an exotic “other,” the people in her Danish social
circle might have considered her merely a primitive savage. Feeling again
unsettled and incomplete, she longs to be again with people who look
more like her, and becomes “homesick, not for America, but for Negroes”
(Larsen 86). Her determination to leave is enhanced by Olsen’s proposal
first that she become his mistress, then that she marry him, and his
statement that “you have the warm impulsive nature of the women of
Africa, but … you have, I fear, the soul of a prostitute. You sell yourself
to the highest buyer …,” hurts her deeply. Nevertheless, she is confident
enough to reply: “But you see, Herr Olsen, I am not for sale. Not to you.
Not to any white man. I don’t care at all to be owned. Even by you”
(Larsen 81). Helga resents the idea of “being bought” by Olsen as an
expensive and colorful possession, even if a marriage to him would
elevate her (and her relatives’) social status, implicitly refusing to be
defined by the men in her life who want her for her feminine charm rather
than her qualities. Roberts proposes that “the language governing moral
sexual behavior is displaced onto criticism of Helga’s clothes, as if to say
that her clothing is a text where her morality can be read, an external
manifestation of her inner being” (113), something Olsen might have
captured in Helga’s portrait. As a result, Denmark becomes another in-
between space of difference where she does not want to live merely as a
decorative exotic and sexually objectified “other.”
Every time Helga leaves a place, her feeling of anticipation is laced
with fear: fear of the unknown, fear of not being in the right place, of not
belonging, and of not being accepted for her qualities. Her return to New
York, although initially giving her back a sense of belonging to the black
community, underscores her feeling of in-betweenness: “This knowledge,
this certainty of the division of her life into two parts in two lands, into
physical freedom in Europe and spiritual freedom in America, was
unfortunate, inconvenient, and expensive” (Larsen 89-90). She has been

moving from one in-between space to another, constantly oscillating
between her mother’s white community and her father’s black one,
permanently wondering who “her people” are: “she caricatured herself …
moving from continent to continent. From the prejudiced restrictions of
the New World to the easy formality of the Old, from the pale calm of
Copenhagen to the colorful lure of Harlem” (Larsen 90). After a chance
meeting with James Vayle, which again highlights her difference and lack
of conformity, and a passionate kiss with Robert Anderson, to whom she
feels sexually attracted but who refuses to have a relationship with her
because he is married to her friend Anne Grey, Helga grows more
disillusioned, insecure and lonely.8
At this moment, a chance encounter with a church community
makes her think that religion could save her, as “a miraculous calm came
upon her ... she felt within her a supreme aspiration toward the regaining
of simple happiness, a happiness unburdened by the complexities of the
lives she had known” (Larsen 106). She ends up marrying Reverend Mr.
Pleasant Green, hoping that she has finally found a stable relationship and
a home she can call her own. Roberts argues that throughout the novel,
Helga tries to defy “her positioning as feminine object” in all the in-
between spaces she has inhabited, pointing out that, “in her boldest act to
defy” this positioning “in the enslaving market system – in her marriage to
the Reverend Mr. Pleasant Green – she is ultimately and utterly
reinscribed once more” (116). “Textually, Larsen alerts the reader to the
dangers inherent in Helga’s relationship to Green by using much of the
same iconography that she uses to describe Helga’s relationship to Olsen:
images of clothing and prostitution” (Roberts 116), in this case, the torn
red dress she is wearing when she enters the church and is mistaken for a
prostitute by the churchgoers: “a scarlet ‘oman. Come to Jesus, you pore
los’ Jezebel!” (Larsen 104). Roberts further points out that “while the
Helga/Olsen relationship symbolizes the fetishization that African
American women experience at the hands of white men, Green serves a
similar function in indicating both the coercive power of the church and
the sexist instincts of middle-class black men toward black women” (116-
117). At first, Helga is looking forward to her new life as a wife in the
South, where they move, but soon she finds herself in another in-between
space where she is different. Initially, the black women in the
congregation worship her husband, the pastor, and look upon Helga as a
temptress, who trapped the reverend into marriage through her sexuality,
although they end up pitying her after her fourth childbirth. In fact,
marriage turns out to be very different from what she had expected it to
be, and she feels how she slowly succumbs to the dreary and joyless daily
routine of married life. As Roberts points out, at the end of the novel, “as
a result of this figuring of women’s proper role, Helga Crane finds herself
in a double bind: if she remains autonomous, if she continues to walk the
streets alone, she is mistaken for the commodified body of the prostitute;
but when she consents to marriage and motherhood, she is literally
consumed by her own reproductive capacities” (118). Helga’s final drama
lies in the fact that she seems to have no escape: “Either way she is the
sexual being par excellence, and either way she is defeated at the
intersection of capitalism and sexism” (Roberts 118).
Similar to Salome of the Tenements, Quicksand ends full circle; it
begins and ends in the South, in the same stifling atmosphere; however,
while in Naxos Helga had the will and energy to leave everything behind
and start anew, she seems to have lost all her hope in Alabama, so a final
departure from here seems less likely, mainly because of her children,
whom she is reluctant to leave behind. Depressed and miserable, she
realizes that “she had engulfed herself into a quagmire” (Larsen 123), and,
in spite of her wish to get out of this situation, she remembers how she
had felt unwanted and insecure in all the places where she had lived: “For
she had to admit that it wasn’t new, this feeling of dissatisfaction, of
asphyxiation. Something like it she had experienced before. In Naxos. In
New York. In Copenhagen. This differed only in degree” (Larsen 124).
While Sonya seems to have found an in-between space where she might
develop a stronger ethnic-American identity, by being successful on Fifth
Avenue and creating beautiful things “for her people,” Helga, who had
wished all her life to be a part of and have her own family, bitterly regrets
her final choice and feels trapped in her married life. As Cheryl Wall
suggests, “clinging to a few of the books and beautiful things which
surrounded her in the opening scene, the protagonist ends up mired in the
quicksand of racism, sexism, and poverty in the US South” (43). Helga’s

experience as a wife and as a mother in the in-between space of her
marriage and family is marked by hopelessness and desolation,
representing the death of her dreams, desires, and emotions. She has lost
all her love of beautiful and colorful objects and decorations that she had
cultivated in Naxos and also in Copenhagen; her search for an individual
identity has become futile, and she ends up in this final black in-between
space still feeling that she does not belong anywhere: not to the black
community, not to her family, and, more importantly, not even to herself.
Each space inhabited by Sonya and Helga has added an emotional
layer to the development of their individual identities, for the most part
underscoring their physical and/or emotional in-between status. After
having navigated Manning’s American in-between space, the American-
Jewish in-between space of the settlement house both as an immigrant and
as “an American wife,” Sonya seems content to have found a Jewish-
American in-between space, where she, a creative immigrant woman
working with Hollins, has managed to succeed on her own, “making from
herself a person.” As Wald points out, “Yezierska imagines a cultural
assimilation – Americanization – that transpires not through intermarriage
(Sonya and Manning), but through the marriage of like-minded
immigrants (Sonya and Hollins)” (66). “Salome is not a passing story,”
she further states, and, as “Solomon/Hollins does not try to hide his past
… does not experience his self-creation as a severing from the past,”
neither does Sonya “need [to] sever her past from the present” (66). By
returning to “her people,” her Jewish roots, albeit not to the ghetto, but
from a higher social position, she seems to have reconciled the American
and Jewish sides of her identity. Helga, on the other hand, has lived a life
in constant motion, torn between the desire to be a part of a black or a
white community and the reluctance to conform to the expectations of
either community, both in the United States and in Europe. In her search
for acceptance and a sense of belonging beyond the physical markers of
race, Helga, marked by her gender and sexuality, ends up defeated
emotionally. Piep argues that “her compulsive mobility, though often
painful on a personal level, undermines restrictive conceptualizations of
belonging and allows her to enact a mixed-race subjectivity that expands
and confounds established identity categories” (114). Thus, Helga seems

to have understood that she could not belong to her mother’s white world
in Denmark not only because of her skin color but also because of the
implied but unuttered prejudices associated with the black race and
particularly those regarding black women and sexuality. That is probably
why she had the strength to refuse Olsen’s marriage proposal and resist
being labeled as having “the soul of a prostitute” (Larsen 81). On the other
hand, her decision to marry the reverend on an impulse does not bring her
the much coveted marital bliss in the black community either, so she feels
betrayed by her father’s black ancestry as well, ending up trapped in the
ambiguity of a desolate and hopeless in-between existence.
Notes:
1
For more on Yezierska as an avant-garde ethnic writer during modernism, see
Konzett.
2
For more on Larsen as a modernist writer, see Rabin.
3
For more issues of race and class in both novels, see Rottenberg (Performing
Americanness).
4
For more on class and the American Dream in Salome of the Tenements, see
Rottenberg (“Salome of the Tenements, the American Dream”).
5
For a detailed and nuanced contextualization of Larsen’s life and work,
including the connections between Quicksand and Greek mythology, see
Hutchinson.
6
For more on the Salome myth in the novel, see Coklin.
7
For more on the connections between the mulatto myth and Europe in
Quicksand, see Gray.
8
For more on desire, self-delusion, and self-sacrifice in Quicksand, see Tate and
Monda.
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The Formation of Race and Disability 76
The Formation of Race and Disability in

Philip Kan Gotanda’s I Dream of Chang and Eng
YASSER FOUAD SELIM

Sohag University, Egypt
Abstract
Philip Kan Gotanda’s I Dream of Chang and Eng (2011) is a fictional
imagining of the lives of the conjoined Siamese twins Chang and Eng who
lived in the United States in the nineteenth century (1811-1874). The play
dramatizes the twins’ ascent from monstrosity to social acceptance.
Gotanda draws on the transformation of the twins’ status from the exotic
poor aliens to the naturalized Americans who own plantations and black
slaves and are married to white women at a time in which naturalization
of ethnic immigrants was prohibited and interracial marriage was a taboo.
This study utilizes Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s racial formation
theory and a disability studies framework to analyze Gotanda’s play,
proposing that the mutation of the image of Chang and Eng and the
redefinition of their disability provide early examples of America’s
paradoxical treatment of race and body to serve cultural, national, and
political tendencies. The intersection between race and disability in the
case of Chang and Eng questions, disturbs, and alters racial and body
hierarchies, and confirms that both race and disability are social constructs
that take different shapes and meanings in different socio-political
contexts.
Keywords: Asian-American theatre, Philip Kan Gotanda, I Dream of

Chang and Eng, disability, race, racial formation theory.
Philip Kan Gotanda’s I Dream of Chang and Eng (2011) is a semi-

biographical play that delves into the lives of the historically famous
Siamese twins Chang and Eng. The twins were born with their bodies
connected at the chest by a fleshy ligature, and due to the rarity of their
medical condition and their fame in nineteenth-century freak shows, they
77 The Formation of Race and Disability
lent the term “Siamese twins” to describe all such cases of conjoined
brothers. The play dramatizes Chang and Eng’s freakish lives and their
ascent from monstrosity to social acceptance and fame. Gotanda follows
the transformation of the twins’ status from the exotic poor aliens to the
naturalized Americans who own plantations and slaves and are married to
white women at a time in which naturalization of ethnic immigrants was
prohibited and interracial marriage was a taboo. This study draws on
Michael Omi and Howard Winant’s racial formation theory and a
disability studies framework to analyze Gotanda’s play, proposing that the
mutation of the image of Chang and Eng and the redefinition of their
disability provide early examples of America’s paradoxical treatment of
race and body to serve cultural, national, and political tendencies. The
study argues that both race and disability are social constructs that take
different shapes and meanings in different socio-political contexts. The
analysis starts by addressing the history of the play’s production and
critical reception. It proceeds then to juxtapose Omi and Winant’s racial
formation theory and its intersection with disability studies. Finally, the
essay examines Gotanda’s portrayal of the complexities of treating Chang
and Eng’s racial and body difference in antebellum and postbellum
America.
Gotanda is an Asian-American playwright, musician, director, and
performer. His theatre tackles a range of thematic and aesthetic styles. He
wrote on the Asian-American identity, diaspora, interracial marriage, love,
history and politics. Gotanda worked on a variety of artistic forms
including plays, musicals, operas, dance and films. He received many
honors in recognition of his contribution to American theatre, such as the
Guggenheim Award, the National Arts Club Award, the Pew Charitable
Trust Award, the Lila Wallace Award, and the Golden Gate Award. I
Dream of Chang and Eng was Gotanda’s long-awaited project. He says:
“I’ve been trying to write this play for 25 years. Finally I let go of
everything – fact, fiction, documentation, history – and wrote. this [sic] is
what came out” (qtd. in Bullock). The play had its first production on the
Zellerbach Playhouse at the University of California, Berkeley, in March
2011. The production was part of a model developed by the Department
of Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies at UC Berkeley to have
playwrights teaching and developing plays in collaboration with students,

professors, and major artists in the Bay area. Gotanda declares that he
chose UC Berkeley for the debut of his play because of the large number
of actors and the elaborate scenery and costumes required for the
production that could not be afforded at a regional theatre. He remarks:
One of the main reasons I chose to develop this piece at Berkeley is that
I’m able to do things that I might not get the opportunity to do elsewhere
…. ‘I Dream of Chang and Eng’ is a big play in every conceivable way.
Understandably, regional theaters would shy away from working on a new
play with a cast of nineteen actors and big set pieces. This university
allows me access to large number of talented student actors, so I can
produce the play that’s in my head. (qtd. in Bei)
Theatre reviewer Charles Jarrett notes that the play includes thirty
characters and thirteen actors who make 123 costume changes which
would make the play “a project far too risky financially for a community
or regional theater to mount.” Jarrett expounds that the Zellerbach
production of the play was sometimes perplexing, especially in the first
act which was “at times confusing, at least until you grasped the story
development path, and it moved with less energy than it required.”
Despite this confusion, Jarrett finds I Dream of Chang and Eng “a play
with great promise” considering it was still in development on the UC
Berkeley stage. Thematically, Jarrett reads the play as “a poignant story of
the love and frustration of two men who learned that they were not freaks,
but men who were ‘very special,’ and yet, at the same time they were men
who were very normal, with normal hopes, dreams and desires!” The
Berkeley Daily Planet reviewer Ken Bullock finds the production
confusing as well. He writes: “The play sprawls, both across the stage,
and in time. at [sic] three hours’ length, Chang and Eng fascinates, but
loses focus, which is crystallized by the brothers themselves.”
The play had its second production in 2012 at the Mainstage
Theatre, Department of Theater and Dance, the University of California,
Santa Cruz, where it was directed by Gina Marie Hayes. Wallace Baine,
reviewing the Mainstage Theatre production for the Sana Cruz Sentinel,
quotes Hayes as saying: “It’s really a magical-realism retelling of their
story.... We abstract it, pulling back a bit from narrative storytelling to get
at the emotional core.” The UC Santa Cruz production was more an

impressionistic reading of the Bunker’s lives, dreams and sexuality than a
historical account of their lives (Baine). Although Gotanda was still
developing the play on the UC Santa Cruz Mainstage, theatre reviewer
Katie Hughes McKee expresses her satisfaction at the production saying:
“you will not believe that when you see it. It is a fully-mounted, creatively
imagined, stunningly choreographed and costumed production, right up
there with any I have seen in my 20-plus years as a ticket-holder at ACT.”
In 2017, the play was performed at the Robert Cohen Theatre at the
University of California, Irvine, and directed by Ricardo Rocha. OC
Weekly reviewer Aimee Murillo, commenting on the UCI production,
contends that Chang and Eng’s story gives an example of human
persistence and determination: “This production dramatizes the brothers’
ascent to fame and power despite the myriad obstacles thrown their way,
illuminating a forgotten case study of human perseverance.” Kevin Chang
Barnum refers to many flaws in the play, especially the paucity of an
interesting plot; yet he states that the main contribution of the play is
casting light on race and otherness in nineteenth-century America. He
adds: “For whatever flaws it may have, ‘I Dream of Chang and Eng’ does
succeed in contributing to the dialogue on otherness in America. The play
paints a complex portrait of the lives of two such ‘others,’ and shows how
they transcend their labels, each one an individual, even if Chang and Eng
cannot exist separately.”
Barnum is one of the very few reviewers who read the play within
the context of racism and otherness in the United States. The present study
expands this reading of the twins’ lives and locates the story of Chang and
Eng within a broader context of ethnicity and disability in nineteenth-
century America. The study claims that Chang and Eng are prototypes of
Asian-American otherness. The paradoxical positions occupied by the
twins reflect the contradictory stereotypes used to identify Asian
Americans; i.e., the pollutants, the deviants, the hard workers and the
exotic. More significantly, the mutation of the Siamese twins’ social
position as both disabled alien immigrants and successful Americans
raises questions about the artificiality of race and disability formation
when they intersect with politics and socio-cultural factors.
To set the stage for examining this convergence of race, disability,

and cultural politics in I Dream of Chang and Eng, it is useful first to give
an account of the racial formation theory and its relationship to disability
studies. The racial formation theory was developed by Michael Omi and
Howard Winant in the first edition of their book Racial Formation in the
United States (1986). Omi and Winant developed their theory in two
further editions of the same book in 1994 and 2015. They trace the
formation of race in the United States starting from the second half of the
twentieth century to the twenty-first century, arguing that race is socially
constructed and is connected to economic, cultural, social and political
forces. Omi and Winant ascertain that race is “an unstable and
‘decentered’ complex of social meanings constantly being transformed by
political struggle” (123). They propose a new definition of race which
stresses its arbitrariness and connection to socio-political representation:
“race is a concept which signifies and symbolizes social conflicts and
interests by referring to different types of human bodies” (123, emphasis
in the original). Omi and Winant’s definition of race concurs with the
contention of a group of international anthropologies and sociologists who
gathered in 1949 under the umbrella of UNESCO and concluded that
“‘race’ is not so much a biological phenomenon as a social myth” (“The
Race Question” 8). In disability studies, a social model of disability is
defined as “a relationship between people with impairment and a disabling
society” and is distinguished from the common medical model which
views disability as an “individual deficit” (Shakespeare 198). In
discussing the intersection between race and disability, many scholars deal
with the deployment of disability as a metaphor for racism and of racism
as a metaphor for disability. In Disability Studies, ableism is considered in
parallel to other forms of social oppression including “hetero/sexism and
racism” (Goodley 9). Jennifer C. James and Cynthia Wu emphasize in
their article “Race, Ethnicity, Disability, and Literature: Intersections and
Interventions” the paramountcy of “understanding how disability has
always been racialized, gendered, and classed and how racial, gender, and
class difference have been conceived of as ‘disability’” (8). Leonard
Kriegel draws an analogy between the plight of the cripples and the
racism practiced against blacks in his article “Uncle Tom and Tiny Tim:
Some Reflections on the Cripple as Negro” (1969). He finds in the black

man a model of disability. For Kriegel, Uncle Tom, a stereotype of a loyal
slave, and Tiny Tim, a famous Victorian-fiction disabled figure, are
“brothers under the skin” (414). Both are social outcasts pigeonholed by a
society of whites and abled people who exclusively reserve the right to
define and stigmatize blackness and disability. Christopher M. Bell, the
editor of Blackness and Disability: Critical Examinations and Cultural
Conventions (2012), resonates with Kriegel’s view and emphasizes the
fact that both race and disability are socially constructed and have been
historically misrepresented. Bell calls for keeping a conversation between
blackness and disability in order to discover their fallacies and rethink
their representation.
Racism and inequality in American history have often been justified
through a Eugenic perception of race and its connection to disability.
Douglas C. Baynton questions this relationship in his article “Disability
and the Justification of Inequality in American History,” in which he
writes:
Disability has functioned historically to justify inequality for disabled

people themselves, but it has also done so for women and minority groups.
That is, not only has it been considered justifiable to treat disabled people
unequally, but the concept of disability has been used to justify
discrimination against other groups by attributing disability to them.
Disability was a significant factor in the three great citizenship debates of
the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries: women’s suffrage, African
American freedom and civil rights, and the restriction of immigration.
When categories of citizenship were questioned, challenged, and
disrupted, disability was called on to clarify and define who deserved, and
who was deservedly excluded from, citizenship. (17, emphasis in the
original)
In his article “Race and the Concept of Progress in Nineteenth Century

American Ethnology” (1972), John S. Haller argues that in order to justify
race legislations in nineteenth-century America, ethnologists relied on the
word “evolution” in the definition of their culture theory. The non-white
races were perceived to be “mere ‘survivals’ from the past, mentally and
psychologically unable to shoulder the burdens of complex civilization”
(710). The amalgamation of non-whites within the society, according to
Haller, would pull the whole nation back. Nineteenth-century

anthropologist Herbert Spencer borrows the principles of Charles
Darwin’s The Origin of Species (1859) in his book The Principles of
Biology (1864) to develop his Social Darwinism theory that claims the
physical, moral, intellectual, and genetic deficiency of the non-whites and
the necessity to eradicate them from the social system. In Eugenics, racial
characteristics were interpreted as limiting and disabling of human
capabilities and calls for eradicating the biologically disabled unfits were
very popular (Galton; Paul; Sanger).
The freak shows in the nineteenth century were actual
manifestations of the anti-racial theories and Eugenics. These curiosity
shows introduced unfitting disabled others to amuse and entertain white
voyeurs. Showcasing connected Asian twins like Chang and Eng helped
to inculcate the connection between race and disability in the American
common perception and to separate American standard humanness from
ethnic anomalies. Ironically, Chang and Eng could conversely refute the
fallacy of this dichotomy as the twins managed to move from the status of
the anomaly to the status of the successful other. Gotanda skillfully
dramatizes this fluctuating definition of the twins’ ethnicity and disability
in I Dream of Chang and Eng. He follows the history of the twins’
degradation and success through the narratives of their bi-racial daughter
Katherine-Josephine. The play starts in 1868 with the fifty-seven-year-old
renowned Chang and Eng touring London with the famous freak show
organizer Phineas T. Barnum in order to recover their Civil War losses.
The narrative then returns to Siam in 1820 when the nine-year-old twins
were discovered by Captain Hunter and brought to America in order to
expose their conjoined bodies in front of the American public. This non-
linear re-imagining of the Bunkers’ lives does not only confuse their
lifeline, but also confuses their identity and their racial and social position
in antebellum and postbellum America.
Throughout the play, Chang and Eng are defined and redefined in a
manner that oscillates between xenophobia and xenophilia. As soon as
they reach the shores of America on the ship Sachem, Chang and Eng’s
identity is put into question by Learned Jack, the black English man who
is only free at sea. “You are not White and that is what matters to some
men.... They have not seen the likes of you in color of skin or shape of
body. It is yet to be seen what you are in America’s eyes” (Gotanda 19),
Learned Jack confides to Chang and Eng. The twins discover that they are
not business partners with Captain Hunter as they had expected in Siam.
To their dismay, Hunter treats them as orientalist commodities and sells
their contract to Abel and Susan Coffin who reserve the sole right to
present them in curiosity shows in return for very low wages. In the first
exhibition of the twins, Abel and Susan Coffin introduce them to the
American audiences as freaks from the mysterious Orient, an enigmatic
combination of the primitive, the defective, the grotesque and the alien:
Abel: (OS) Ladies and Gentlemen. Presenting the amazing Siamese

Double Boys. Born in the wild of Siam. Cursed by a freakish body.
Rescued by an English Captain. Then tamed and mannered by its
American owners, Susan and Abel Coffin. Never seen before by
occidental eyes! Please look upon this curiosity of nature! Marvel at this
living exhibition of the Mysterious Orient! (Gotanda 26)
The Coffins present Chang and Eng as if they were more bestial than
human, “pet monkeys to be locked up between shows” (Gotanda 22).
They request them to get dressed like children and to keep their queues
uncut to accentuate their foreignness and to look like “two harmless boys”
(Gotanda 21). The Coffins command the twins to rigidly hold their poses
during the performances in order to give a chance for the spectators to
enjoy the voyeurism of abnormal ethnic others and to rejuvenate the
insurmountable distance between the normal Occident and the abnormal
mysterious Orient. The juxtaposition of the ethno-disabled bodies of the
Siamese twins devalues the Asian body and inspires the onlookers with a
sense of physical and cultural normalcy and superiority. Disability lends
its crippling traits to race, thereby blurring the boundaries between racial
and freakish attributes. This voyeurism interest is maximized through
fabricated stories about the twins that reiterate their monstrosity and show
them as savages that were saved and tamed by a Western guardian, and
shipped to America as unique natural wonders.
In the exhibition of Chang and Eng, the racial is enfreaked and the
freakish is racialized in order to confirm the Western dichotomy of able-
bodied white man and disabled-bodied racial/Asian other. Rosemarie
Garland Thomson points out that “freaks are above all products of
perception: they are the consequences of a comparative relationship in
which those who control the social discourse and the means of
representation recruit the seeming truth of the body to claim the center for
themselves and banish other to the margins” (62-63). Chang and Eng’s
disabled bodies are marginalized and presented as antithesis to the
Western abled body. Thomson elaborates this antithetical relationship by
saying:
The American produces and acts, but the onstage freak is idle and passive.
The American looks and names, but the freak is looked at and named. The
American is mobile, entering and exiting the show at will and ranging
around the social order, but the freak is fixed, confined by the material
structures and the conventions of staging and socially immobilized by a
deviant body. The American is rational and controlled, but the freak is
carnal and contingent. Within this fantasy, the American’s self determines
the condition of his body, just as the freak’s body determines the condition
of his self. This grammar of embodiment culturally normalizes the
American and abnormalizes the freak. (65)
Constructing the average American as “masculine, white, nondisabled,

sexually unambiguous, and middle class” (Thomson 64) drives all
opposites to the margins. Through ascribing disability to the racial other,
the white man is installed in “the position previously held by the
dethroned exceptional man, the aristocrat or the king” (Thomson 64),
keeping the racial other in a quirky and deviant position.
While Chang and Eng’s racialization is rationalized by their
disability, it is also disability that redefines them as successful
entrepreneurs and symbols of cultural pluralism and liberal capitalism. In
his introduction to I Dream of Chang and Eng, Gotanda writes: “In the
turbulent zeitgeist of antebellum America, the new nation looks at Chang
and Eng and sees in them something it needs” (2, emphasis in the
original). What was found in Chang and Eng’s bodies in antebellum
America was the rationalization of inequality, the exclusion of race, and
the establishment of white normalcy. America also found in Chang and
Eng symbols of egalitarian principles and the emerging American Dream.
This double deployment of disability emanates from the paradoxical
cultural and political tendencies in nineteenth-century America when
whiteness, diversity, unity, disunity, federalism, republicanism,

agrarianism, and industrialism were all pronounced in one breath. At the
beginning of the nineteenth century, the new nation was torn between a
British history of class system and a newly-born national independent
identity founded on equality and the rights of the common man. With the
nineteenth century heading on, the American WASP culture was
challenged by an emerging race, class, and gender consciousness that
threatened to re-conceptualize the American Anglo-European identity.
Meanwhile, the westward expansion and the ongoing American
exploration of the frontiers demanded a progressive society that valued
individual entrepreneurialism. “White supremacy,” argues John Kuo Wei
Tchen, “did not define all relationships at all times. In the process of
urbanization and westward expansion, Americanness came to mean a
pluralistic contact with cultural others” (xix). Within a nineteenth-century
racist climate, calls for slavery abolition and women and minority rights
were loudly heard in the United States which eventually led to the Civil
War in 1860. American white particularism and American tendencies
towards cultural pluralism existed side by side. In response to these
oscillating cultural tendencies, the connections between the abled and the
disabled and the boundaries between the white and the racial were shifting
and taking different forms when placed in different socio-political
contexts.
The twins’ disability acquires a new meaning when it is
aggrandized and viewed as aesthetically fascinating. Chang and Eng
successfully utilize their conjoined bodies to commercialize their
orientalism and to accentuate their entrepreneurial skills in a capitalist
society that values individualism and personal success. The untraversable
difference between the Siamese twins and white spectators is seen in a
new light by Ms. Elizabeth, the English wife of Sir Edward Monroe, the
attaché to the French Consulate in London. Elizabeth feels erotically
attracted to the aestheticism of the twins’ connectedness and decides to
have sex with them. She feels a strong desire to explore their bodies: “You
are not like Edward or any of the other men I have known. You are two. I
do not know. You are Siamese. I do not know. I wonder what your organ
looks like?” (Gotanda 32). The coordination of the twins in bed fascinates
Elizabeth. “You are quite coordinated in your moves – it was both of you,
yes?” (Gotanda 34), she asks the twins with wonder. Elizabeth confides to
Chang and Eng that she has a big arse, like the majority of rich ladies in
London and Boston, in imitation of the spectacular big genitalia of the
African American freak Hottentot Venus Sara Baartman who is viewed as
“an exotic, beautiful, full-bodied African lady.... Her posterior was large”
(Gotanda 30). This grotesque beauty of the freak body becomes a secret
fantasy to the white woman. Elizabeth confesses: “We all stared but no
one would speak it aloud. Instead we went home, closed our bedroom
doors and fantasized about this posterior until one day we woke up and
voila! We had big arses! In a fashion of speaking” (Gotanda 30). This
fascination with the foreign body inspires Chang and Eng to present their
deformity aesthetically in order to get into the Occidental world and
celebrate “the shedding of old skin and the spreading of new found wings”
(Gotanda 33). The aestheticism of disability re-channels the meaning of
race. Ugliness is replaced by bizarre beauty and subordination gives place
to empowerment.
After the termination of their five-year contract with the Coffins,
Chang and Eng could manage their performances and sell their own
wares. The erotic experience with Elizabeth teaches them to place their
disability within an emerging capitalist paradigm and to present their
deformity willingly as an oriental luxury. In his book New York before
Chinatown: Orientalism and the Shaping of American Culture, 1776-
1882, Tchen states that in the nineteenth century, “possessing luxuries
from ‘the Orient’ was one means by which well-being came to be
measured” (xvii). Chang and Eng employ their disabled Asian bodies as
oriental luxuries that they could commercialize to find a place in
American society. They recall the entrepreneurial skills and the profitable
duck and egg business they had in Siam and their early dreams to travel to
America and make a huge business: “China Men go where they have to
sell their wares. That is what home is for them” (Gotanda 14). In less than
five years, the Siamese brothers could make a fortune and achieve a
respectful status in America. By the time they cease to be public
entertainers, Chang and Eng have already made a fortune and become
officially American citizens when citizenship could only be granted to
white Americans. During the naturalization ceremony, they are

Christianized and given the name Bunker. The Bunkers become emblems
of the hardworking successful “New Chinamen” who make money and
“get treated like kings” (Gotanda 45). They own plantations and black
slaves in North Carolina, and through their richness and expensive
offerings, they could get married to two white sisters, Adelaide and Sally
Yates. They call their marriage “a successful business transaction. Their
combined dowries will allow us to buy two hundred more acres” (Gotanda
56). The Bunkers form a large family composed of twenty-two American
children, standing as an example of the success of the American dream
despite their Asianness and deformity. They provide a prototype of the
“modern minority” myth which, according to Natsu Taylor Saito, defines
Asian Americans stereotypically as “hardworking, industrious, thrifty,
family-oriented, and even mysterious or exotic” (72).
The Siamese twins return to sideshows after the end of the Civil
War in order to compensate their losses. They approach Phineas T.
Barnum, one of the most famous freak-show exhibitors in America, who
presents them among his menagerie of multiracial curiosities. Unlike other
racialized freaks, Chang and Eng are presented in Barnum’s shows as
Siamese American gentlemen. In postbellum America when the country
was looking for egalitarianism without threatening white supremacy,
Chang and Eng served the mission. Their bodies were commercialized
and their deformity was accepted as grotesquely beautiful rather than
threatening. Gotanda dramatizes this transformation of the twins’ status in
his depiction of their glowing appearance on stage in their last shows.
During their farewell tour, the Bunkers appear on stage in gentlemen’s
costumes, along with their children, surrounded by flash powder, smoke,
drums, and music and are received with roars and waves. Speaking in a
large microphone, P.T. Barnum introduces the twins as superstars:
Barnum: More extraordinary than the Giant of Cardiff! More amazing than
the Great pyramids of Egypt! The 8th Wonder of the new world, ladies and
gentlemen, after twenty five long years away, welcome back your old
friends, Chang and Eng. (Gotanda 4)
During these late exhibitions, Chang and Eng occupy the position of
celebrities. They are presented within what Emma Louise Backe
conceptualized as “an aesthetic space” where “the personhood of the
sideshow freak was separated from their physical body, so that their
display in carnivals was composed like an artistic installation” (28).
Robert Bogdan calls it an “aggrandized” mode of presentation in his book
Freak Show: Presenting Human Oddities for Amusement and Profit
(1988). Unlike the “exotic mode” which presents the freak as primitive
and culturally different, the aggrandized mode enables the freak and
installs him/her in a respectful social position. Bogdan explains:
With the aggrandized mode of presentation emphasized how, with the

exception of the particular physical, mental, or behavioral condition, the
freak was an upstanding, high-status person with talents of a conventional
and socially prestigious nature. Under this mode some exhibits were
presented as prototypical Americans …. One, some, or all of the following
attributes were fabricated, elevated or exaggerated, and then flaunted:
social position, achievements, talents, family, and physiology. (108)
The primitiveness of the Oriental is challenged within the realm of

disability and what was previously de-privileged acquires a value that
deconstructs already-established suppositions and binaries, and
problematizes the social construction of whiteness, normalcy, and racial
freakishness. By enabling disability, the Asian body shares various poles
with the Caucasian one, including economic success, social status, and
Americanness. The boundaries previously created between whiteness and
race through disability are repositioned within the same space when
located in a different socio-political context. While Chang and Eng were
exhibited by the Coffins as two disabled mysteriously connected Asian
twins when they first arrived to the country, they transgress the law of
presentation set up for them and define themselves in a new manner;
albeit this self-presentation is manipulated by the society itself.
Confronted with Afong Moy, the Chinese bound-feet lady, Chang and
Eng place themselves within a liberal capitalist ideology that treats their
deformity as a commodity. Eng proudly brags that people come to stare at
them “and pay 50 cents for that opportunity, 100% of which will be ours
as soon as we are our own bosses” (Gotanda 37). During one of their trips
in America, the Siamese twins are mistakenly taken for Indians and could
only escape lynching and racist torture when they declare that they are
“the renowned Siamese twins” (42) and not abominations. The experience
posits a controversial question for Chang and Eng: “Are we colored or
abominations?” (43). The twins’ connectivity is doubly viewed as
empowering and disempowering at the same time. The way the Yates
parents respond to Chang and Eng’s proposal to Sallie and Addie mirrors
this confusing view of race and disability. The brides’ father looks at the
twins as two successful American gentlemen who could secure easy lives
for his daughters and who “are raising quite a few eyebrows with your
[the twins’] scientific farming” (Gotanda 49), while Mrs. Nancy Yates,
the mother, treats them with disgust because of their conjoining ligature
which “cause[s] pregnant mothers to lose their babies” (50).
In his comic sketch “Personal Habits of the Siamese Twins”
written in 1869, Mark Twain employs Chang and Eng’s disability as a
double metaphor for unity and exoticism. Twain praises the twins being
“naturally tender and affectionate in disposition” despite the fact that these
creatures are “ignorant and unlettered – barbarians themselves and the
offspring of barbarians, who knew not the light of philosophy and
science.” For him, Chang and Eng’s connection is a model of unity,
faithfulness and loyalty that was lacking in American culture during the
Civil War period. Twain exclaims: “What a withering rebuke is this to our
boasted civilization, with its quarrelings, its wranglings, and its separation
of brothers!” Commenting on Twain’s article and Thomas Nast’s cartoon
“The American Twin,” cultural scholar Cynthia Wu proclaims that the
anatomical and racial difference of the Bunkers was used as a rhetorical
device in the nineteenth century to demarcate America’s incapability of
defining its national identity. Wu writes:
Although both texts invoke a reconciliatory politics during times of civil

unrest, they demonstrate an uneasy ambivalence about the national unity
they advocate. Both evince an unspoken concern about the nation’s
inability to contain racial—and other valences of—difference in visions of
national unity even while calling for harmonious interconnectedness
among Americans variously situated socially with respect to race, class,
and gender. (30)
Gotanda advises in his introduction to I Dream of Chang and Eng

that the twins’ identity should remain confused throughout the
performance of the play. He suggests that the actors playing the roles of
Chang and Eng should appear as two distinct individuals in some scenes
and as real-life connected twins in others (Gotanda 2). The twins appear
on stage as connected brothers in times of glory and success, and act
separately in their desperate moments. As America was trying to reach a
compromise between opposing cultural and political tendencies in the
nineteenth century, Chang and Eng in Gotanda’s play try to find voices of
their own in a racist climate and to reach a compromise with their
connected bodies. The twins fail to define their relationship to
Americanness, Asianness, connectivity, and individuality in the same
manner that America swings between individualism and community. Eng
repeatedly muses over this identity conflict in the play. Amidst their
profitable curiosity show business, he tells Chang: “I am sick of it. I am
sick of all of it” (Gotanda 45). In their late years, they live in two different
houses spending three days in each house to meet their wives. In the last
scene of the play, Eng discloses to his brother who passed away five hours
before: “I will not pray. I do not believe in God. I believe in you Chang.
That is enough” (Gotanda 69). Eng’s confession that his assimilation into
American culture is not genuine evinces America’s nineteenth-century
cultural and racial anxiety.
To conclude, one could argue that Chang and Eng’s connected
bodies are archetypes of an American legacy of erecting racial and ethnic
hierarchies to justify white supremacy and to conversely propagate
American democracy. The racial affiliation of the twins is disabled in
order to establish the superiority and normalcy of whites. However, it is
through the intersection of race and disability that these hierarchies are
questioned, disturbed, and altered. While the monstrosity of disability
categorizes the racial as abnormal, the aestheticism of the disabled body
reshapes the racial figure to be socially accepted. Disability could
structure and restructure racial boundaries and move the Asian body from
racial stigmatization to social integration. In this process of race and
disability (re)modification lies America’s unstable attitudes towards
immigrants and failure to define the nation’s national and cultural identity.
Chang and Eng are typical examples of this identity crisis, cultural
anxiety, and socio-political construction of race and disability.
Simultaneously, the twins represent different racial paradoxical
paradigms: the exotics, the aliens, the racially and physically pollutants,
the American heroes, and the model minority. Deconstructing
relationships and connections between race and other related concepts like
ethnicity, class, sexuality, intelligence, and athleticism could raise more
questions about established hierarchies and interrogate America’s cultural
paradoxes and racial formation politics.
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93 Material Excess and Deadly Dwelling
Material Excess and Deadly Dwelling in E.L. Doctorow’s

Homer and Langley
ANAMARIA SCHWAB
University of Bucharest, Romania
Abstract
In Homer and Langley, E.L. Doctorow’s 2009 novel of New York City,
the author focuses on past Manhattan, which he sees as the epitome of his
own self-destructive modern and contemporary society. I would argue that
Doctorow acts here mainly to denounce excessive material culture in the
context of egotistic, upper-class Manhattan dwelling at the end of the
nineteenth century. I would also like to show that the novelist criticizes
the idea of material progress along more than a hundred years, from the
end of the nineteenth century, when the plot starts, to the beginning of the
twenty-first century, when the novel was written. The self-contained,
isolated world in the novel is the result of our society’s propensity for
excessive production and consumption. At the same time, Homer and
Langley brings to mind ideas of exhaustion of the human, who agrees to
be literally replaced by objects. The fact that such a phenomenon occurs
already at the end of the nineteenth century suggests that there might have
never been a plenary moment of being human, as we have long
entertained the closest possible relationship and even synthesis with the
non-human world of objects and tools.
Keywords: E.L. Doctorow, Homer and Langley, material culture, self-

reliance, excess, regress, nineteenth century, twentieth century.
Homer and Langley is a dark, dismal rendering of New York City, even
darker than The Waterworks (1994), another one of E.L. Doctorow’s
novels that deals closely with Manhattan. If in his 1994 novel the author
attempted to restore some trust in the idea of reason, which strove to
counterbalance the city’s tendency towards megalomaniac excess and
madness, in Homer and Langley reason is thoroughly dismantled, while

bleakness prevails.
The novel tells the story of two reclusive brothers, the Collyer
brothers, who lived in Manhattan at the fin de siècle and later. Homer and
Langley Collyer were historical characters who lived in Harlem,
Manhattan between the end of the nineteenth century till their death in
1947. The sons of a prosperous upper-class Victorian family, they later
became reclusive hoarders who lived in poverty and squalor. Details of
their death were published on the front page of New York journals, as
they were discovered buried under colossal amounts of debris in their
Fifth Avenue brownstone, after years of isolation in their home. In his
trademark merging of historical fact and fiction, which he experimented in
Ragtime, The Book of Daniel, and The Waterworks, Doctorow starts from
this kind of spectacular occurrence but goes beyond it. His main
preoccupation is not so much the two brothers’ publicised death, but their
less-known life which he fictionally recomposes as it might have unfolded
in their city and inside their house. The novel’s implications are in fact
larger and more dramatic than the linear plot might suggest. Fictionally
prolonging the Collyer brothers’ life span into the 1980s, Doctorow
questions no less than the teleological progression of modernity over a
whole century. The writer’s purpose is that of exploring the modern
phenomenon of consumption in what proves to be a veritable parable of
our times.
Despite several contacts with the world outside, which reflect the
major historical occurrences of the decades they traverse, the Collyer
brothers have a tendency to isolate themselves in their mansion. Even so,
they are aware especially of the technological innovations and of the fast
succeeding historical events of their age. Fascinated by the objects that
people discard on a daily basis in Manhattan, especially Langley Collyer
starts amassing them in their house. Thus, their Fifth Avenue brownstone
slowly transforms into a kind of derelict warehouse. According to
Langley’s explanations, the items hoarded are going to serve as proof of
his sceptical view of the idea of progress. To him, everything that is fits
some pre-existing categories, which he calls the “slots,” whose scenarios
repeat themselves invariably (Doctorow 14), rendering the idea of
newness impossible. His explanatory discourse, which echoes the Old

Testament Book of Ecclesiastes in its refusal of newness as well as
Nietzsche’s concept of eternal recurrence, becomes in time pure mania,
devoid of any rationality. Also, the so-called proofs that he collects in
time to support his theory – debris of the most diverse kind – pile up
uncontrollably in the two brothers’ mansion.
From the beginning, Langley attempts no less than to design a
universal, dateless newspaper that would represent an absolute synthesis
of their time and simultaneously capture the very essence of truth. It
would be, in Langley’s own words, “the only newspaper anyone would
ever need” (49). The enterprise leads nowhere in the end, while the
Collyers’ lives degrade, becoming increasingly impoverished and
miserable. The generations of decaying newspapers and other
commodities, hoarded in large quantities in their brownstone, lead to the
brothers’ final death as their house collapses, killing them inside. As in
Edgar Allan Poe's Fall of the House of Usher, the idea of Victorian self-
sufficiency is considered in connection with a regressive rather than
progressive trajectory of history, which renders the novel a
counternarrative of progress. The Collyer brothers’ story reiterates not the
traditional rags-to-riches American pattern of success, but a reverse
pattern which could be designated from-riches- to-rags. It discloses the
megalomaniac dimensions of the (upper-class) ego in Manhattan during
the fin de siècle as well as much later into the twentieth century.
In his exclusive Amazon.com interview about the novel, Doctorow
explains that he considers the two Collyer brothers “curators of their life
and times, and their house as a museum of all our lives. ... I make them to
be two brothers who opted out of civilization and pulled the world in after
them.” Despite the novel’s tone, which is apparently sympathetic with the
characters, the plot reads a lot more pessimistic than the author affirms in
his Amazon presentation. His “curators” soon reveal their obsessive side,
while “the museum of our lives” established in their claustrophobic house
bespeaks more than a century of suffocating commodity culture. In other
words, although the author is here a compassionate chronicler indeed, he
remains the same “critic of America’s failures to fulfil its dreams and
founding convictions” (Wutz 514) that he has always been.
Author Peter Brooker employs the metaphor of the looking glass to

talk about Doctorow’s more general “recovery and reconstruction of past
eras ... always in some way, in a double function mirroring their own
postmodern times in the decades of modernity” (105), a process which
also occurs in the novel under discussion here. As one of the novel’s New
York Times reviewers states, “the brothers’ experiences are obviously
made to hold up a mirror to the twentieth century. Some might call it a
distorting mirror, since they find the world to be largely depressing,
horrific and constantly invasive” (Dirda 1). Rather than “distorting,” the
mirror might be seen as realistic and critical, as the present study attempts
to show.
Joyce Carol Oates’ affirmation that, in Homer and Langley,
“virtually nothing happens to the protagonists except that, with the
passing of years …, Homer grows harder of hearing and succumbs ever
more passively to his older brother Langley’s paranoia and predilection
for compulsive hoarding” (80) is a rather simplistic rendering of the plot,
which I would like to contradict. What Oates tends to ignore is the whole
context of the two brothers’ irrational behavior, namely the self-sufficient
universe of their house and the larger social connotations of their
fascinations with objects. I would also like to show that Doctorow’s novel
is only deceivingly “gentle,” as another New York Times reviewer calls it
(Schillinger), being instead “a broader” and, I would add, harsh, “critique
of the successes and failures of 20th-century America” (Secher).
Dealing with the past, Homer and Langley initiates a critical
dialogue between two ages, addressing the issue of the nineteenth
century’s relevance for the beginning of the twenty-first century, when the
novel was written. As such, it phrases possible accusations of early
industrialism against late industrialism’s failure to fulfil expectations of
durable plenty and a brighter future. Simultaneously, it stages our late
industrialism’s distrust of the idea of progress characteristic of the end of
the nineteenth century, which the novelist shows to have already
comprised an essential element of excess, consumerism and waste.
Although this is not one of Doctorow’s prize-winning volumes, it
provides a highly challenging view of the backstage of history. As such, it
contests one of the key grands récits of the previous centuries, that of a
progressive, continuous trajectory of history, that implies both the notion

of triumphant reason and the discourse of a unitary self. This occurs
significantly in the context of Manhattan dwelling at the turn of the
twentieth century. Implicit contestation occurs at the level of Manhattan’s
own most intimate urban structure, owing to its famed City Grid. Despite
the Grid’s rational and unifying pattern, which has divided city space into
similarly shaped, rectangular blocks ever since 1811, a compensatory,
excessive and often irrational dimension defines each of the blocks that
the grid delimits. Thus, theorists speak of “three-dimensional anarchy”
resulting from “the Grid’s two-dimensional discipline” in Manhattan
(Koolhaas 20). The Collyer house consequently becomes a synecdoche for
Manhattan itself, in the context of excessive commodification.
Homer and Langley performs a critique of historical progress, of
the fetish-commodity and of the consumerist society, seen as materially
excessive and wasteful. What it attacks is no less than the metanarrative of
progress, as well as reason and the notion of a non-historical,
transcendental self. In the novel material progress stands proof of the
modern ego’s extreme attachment to everyday objects and implicitly to
processes of production and consumption in the last two centuries. Such
progress is shown to lead to an impasse resulting from the amounts of
waste that it generates. It shows mainly how such a material context, taken
to extremes which are inherent in the very processes of production, can
trigger the subject’s alienation, leading to his/her isolation and symbolic
death.
Given the limited amount of physical space in Manhattan, a
structure such as the Grid imposes a maximum saturation of each of its
cells. The result is a form of habitation defined by congested self-
containment and implicit solitude, which came to be New York City’s
characteristics in time. This suffocating self-sufficiency is precisely what
Homer and Langley stages, as their house represents, literally, “a
maximum unit of urbanistic Ego” (Koolhaas 20).
During the Gilded Age, New York became “its own empire”
(Reitano 84) owing to new industrial techniques and inventions which,
coupled with unequalled population growth, led to phenomenal economic
might and ensuing prosperity. New York City aspired to the status of a
new umbilicus mundi of the modern world, thus supplanting other

prestigious, European metropolises such as Paris, for example.
Manhattan’s own centre of fame and wealth was Fifth Avenue. This is
where “Old New York” was located between 1870 and the First World
War, at the time where Homer and Langley mainly unfolds. “Old New
York,” as Edith Wharton designated the New York City of the upper class
during the late nineteenth century in her 1924 collection of novellas,
represented the exclusive world of the upper classes, of the great clans of
Vanderbilt, Carnegie, Astor, Morgan, Pulitzer, as well as Collyer,
amongst many others. “At the top end of the social scale were the great
families and their conspicuous consumption of leisure as well as
commodities” (Tallack).
The Collyer House as “A Space Divorced from the Outside”

and the Universal Newspaper
As Manhattan was “the place to display wealth” (Tallack), status was

associated with the mansions on Fifth Avenue starting mid nineteenth
century. These solid, heavy and compact buildings, some of them
sheathed in brownstone, represented the visible signs of their owners’
prosperity. In antithesis to the Grid, which is based on principles of
rationality, implying transparency and openness, the houses were defined
by closure, opacity and excess (Tallack).
The Collyer house, where Homer and his brother Langley lived
uninterruptedly since their childhood, is a typical, comfortable,
aristocratic abode. A “monumental tribute to late Victorian design that
would be bypassed by modernity” (Doctorow 6), its sheltered, protective
interiors reflect the emphasis on privacy and domestic values
characterizing the Victorian age. To blind Homer, the house was a true
interior sea, as he could
navigate every room and up and down the stairs without hesitation …. I
knew the drawing room, our father’s study, our mother’s sitting room, the
dining room with its eighteen chairs and the walnut long table, the butler’s
pantry and the kitchens, the parlor, the bedrooms, I remembered how
many of the carpeted steps there were between the floors, I didn’t even
have to hold on to the railing. (4)
Walter Benjamin defined the whole of society at the end of the nineteenth
century in connection to the idea of residence, as one “addicted to
dwelling, [that] conceived the residence as a receptacle for the person,
encase[ing] him with all his appurtenances so deeply in the dwelling’s
interior, that one might be reminded of the inside of a compass case” (qtd.
in Miller 256). From the beginning, the Collyer brownstone is precisely
such a comfortable, self-contained place, dominated by a great number of
possessions.
Reminiscent of a cocoon or the maternal womb, the brothers’
childhood home was “comfortable, solid, dependable” with its “big
upholstered pieces, or tufted Empire side chairs, or heavy drapes over the
curtains on the ceiling-to-floor windows, or medieval tapestries hung from
gilt poles, and bow-windowed bookcases, thick Persian rugs, and standing
lamps with tasselled shades and matching chinois amphora that you could
almost step into” (Doctorow 6). Such protective, plush interiors deny the
aggressive industrialization and modernisation outside and project instead
a self-sufficient world of stability suggestive of power and prestige.
Theorists speak about a “geography of safety,” as the Industrial
Revolution generated the “need for secular sanctuary,” for “a space
divorced from the outside,” “a cave to sensuality” (Sennett 23-24).
The oversized furniture items in the mansion are replete with
imperial undertones that the house itself echoes. They allude to various
historical ages and exotic places such as the First French Empire (“the
tufted Empire chairs”), the Middle-Ages (“medieval tapestries”), Persia
(the “thick Persian rugs”) (Doctorow 6), typical of the age’s eclecticism.
This way, we are given the full measure of the palpable density of wealth
at a moment when Manhattan was seen as the centre of the modern world,
randomly buying and reassembling European historical artefacts at its
own discretion. Benjamin famously designates such heavily ornamented
interiors characteristic of industrialized modernity as “phantasmagorias of
the interior” (Cohen 208).
Following their parents’ death and then Langley’s return from the
First World War, the house becomes the two brothers’ protective, self-
sufficient universe, even if their family life is irremediably altered. What

Langley dreams to do is attempting to give some meaning to what he sees
as the dispersed world of his age. This is the moment when he starts
gathering various items – especially daily newspapers but also pianos, as
well as other random things (“a toaster, a Chinese bronze horse, a set of
encyclopaedias,” etc.) (37). He collects some of these items in several
versions, as what he seeks is an object’s “ultimate expression” (37), its
highest representation.
Gathering discarded everyday objects, Langley tries to read and
distil the spirit of his age in its quotidian manifestations. He is especially
passionate about newspapers, which he buys daily in several editions. In
fact, Langley collects journals with the explicit purpose of creating a
unique newspaper of his own design, which would be a timeless, absolute
source of information accessible to everyone in exchange for only five
cents (cf. 49). Such a newspaper would serve Langley’s “Theory of
Replacements” (13), according to which “[e]verything in life gets
replaced. We are our parents’ replacements just as they were replacements
of the previous generation” (13). As he further explains, his theory is not a
denial of progress as it might seem: “I’m not saying there’s no progress.
There is progress while at the same time nothing changes” (14).
The resulting paper “could be read forevermore as sufficient to any
day thereof” (48) and will act “as prophecy” (136). It is to this purpose
that Langley aims to extract and categorise each event in the quotidian
press – in his view, such a Platonic enterprise would render the world a
simplified place of meaningful forms. The resulting paper would comprise
all temporal dimensions and information covering all geographical areas,
which resembles an Enlightenment type of encyclopaedia. As a
commodity, the newspaper is shown to compress time and space with the
purpose of marketing them to the public: “[f]or five cents, Langley said,
the reader will have a portrait in newsprint of our life on earth” (49). As
such, the newspaper becomes an icon of Manhattan’s own identity as a
place that thrives on time compression as instantaneity, with the Grid as a
mechanism of space compression.
In order to accomplish his project, Langley employs a whole
economy and architecture of information. In his brother’s account of
things, he “would ... run further statistical comparisons until his order of
templates was fixed so that he would know which stories should go on the
front page, which on the second page, and so on” (48-49). Yet, the
suggestion is that in modern times the amount of daily information in the
press is so massive that it proves ultimately impossible to contain. Thus,
in order to gather one day’s worth of facts, Langley has to “run out for all
the morning papers, and in the afternoon for the evening papers, and then
there were the business papers, the sex gazettes, the freak sheets, the
vaudeville papers, and so on” (49). His desired outcome is that of fixing
“American life finally in one edition, what he called Collyer’s eternally
current dateless newspaper, the only newspaper anyone would ever need”
(49). Such a journal would focus especially on American life as the
supreme source of information and inspiration, which would thus be
rendered universal. Simultaneously, it hints at the fascination for
grandiosity that characterizes the American spirit itself. Considering its
ample proportions, the journal would make all other sources of
information redundant. A typical example of a Lyotardean metanarrative
(Lyotard 21), it is a generalising, all-levelling attempt that pays little
attention to the idea of otherness. In Langley’s own words, “the stories
will not have overly particular details as you find in ordinary daily rags,
because the real news here is of the Universal Forms of which any
particular detail would only be an example. The reader will always be up
to date, and au courant with what is going on” (Doctorow 49).
Gradually but inevitably, Langley’s project will conclude in chaos,
revealing its obsessive and absurd dimensions. In the end, the only trace
left of the whole undertaking is even more amassed waste, “newspaper
bales and boxes of clippings” that “rose from floor to ceiling in every
room of [the] house” (48) as some domestic skyscrapers that stand proof
of Langley’s megalomaniac pursuit. His ideal journal omits the
contradictions resulting from the specific historical paradigm that he
belongs to, the age’s surplus of knowledge and information, the epic
influx of data that characterises modernity. Or, modernity’s excess,
ephemeral nature and incoherence render all synthesis futile. Such an
enterprise discloses the profoundly irrational dimension of his efforts
together with the size of the ego at that time.
Thus, Langley’s apparent progress towards an orderly and

essentialised form of knowledge comes to nothing. Rather than belonging
to the domain of universals, knowledge is shown to be historical and
contingent. What is equally dismantled in the novel is the ideal of a self
that evolves towards spiritual self-awareness as freedom from one’s
immediate historical circumstances and from materiality. In the typically
coming-of-age, realist novel, the self finally reaches a more evolved,
plenary state that helps him/her go beyond his/her mundane conditions.
Instead, Homer and Langley contradicts the idea of existential progress
and speaks about the suffocating weight of history seen in its exclusively
material dimensions, as an infinite collection of debris.
Progress and Excess
The affluent American society after the Civil War was oriented towards
the future and highly trustful of progress. Progress described a trajectory
that America easily identified with, as it seemed to reflect its own ethos of
the New Adam who denied the past and fused with the future, eager to
start anew. In general, there was a “profound faith in the future. ... [I]t is
the common religion of modern times, a fertile cult” (qtd. in Buck-Morss
262), whose object of veneration was the commodity.
The main coordinates of the late nineteenth century cities were
giant size, affluence and expansion, all of which were linked to the belief
in reason and the trust in the individual. Seen in its exclusively male,
white hypostasis, the individual was invested with almost divine powers
to continue its civilisation of the world. The individual was seen as a
solitary presence of gigantic proportions, a universe in itself whose own
interests had priority in an equation that excluded the idea of community.
Homer and Langley is an ironic consideration of such a perspective, as we
shall further see.
To be better understood, the aggrandising modern self needs to be
placed in the context of massive economic growth starting with the end of
the nineteenth century. The desire to possess played a crucial role, as the
main social mechanism of development. On the one hand, it was fed by
the “phantasmagoria” of the city as a dazzling, kaleidoscopic spectacle
and a fast changing optical mirage. In a society based on the fascinating

spectacle of objects, a whole cult of the commodity developed, which led
to its fetishization. On the other hand, the phenomenon can be correlated
with an older Victorian characteristic, the age’s passion for collecting.
Concerning this latter aspect, there is in Homer and Langley a
whole tradition of gathering items which the brothers inherit from their
parents who were also passionate collectors. Collecting added a layer of
protection against aggressive industrialism in late Victorian times, when it
acted as a comfortable, homely means of activating the past or exotic
realms. The Collyer parents were avid travellers who journeyed abroad
every year on ocean liners whose half-forgotten names Homer strives to
recall: “the Carmania? the Mauretania? the Neuresthania?” (Doctorow 7).
The last name ironically alludes to neurasthenia, a form of depression and
chronic fatigue typical of the upper-classes and which the narrator implies
might have been the reason behind his parents’ trips abroad. What his
father and mother bring home from their distant voyages are mostly
exotica which they seemingly turn either into study specimens or into
decorative items: “ancient Islamic tiles, or rare books, or a marble water
fountain, or busts of Romans with no noses or missing ears, or antique
armoires with their fecal smell” (7). The various mirabilia that late
nineteenth century urbanites enjoyed gathering in their homes attested to
their owners’ delight in controlling the past. They also indicate the desire
to appropriate distant cultures and the attempt to become familiar with
new domains of scientific interest in a world obsessed with evolutionary
ideas. The oddity of such disparate items as those that the Collyers bring
home underlies what will later be seen as their surrealism. The “antique
toy train that was too delicate to play with” and the “gold-plated
hairbrush” (7) that young Homer and his brother receive as gifts reinforce
the fetishistic and useless dimension of objects. Eclectically relocated in a
new environment oblivious of their initial, practical purpose, such objects
stand proof of an intense process of reification and material alienation
already at work in the nineteenth century city. Doctorow thus shows how
the living dimension of the Victorian house was constantly doubled by a
dense universe of objects attesting to the age’s excessive materialism. As
Homer adds, fully aware of continuing his family inheritance, “[o]ur
father collected things as well, for along with the many shelves of medical
volumes in his study are stoppered glass jars of foetuses, brains, gonads,
and various other organs preserved in formaldehyde – all apropos of his
professional interests, of course” (37). The quote illustrates a process of
fragmentation and objectification of the human body itself, to the benefit
of the impersonal gaze of science at the fin de siècle.
Along the entire novel the author reinforces an excessive material
dimension of the Victorian domestic space which attests to the time’s
obsession for possessions: “[c]luttered [the house] might have seemed to
outsiders but it seemed normal and right to us and it was our legacy,
Langley’s and mine, this sense of living with things assertively
inanimate” (7, my emphasis). Homer’s words reflect the degree of
reification of their domestic universe and the brothers’ near identification
with the objects in their house. Their world is the result of a paradoxical
combination of self-reliance and greed, encouraged by the very ethos of
the time. It is this tension between self-containment as a leading principle
of the Victorian domestic space and material excess that will render their
house implosive in the end.
“The Pile of Debris Before Him Grows Toward the Sky”
Even though the Collyer brothers generally prefer the isolation of their
house to any kind of social interaction, they are partially receptive to the
succession of historical paradigms, especially due to Langley’s
newspapers and to the ever-changing items that he collects. Langley
regularly brings home artefacts that reflect recent technical discoveries or
mark historical events. What he mostly gathers are already discarded
items, waste, whose degradation will continue inside their house through
lack of use and chaotic accumulation. On the one hand, this reflects late
nineteenth century Manhattan’s permanent craving for novelty, its
fascination for the endless string of industrial innovations and inventions.
On the other hand, it shows the intensity of the process of consumption
and the ephemerality of desire, which result in the transience of the object
itself along the entire twentieth century. As a result, Langley’s efforts to
neatly categorise the information circulating in the press of his time is
shown to be fast exceeded by material as well and informational

superabundance that lasted for more than a century, resulting in entropy
and chaos.
Together with the trust in advancement, the pervading semantics of
the merchandise contaminated the whole of reality: “everything desirable,
from sex to social status, could be transformed into commodities as
fetishes-on-display that held the crowd enthralled” (Buck-Morss 258).
Owing to industrial production, artefacts were available in greater and
greater numbers until their practical uses were soon transcended, which
resulted in “the demented production of useless Victorian items”
(Koolhaas 25).
Thus, even before mass production took full swing later in the
twentieth century, material profusion coupled with the infinite thirst for
novelty led to substantial consumption. Expenditure entails the object’s
fast obsolescence, especially in the context of fin de siècle ennui. There
was always a next generation of products, the result of unrelenting
technical progress, that lured consumers, pressuring them to purchase
even more. The uncontrollable multiplication of things led to their fast
transformation into waste at the end of the nineteenth century, as well as
during the entire twentieth century. It is the object’s innate debris
dimension and the underlying irrationality of the whole process that
Homer and Langley mainly discusses. In Baudrillard’s words, the object’s
“condemnation to transience ... would be sufficient to throw into question
the ‘rationalistic’ postulates of the whole of economic science on utility,
needs, etc.” (47).
In the novel, material things fast reveal not only their bulkiness but
also their essential immobility and uselessness, which will gradually
devour all space in the Collyer house. Their debris side is the direct result
of excessive production, which leads to their dispensable character in
contrast with their initial appeal. Despite the practical purposes that they
sometimes serve in the novel, obsolescence dramatically shortens their
life-span. The list of items that the two brothers hoard is too long to be
exhausted here. It would be sufficient to mention only the most significant
item that it comprises: the newspaper.
The primary example would be that of Langley’s life-long passion

for collecting newspapers which serve his (utopian) purpose of designing
the ultimate journal, the “Collyer’s One Edition for All Time” (Doctorow
99). Such a never-ending project that aims to thoroughly categorise the
daily events in the press necessitates larger and larger quantities of papers.
In time, the journals start gathering everywhere in the brownstone that
they seem to flood: “like some slow flow of lava, [they] brimmed out of
[Langley’s] study to the landing on the second floor” (76). As they start
deteriorating, they emanate “a musty smell that would be especially
noticeable on days of rain or dampness” (76). Stacks of them are
mentioned all through the novel. Their cumbersome presence
accompanies the main episodes in the brothers’ life, ironic ballast of an
enterprise that started as a process of ordering information. Unavoidably,
the bales that the newspapers are arranged into start redesigning the
Collyers’ living space that they minimise, turning the house into a
labyrinthine mine (which the name Collyer might allude to), or into a
walled city within the city.
The most significant item of the Collyer collections remains the old
Model T Ford automobile that Langley decides to bring home in pieces
one day. Immobile therefore useless, a surrealist object in the context of
their Fifth Avenue mansion, the automobile becomes the Collyer’s
“family totem” (81), as Langley justly designates it. Once a symbol of
speed and efficiency and a fetish of the whole of America, the Model T
Ford is perceived here exclusively in its refuse dimension, although its
fetish connotations persist. It is a view that comes close to Baudrillard’s
definition of the car as “one of the main foci of daily and long-term
waste” (48) in our society. Later, Langley will decide to employ the
automobile as an improvised electricity generator to furnish power to their
residence. This way he reinforces his principles of obstinate self-
sufficiency and independence from the larger city structures, which is yet
another of his obsessions, thus underlining the increasingly insular
character of their house.
An overwhelming feeling of boredom quickly pervades all of
Langley’s actions. The things that he abandons soon after bringing them
home invade the brothers’ living space, constantly diminishing it. A
possible reutilization of the found items is always a postponed thought.

Their colourful, never ending junk collection suggests an atomised world
that comprises, amongst other things, “an old refrigerator, boxes of
plumbing joints and pipes, milk-bottle crates, bedsprings, headboards, a
baby carriage with missing wheels, several broken umbrellas, a worn-out
chaise longue, a real fire hydrant, automobile tires ..., and so on” (95).
They are the worthless props of our daily lives, the carcasses of excessive
consumption, signalling “the kind of dehumanizing that Marx had already
seen as the final goal of capitalist alienation” (Herbrechter 35). At the
same time, the fragmentary, entropic character of artefacts might stand for
the discontinuous trajectory of historical progress itself.
Moreover, Langley’s accumulative view of artefacts strips them of
all individuality, denying their use value and thus undermining their links
with the human. Objects in the novel might be said to self-replicate and
thus acquire an existence of their own, at the expense of human existence.
Gradually replacing the subject, they become what theorist Bruno Latour
designated “quasi-subjects,” while the two passive and increasingly
immobile brothers turn into “quasi-objects” (qtd. in Clarke 201). The
object thus proves to be “more shrewd, more cynical, more brilliant than
the subject” (Baudrillard qtd. in Kellner).
Dwelling space in the novel is itself reconceptualised. Gradually,
the Collyer home becomes a perfect example of the uncanny, a true
interior city jungle or a city within the city, as mysterious, meandering and
dark as the urban geography outside. It has gradually turned into an
unheimlich “labyrinth of hazardous pathways, full of obstructions and
many dead ends. With enough light someone could make his way through
the zigzagging corridors of newspaper bales, or find passage by slipping
sideways between piles of equipment of one kind or another ....”
(Doctorow 158). The initially familiar place thus reflects “the
transformation of something that once seemed homely into something
decidedly not so,” which defines the uncanny in architecture (cf. Sharpe
251).
At a certain point in the plot, Langley decides to bolt and brace the
mansion door and close the custom fitted shutters, which leaves them in
darkness. Gradually, with their disconnection from the gas, water and
electricity supplies, the brothers’ self-reliance becomes complete. So does

their wreckage, as their living conditions start deteriorating more and
more. Their relationship with the world outside also worsens, as the
Collyers are derided and attacked by everybody, from the press, to their
creditors and their neighbours. They respond with equal aggressiveness,
buying some old pistols, reinforcing the bolts on their entrance door and
setting up traps against possible intruders. Ironically, the entire house
turns into a gigantic trap that, rather than capturing any intruders, will
irremediably confine its owners inside.
The Collyers’ self-sufficiency is shown to become literally self-
destructive – the living resources that their house could provide are nearly
exhausted. Finally, the mansion floors collapse under the weight of their
accumulated items, killing the two emaciated inhabitants. This last
episode of the novel symbolically illustrates the extraordinary volume that
the inanimate world of objects has come to attain in the last two centuries.
The resulting pressure is what Doctorow investigates in the test tube
which the Collyer house represents.
The Collyer house stands in a synecdochic relationship with
congested Manhattan but also with the limited space of modern urban
dwelling itself. Gathered in large quantities, the very items that marked
the nineteenth and twentieth century idea of progress, especially the
newspaper but equally the phonograph, the automobile, the typewriter, the
computer, etc., are the ones that trigger the house’s final implosion. Thus,
the plot deals with the fundamental contradiction that progress implies: in
a plentiful society such as that of America during industrialism and later,
the wasteful remains of overproduction and excessive consumption act
against modernity’s forward march. The result is a reverse trajectory that
denies the very substance of progress, transforming it into regress. The
density of waste, its immediacy and its fundamental, heavy presence are
suggested by the fast way in which it accumulates in Homer and
Langley’s house.
The fact that material progress is fundamentally regressive is also
suggested by the descending line of the plot. The story narrates
simultaneously the decline of the house as a physical entity, and the
Collyer family’s gradual disappearance, while also describing their social
downfall. The trajectory thus traces a move from riches-to-rags rather

than from rags-to-riches, which repudiates the utopia of the American
Dream.
The novel represents a dismissal of the so-called forward march of
history and of its continuity, in favour of a look that focuses backwards
instead, at the material destruction that progress leaves in its trail. Debris
is commonly forgotten, hidden, and repressed. Gathering the discarded
items that Manhattan has disposed of, Langley temporarily brings them to
light. He thus brings to light the indissoluble traces of the city’s previous
existences, which the metropolis strives to ignore. The novel provides a
radical criticism of history and of the idea of progress, which it prefers to
see with a backward look.
Views on the Self and on Historicity in the Novel
The Collyer house also stands for the narrow geography of the modern,
nineteen and twenty century self, who enjoys possessions and who, in his
splendour and singularity, rejects the idea of otherness. “Self-reliance,
Langley said, quoting the great American philosopher Ralph Waldo
Emerson. We don’t need help from anyone. We will keep our own
counsel. And defend ourselves. We’ve got to stand up to the world”
(Doctorow 127). What is ironised here are the American pragmatist ideas
of self-reliance, trust in the future and optimism, which are shown to have
resulted in fierce individualism and isolation in the novel. It was Emerson
who argued that “strong individuals can partake of a process of continual
renewal and redefinition through ‘self-reliance’” (Giles 35), a perspective
that Homer and Langley implicitly ironizes. The brothers are incapable of
“continual renewal and redefinition,” although Langley regularly updates
his collections of items. The fast succession of commodities in the market
is designed with a view to triggering the illusion of perpetual renewal in
the buyer. Yet, no such redefinition occurs in the novel, which
demonstrates the insubstantial nature of material progress as well as the
failure of the metanarrative of the strong individual in the late postmodern
paradigm.
What Doctorow equally unmasks here is reason itself: Langley’s

apparently rational project of neatly classifying quotidian information
proves to be just another megalomaniac enterprise similar to many others
during the late nineteenth century (the world fairs, winter-gardens,
museums, department stores as well as Haussmann’s reconstruction of
Paris, etc.). The multiplication of objects is grotesque and absurd, leading
to entropy, even as production is based on notions of technology and
science that implicitly eulogise reason which they see as triumphant. The
same contradiction defines the Manhattan Grid itself, whose strictly
rational structure often gives birth to spaces that defy reason through
saturation, disorder and chaos, spaces where “the fantastic supplants the
utilitarian” (Koolhaas 104), such as the Collyer house.
Homer and Langley sets self-reliance and isolation in dialectical
contrast to insatiability. It is the tension between stubborn, individualistic
autonomy and the ever-aggrandising egos of the industrial and post-
industrial societies that leads to gradual self-destruction in the novel. The
late Victorian self, proudly self-reliant, enjoying its comfortable domestic
privacy, is at the same time fundamentally gluttonous, the latter
phenomenon being encouraged by his excessive century itself. In such a
context, the self is destined to fast reach self-exhaustion since its auto-
sufficient universe becomes asphyxiating and implosive.
What propels the self forward, into a supposedly bright future, is a
view of historical progress as innate, coupled with the subject’s endless
greed. This is what generated the late nineteenth-century optimistic view
of universal prosperity, which in fact resulted in colonialism and class
disparities, amongst other things. Such a perspective is particularly
significant in America, which “has always been a future-oriented country,
a country which delights in the fact that it invented itself in the relatively
recent past,” and where “the distinction between the past and the future
can substitute for all the old philosophical distinctions” (Rorty 24). It is
the idea of the future that Homer and Langley dismisses by its backward
look that reveals the destruction left in the path of progress. It is a look
that connects material advancement with the cult of the commodity and
ultimately with stagnation and decline.
Conclusion
In the novel, the Collyers’ amassing of new and discarded objects

suggests the presence of a material surplus already surpassing individual
needs at the turn of the twentieth century. As Langley quickly loses
interest in the items that he acquires, another generation of discarded
items rapidly adds to the previous generation, aiming to replace it. It is a
fast process of accumulation that refers not only to early capitalism but
also to the consumerism characterizing late capitalism. Such an
uninterrupted sequence of production and consumption renders objects
redundant, altering their use function and instantaneously transforming
them into waste. In fact, ephemerality is proved to be a key feature of the
modern experience on the whole, when “the most solid objects are made
to be broken tomorrow, smashed or shredded or pulverized or dissolved,
so they can be recycled or replaced next week, and the whole process can
go on again, hopefully forever, in ever more profitable forms” (Berman
99).
Thus, it is the modern process of atomisation that Doctorow reveals
in the novel. His analysis contrasts the relatively limited amount of
dwelling space in the Collyer house and the accumulation of a material
culture that seems to be self-generating, overflowing the individual. Such
a “convulsive craving for objects at the level of the private individual”
(Baudrillard 48), which strongly connects consumption and waste, is
shown to be a major phenomenon both of the nineteenth century and of
more recent times. The implication is that progress is slowed down, even
denied by the very debris that it generates. Waste counterbalances the
material civilization, annihilating its benefits and questioning its forward
trajectory.
Together with industrial technology and in connection with it, what
comes under attack in the novel is equally the modern individual.
Insatiable, endlessly possessive and arrogantly rational, the individual is
the key instigator of both unlimited production and consumption. Both
these phenomena are the direct consequence of the self’s ceaseless desire
and greed. The corresponding symbol in the novel is the barricaded
Collyer house as a limited type of space which the aggrandising ego fills
beyond the limits of the abode. Confident self-reliance characterizes

Manhattan itself. It is Manhattan’s dividing Grid structure that encourages
the formation of cell-like dwelling units suggestive of seclusion and
egotism. In the novel, self-reliance is represented through the
metaphorical darkness of Homer’s blindness and of the barricaded house
whose shutters are locked and then blackened. The autonomous subject
becomes self-destructive, asphyxiated as it is by its own world of endless
possessions that turn deadly. Auto-sufficiency, which by definition fails to
offer any significant place to otherness, is connected to America itself
through the direct evocation of Emerson’s thought. While being also an
implicit criticism of Manhattan seen as a proud and selfish type of space,
Homer and Langley is simultaneously a larger, corrosive attack on the
excessive capitalist subject and its universe.
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The Quest of Young Turkish Playwrights 114
The Quest of Young Turkish Playwrights:

In-Yer-Face Theatre
ELIF BAŞ
Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey
Abstract
In-yer-face theatre, which emerged in Britain in the 1990s, became
extremely popular on the stages of Istanbul in the new millennium. Some
critics considered this new outburst as another phase of imitation. This
phase, however, gave way to a new wave of playwrights that wrote about
Turkey’s own controversial problems. Many topics, such as LGBT issues,
found voice for the first time in the history of Turkish theatre. This study
examines why in-yer-face theatre became so popular in this specific
period and how it affected young Turkish playwrights in the light of
Turkey’s political atmosphere.
Keywords: Contemporary Turkish theatre, in-yer-face theatre, political

theatre, Turkish playwrights, performance, DOT theatre, censorship.
Over the last fifteen years, major changes have taken place on the stages
of Istanbul. The cultural atmosphere has been enlivened by a considerable
increase in the number of black box theatres, which began to emerge at
the beginning of the new millennium mostly in the area of Taksim,
Beyoğlu. Young artists, some of them still university students,
reconstructed old garages and flats into small theatres for fifty to one
hundred people, and they started running their own venues on small
budgets. Some of the popular black box theatres are İkincikat,
Kumbaracı50, Asmalı Sahne, Tiyatro Karakutu, Tatavla Sahne, Beyoğlu
Terminal, Sahne Aznavur, Toy Istanbul, Galata Perform, Craft Tiyatro,
and Talimhane Tiyatrosu. Today, these venues play a very important role
in Istanbul’s cultural life. Considering the ticket prices, about 30 to 60
115 The Quest of Young Turkish Playwrights
Turkish liras (approximately €13) and the 8% tax paid on each ticket, the
courage and enterprise of these young stage entrepreneurs deserves praise.
They stage a variety of productions, organize workshops, and host public
discussions. They have been cooperating with each other on issues, such
as social responsibility projects, and organizing panels on subjects related
to contemporary Turkish theatre.
At the beginning of this vigorous period, many theatre companies
staged translations of in-yer-face plays, which were mostly written by
British playwrights such as Philip Ridley, Mark Ravenhill, Anthony
Neilson, and Sarah Kane. After a few years, however, Turkish playwrights
began writing plays that addressed Turkish issues. A variety of plays are
performed, and some issues have found voice for the first time in the
history of Turkish theatre, such as Kurdish and LGTB issues. This article
examines the factors that gave rise to this transformation and why in-yer-
face plays became so popular in Istanbul. Was it just another phase of
imitation in the history of Turkish theatre as some critics argued? And
most significantly, the number of Turkish playwrights has increased
remarkably in the past ten years. Why did they emerge in this specific
period? This article explores these questions in the light of recent political
developments and gives an insight into what kinds of plays these young
theatre practitioners are performing in Istanbul and into the difficulties
they face. These developments will be analyzed relative to three phases.
The first phase begins with the creation of DOT theatre, an independent
theatre company. The second phase transpires with the establishment of a
great number of black box theatres, and the final phase blooms as young
playwrights write Turkish plays that appear on the stages of these small
black box theatres.
DOT Theatre
In-yer-face plays, which are described as “rude and crude, sexually

explicit, and often violent plays by young and (usually) male writers”
(Sierz, “Cool Britannia” 324), originated in Great Britain in the 1990s,
and reached the stages of Istanbul in 1999. Istanbul State Theatre initially
staged an in-yer-face play by an Irish playwright—Martin McDonagh’s

Beauty Queen of Leenane (1999–2000). One of the most rooted theatres in
Istanbul, Kenter Theatre, staged in-yer-face plays for three seasons:
Martin McDonagh’s The Lieutenant of Inishmore (2003–2004), Patrick
Marber’s Dealer’s Choice (2004–2005), and Rebecca Lenkiewicz’s The
Night Season (2005–2006). Even though many of these productions were
a success,1 they did not significantly influence Turkish theatre
practitioners to begin writing and producing their own in-yer-face plays. It
was with the establishment of DOT, an independent contemporary theatre
company founded by Murat Daltaban, Özlem Daltaban, and Süha Bilal in
2005, that in-yer-face plays suddenly became popular with audiences in
Istanbul. Though there were many significant differences between DOT
and the theatres staging in-yer-plays at the time, DOT’s fundamental
difference was its small-scale venue that allowed the audience to be much
closer to the performance.
DOT’s first venue was at the Mısır Apartment, a historic building in
Istiklal Street Beyoğlu, where they staged many in-yer-face plays. Their
first performance was Bryony Lavery’s Frozen, which took place in
September 2005. DOT went on to stage many in-yer-face plays including
Joe Penhall’s Love and Understanding, Anthony Neilson’s The Censor,
Tracy Letts’ Bug, David Harrower’s Blackbird, and Simon Stephens’
Pornography. DOT became extremely popular with young audiences,
especially after the production of Philip Ridley’s Mercury Fur in 2007.
Due to the conservative political atmosphere in Turkey, staging these
provocative plays was a risky venture, and artistic director Murat
Daltaban was well aware of this. This atmosphere also transformed the
field of theatre. Most of the productions became safe and non-
experimental. Daltaban mentions the state of Turkish theatre at the time
they were establishing DOT in the preface of the Turkish translation of
Aleks Sierz’ book In-Yer-Face Theatre: British Drama Today:
In 2005, due to the problems rooted in the past, theatre was not something
that was enjoyable anymore. On the contrary it had become something that
was despised. We established DOT in a time in which the audience and the
artists were having complicated feelings about theatre… It was like a great
turmoil. When we announced that we would be staging plays at a small
stage in Mısır Apartment, people were shocked … Now in 2009, DOT has
its own audience and crew. It has gained recognition as a theatre that is
developing. (9)2
Even though these provocative plays were extremely boundary pushing

for the Turkish audiences, DOT’s director, Murat Daltaban, worked with
young talented actors and captivated a young audience within a short
period of time. These innovative productions marked a new period in the
history of Turkish theatre. DOT expanded the horizons of audiences and
theatre practitioners and their great success triggered other theatre
companies to stage courageous plays.
As expected, not everyone was impressed by DOT’s new venture;
some rejected these plays due to their vulgar and sexually explicit
material. Daltaban defended their choices in an interview for Radikal by
stating, “I am against conservative minds, and conservatism in art. To
look at a Roman statue and to see only its penis is a bit unfair, and reflects
an ignorant disposition.” Considering that he began staging such
controversial plays at a time when showing too much cleavage on
television series was considered to violate moral and religious values,
Daltaban’s courage deserves praise.
The controversy, however, was not restricted to the provocative
content. Some critics and theatre practitioners perceived this outburst of
in-yer-face plays as another phase of imitation in the history of Turkish
theatre. Mehmet Zeki Giritli, a theatre critic in Mimesis, rigorously
attacked in-yer-face theatre:
In recent years, the greatest fraud on the stages in Turkey is the in-yer-face
nightmare. I don’t know when this incubus will disappear but what I know
is that in a country like Turkey … seeking help from a strange movement
which emerged 30 years ago and has lost its influence even in Britain, is
the result of commercial concern, lack of theatre knowledge and the failure
of creating anything new.
This argument over imitation is not new and has a long history in
Turkish theatre. For many decades, critics have debated about the
influence of western theatre, and some strongly believe that this is the
reason why Turkish theatre lacks a unique voice. Historically, the
Ottoman Empire had acquired a western orientation during the Tanzimat

period in the 19th century, and western theatre was introduced for the first
time in its history. With the establishment of the Turkish Republic in
1923, traditional types of performances, namely ortaoyunu, karagöz and
meddah,3 were abandoned. Many plays were imported from western
countries and western theatre techniques were practiced. A group of
intellectuals promoted this transition while others voiced their concern. As
these arguments continued, the view against traditional theatre began to
predominate for various reasons. This sensitive debate, however, was
reiterated over the years. Haldun Taner, a prominent Turkish playwright,
wrote in the late 1970s about the situation of Turkish theatre:
We have actors who can perform foreign roles as well as they are
performed in their homeland. There are stage managers in Turkey who can
create the exact “mise-en-scene” that they had seen in Europe and they are
appraised for doing this. We have writers who are considered “great
writers” to the extent they are similar to the writers of the west. Let us
assume this is all okay, but then what can be considered as Turkish acting,
staging, literature and perspective? (12)
According to Taner, after fifty years of imitating western theatre,

Turkish theatre was still lacking a national voice. The initial attack on in-
yer-face plays was based more on the history of Turkish theatre imitating
western theatre than ethical concerns. Many theatre critics emphasized the
need for creating unique plays that reflect Turkey’s own socio-cultural
background. Theatre was in such a state when in-yer-face plays became
such a hit in Istanbul. In 2006 theatre critic Robert Schild analyzed this
issue in his article “Suratımıza bir Tokat ile Tiyatromuz Kurtulabilir mi?”
(Can Our Theatre Be Saved by a Slap in the Face?). Schild argued that
there is a chance that in-yer-face plays can actually reinvigorate Turkish
theatre. He maintained that three important factors were necessary for this
to occur. First, theatre companies should choose foreign plays with topics
that are familiar to the majority of Turkish audiences. Second, Turkish
playwrights should be encouraged to write plays, and if that is
accomplished, the number of black box theatres should increase. Over the
years, all these points materialized in a natural course.
Black Box Theatres
Over time, DOT situated itself into a more mainstream context.

Accordingly, DOT moved from Mısır Apartment at Beyoğlu to Maçka G-
Mall in 2011, and then in 2015, moved to a more exclusive shopping mall
at Kanyon. Even though they still take part in international experimental
projects, today they can be categorized within the boundaries of
commercial theatre. As a new audience became interested in DOT’s plays,
other practitioners found courage and established their own black box
theatres. Many of the young Turkish theatre practitioners, most of whom
were born in the 1980s, were intrigued by the plays DOT had staged but
many of them did not want to be part of a commercialized culture like
DOT. As these small venues became active, the number of theatre
companies also increased as it was less costly for them to rent small
venues. Today there are at least 200 different performances in one season
in Istanbul.
The venue İkincikat (Second Floor) was one of the first venues that
preferred staging in-yer-face plays. Some Explicit Polaroids (2010) and
The Fastest Clock in the Universe (2011) by Mark Ravenhill, The
Pitchfork Disney by Philip Ridley (2010–2013), Some Voices by Joe
Penhall (2010–2011), Wastwater (2011–2012) by Simon Stephens, The
Wonderful World of Dissocia (2011–2012) by Anthony Neilson, Philip
Ridley’s Leaves of Glass (2012) and Martin McDonagh’s Lonesome West
(2012), Sarah Kane’s Blasted and Philip Ridley’s Vincent River are only
some of the in-yer-face plays staged at this venue by different theatre
companies.
But what was it that made in-yer-face plays so relevant and
interesting to young theatre practitioners? I do not think this trend was
coincidental. In-yer-face plays which originated in Britain “reflect the
specific historical forces of the Thatcher era and its aftermath, and they
point to the way in which this era’s events and trends shaped their
individual and collective political subjectivities” (Kritzer 30).The post-
Thatcher generation was defined by the neo-liberal policies of the 1980s,
and in-yer-face theatre in Britain in the 1990s was an avenue to speak out
against these conservative changes of the 1980s. Likewise, this young

generation in Turkey was born during the neo-liberal economic
transformation in the late 1980s under the leadership of Turgut Özal.
While Özal did open the door to external markets and mass consumerism,
the traditional values were still promoted:
He [Özal] seemed to argue for a traditional society, a social structure that

could still be dependent upon moral-religious (Sunni) values of the past,
while simultaneously proposing dramatic changes to the economy and
prosperity of the country. The majority would still be Allah-fearing,
mosque-attending souls, taking pride in the competitive strength of their
companies in the international market, and caring for the downtrodden
through charitable contributions to the newly established autonomous
funds of the state. Özal wanted a modern society held together by
conservative values. (Kalaycıoğlu 46)
Economic and political chaos continued in the 1990s, especially due

to the clashes with Kurdish militants. In 2002, the Justice and
Development Party (AKP), an Islamic conservative party, came to power
in Turkey. Even though AKP rejects being defined in religious terms and
its members promote themselves as conservative democrats, their
religiously inspired policies had a remarkable impact on the newly
emerging artists. In this respect, in-yer-face style of theatre was an
immediate outlet that young artists could use to express their feelings on
stage. The neo-liberal conservatism after the mid-2000s brought about
similar experiences making in-yer-face plays more effective. The cultural
policies of AKP and its impact on the society and the arts is the topic of
further research, but the great dissatisfaction on the part of many artists
was revealed by the Gezi Park demonstrations. The increase in the number
of alternative theatres and their political agendas indicated that political
institutions have not been responding to the concerns of the artists for a
long time. Thus, while the trend of in-yer-face productions may have
started out as a phase of imitation, these plays were so well suited to
Turkey’s young theatre practitioners that they ventured into the realm of
playwriting.
New Playwrights
In time, many theatre companies set aside foreign in-yer-face plays and
realized the need for new Turkish plays. The political climate provoked
young artists to try playwriting for the first time. Some of the laudable
new plays written during this period are: Limonata (Lemonade), Sürpriz
(Surprise), Küçük (Little), Altı Buçuk (Six and a Half), and P*rk by Sami
Berat Marçalı, Şekersiz (Without Sugar), Sen İstanbul’dan daha Güzelsin
(You are More Beautiful than Istanbul), Sevmekten Öldü Desinler (Let
Them Say I Died of Love) by Murat Mahmutyazıcıoğlu, Cambazın
Cenazesi (The Funeral of the Acrobat), Hıdrellez (Hıdrellez) by Firuze
Engin, Poz (Pose), Medet (Aid) by Deniz Madanoğlu, Kar Küresinde bir
Tavşan (A Rabbit in a Snow Globe), İz (Trace), Hayal-i Temsil, Zakir
(The Speaker), Sherlock Hamid (Hamid the Sherlock) by Ahmet Sami
Özbudak, Kasap (Butcher), He-go by Halil Babür, Kabin (Cabin), Garaj
(Garage), and Kaplan Sarılması (Tiger’s Hug) by Kemal Hamamcıoğlu,
Nerede Kalmıştık (Where Did We Leave off?), Kimsenin Ölmediği bir
Günün Ertesiydi (It Was the Day after Nobody Died), Kabuklu Süprizli
Hayvanlar (Surprising Shelled Animals), Evim! Güzel Evim! (Home Sweet
Home!), Babil (Babel), Biraz Sen Biraz Ben (A Little Bit of You a Little Bit
of Me) by Ebru Nihan Celkan, Kargalar (Crows), Disco 5 No’lu (Disco
Number 5), Aç Köpekler (Hungry Dogs) by Mirza Metin, Öğüt (Advice),
Parti (Party), by Cem Uslu. Some of these new plays have similar
characteristics to in-yer-face plays while others have their own style. In an
interview, playwright and director Murat Mahmutyazıcıoğlu told me how
in-yer-face plays influenced him as a playwright:
Yes, I believe that what caused me to begin my journey in playwriting and

what gave courage to many of my friends to write plays had a lot to do
with the effect these plays had on the audience. It made me think that we
could talk about our own issues and tell our own stories. The first play I
directed Limonata, which was written by Sami Berat Marçalı, was created
under such an influence…
Indeed, in-yer-face plays gave great impetus to these writers, and

communication technology allowed them to break barriers and create
cultural awareness. When asked to compare the new plays of the young
generation to the old ones, Cem Uslu, a proficient young actor and
director, states:
The main difference of this movement is that its representatives are able to
engage easily with the world due to rapid globalization and development
of communication technologies. Thus they are able to master what is
happening in the world in the fields of art, politics, economy and they
reflect these to the content and form of their plays by relating them to their
own country. The playwrights of our time courageously and confidently
write about issues that used to be covered up or just tacitly stated before.
It should be noted that some of these playwrights had already been

writing plays before this trend and not all of these names were influenced
by in-yer-face plays. However, what is noteworthy here is that, after in-
yer-plays attracted so many audiences, playwriting increased significantly.
With new Turkish plays, the issues of concern shifted to different topics.
While British playwrights interrogate topics like drugs, pornography,
rape, incest, abuse, pain, torture, and paedophilia, Turkish playwrights
focus on minority and LGBT issues, family ties, media, and confronting
past events such as the military coup of 1980. To get a better idea about
the concerns of this period, here are the themes of a few plays explored by
Turkish playwrights.
Tetikçi (Hitman), written by Ebru Nihan Celkan, is about the
Turkish-Armenian journalist Hrant Dink who was murdered on January
19, 2007. Dink was known as a vocal advocate of human and minority
rights and defender of democracy in Turkey. Ogün Samast, a 17-year-old
ultra-nationalist, and his accomplice were apprehended and convicted for
the murder, but many argued that Dink’s murder was carried out by
organized crime. When the court decided that the incident was not a result
of organized crime, many accused the state of protecting the ones
responsible for the murder. Celkan’s play explores this issue by
questioning how innocent teenagers are tricked by organizations and
turned into violent criminals. In the play, İbrahim, the head of such an
organization, hunts for young people and makes them think that they are
serving their country by carrying out violence. The play exposes how
young and innocent teenagers are used by such organizations and how
their system works.
Üst Kattaki Terörist (The Terrorist from Upstairs) was staged by
Ikincikat. The story is based on Emrah Serbes’ story and was adapted into
a play by Sami Berat Marçalı. The story is about Nurettin, a 12-year-old
boy whose brother was killed during the clashes with the Kurdish soldiers
in Southeast Anatolia. The boy hates Kurds, but when a Kurdish
university student Semih moves to their upper flat and the two begin to
know each other, he begins to change. At first Nurettin is enraged to find
out that he has a Kurdish neighbour but in time Semih becomes like a
brother to him.
Limonata (Lemonade) is a family play. Özlem is the mother of three
children who was abandoned by her husband twenty years ago. She raised
her children all by herself and now deals with dementia in her old age.
Despite her illness, we witness her great effort to keep the family together
while her adult children struggle with other problems. Ege, her son, is a
veteran who had lost his legs during military service while he was
clashing with Kurdish militants in the east of Turkey. Özlem accepts
neither his handicap nor the fact that he is a homosexual. When Özlem’s
other son Melih, who had also abandoned the family, suddenly shows up,
things take a different turn. Melih has no idea about Ege’s situation. His
homecoming brings the whole family together and opens up issues that
had been buried for a long time. Through this family tragedy, Sami Berat
Marçalı questions family ties, mandatory military service, conscientious
objection to military service, and war.
İz (Trace) was performed at Galata Perform in 2013. Written by
Ahmet Sami Özbudak, the play takes us to an old Greek house in
Tarlabaşı. İz focuses on three topics: the Greek minority in Turkey, the
military coup of 1980 and the lives of two outcasts, a young Kurdish man
and a transsexual. We meet people who have lived in this Greek house
during three different time periods. First there are two Greek sisters,
Markiz and Eleni, who had to abandon their sick mother and house due to
the mob attacks that took place on 6-7 September 1955 against Istanbul’s
Greek community. Then there is Ahmet and Turgut. Ahmet is running
away after the military coup of 1980 because he is a member of Dev-Yol,

which is a revolutionary left-wing organization. He takes refuge in the
same apartment, which is then owned by Turgut. Ahmet lies to Turgut by
saying that he is hiding because he is a Christian, but Turgut learns the
truth and eventually betrays his friend. Finally, we meet Sevengül, a
transsexual, and her Kurdish lover Rizgar who were living there in the
2000s. The play does not focus on the Kurdish question through Rizgar,
but it does give us glimpses of life in the east of Turkey and of Rizgar’s
struggle for survival in Istanbul. While the play shows how politics
engenders biases, it also exposes how these biases can lead to brutal
violence. As in the story of Markiz, who was savagely raped in a church
while trying to run away from the attack,
Only the walls of the church were solid. Four walls… Everything was
broken. The windows… Everything was in pieces... I didn’t pray.
Someone could have heard me. Only the walls and I stood erect. I
shouldn’t have turned back. I know. He was there. The bear had detected
my scent. His giant shadow covered the Virgin Mary... He could have
done a good deed by killing me. But he didn’t... I said God help me as he
was growling on top of me. (Özbudak)
Even these few examples demonstrate how young Turkish

playwrights are exploring political topics and shattering taboos by voicing
issues that have never been questioned in depth on stage before. Similar to
in-yer-face plays, Turkish playwrights have also challenged social
conventions, which is considerably new. Though Turkish theatre was
extremely political during the 1960s, the issues that are explored today are
markedly more varied than before.
It is difficult to make generalizations, but comparing some of these
new Turkish plays to general characteristics of in-yer-face plays is useful
in understanding how Turkish playwrights are seeking their own voices.
In-yer-face plays are characterized by a language which is “usually filthy”
and characters who “talk about unmentionable subjects, take their clothes
off, have sex, humiliate each other, experience unpleasant emotions,
become suddenly violent” (Sierz, In-yer-face Theatre 5). The language of
İz, for example, becomes only slightly vulgar in scenes where Rizgar and
Esengül argue. At first, Rizgar appears as a swearing vagabond who deals

drugs and causes all kinds of trouble for Sevengül:
Don’t get me started you fag! You are the whore here not me! Whoever
pays for you can fuck you as they wish. Who do you think you are
following me like that? You can’t question me. At least I fuck around with
my honour. (Özbudak)
But at times his filthy language changes to a nostalgic poetic expression:
I used to go hunting with my dad in Doğubeyazıt.4 I still remember the

white endless great plains... It snowed night and day. Night and day…
When you get there, the first thing that happens to you is that your skin
thickens. How I loved it there but I was also bored. A white eternal void…
You look at it endlessly… (Özbudak)
This abrupt shift in language reveals that Rizgar is more than just a
vagabond. We even begin to empathize with him as he explains why he
had to leave his homeland. Despite its rich history and natural wonder,
Doğubeyazıd is void; it is void of job opportunities, adequate living
conditions and education. We begin to understand that deep down inside
Rizgar is actually a vulnerable man. The ebb and flow in language reflects
the shift from the personal to the political. Inherently he has the potential
to be good but circumstances have polluted his character. This marks a
great difference between Turkish and British playwrights. Most of the
British in-yer-face plays “portray victims as complicit in their own
oppression” (Urban 354). Most contemporary Turkish plays also point to
the victims’ flaws, but they also expose the sociopolitical factors that
induce the fall of the characters. In İz, for example, violence is nourished
by various sociopolitical factors. Rizgar cannot survive in Istanbul if he
does not get involved in illegal business, and he tells Sevengül that the
same is true for a transsexual: “Can you become someone just by
working? Look at yourself before you give me advice. You yourself don’t
have a chance. Just like me. Just like me. Can you become a
businesswoman? An artist? This is the nest of losers” (Özbudak).
As more is revealed about the background of the characters, they
become less hateful. Rizgar knows that neither Sevengül nor he can attain
money and power by working hard. As outcasts, they have no other option
but to sell drugs or become sex workers. This does not mean they are
innocent, but the play touches upon the complexity of their situation.
Thus, as in many political plays, İz also shows “the relationship of
individuals to their society, how social relationships shape individuals”
(Nikcevic 264). The plays therefore reflect the sociopolitical elements, but
they do not lack psychological depth.
Another recurring issue for Turkish playwrights is the strong
connection between the characters and their families. Sierz points out that
characters of in-yer-face plays are “rootless” and their “relationships are
acutely problematic” (In-yer-faceTheatre 238). In a collectivist society
like Turkey, however, many characters deal with their deep roots that
chain them to their families and usually bring about their tragedy. As in
Limonata, Marçalı tries to answer where to set the limits in family matters
and how much family members are responsible for one another. For
example, the mother Özlem and her only daughter Müge are so immersed
in the family that they cannot even feel their own pain; instead they
experience a kind of collective pain.
Overall, in comparison to foreign in-yer-face theatre, the level of
violence, sex, and use of vulgar language in contemporary Turkish plays
is quite moderate, but new playwrights have become more daring than
before. In general, it can also be said that the amount of violence is higher
than the amount of sexuality shown on stage. Despite the moderation,
Turkish audiences may experience a greater degree of shock. For
example, seeing an actor in underwear was enough to cause discomfort for
some of my students. The usefulness of the shock technique in in-yer-face
plays has been questioned by many critics: “...Yet the question remains
whether, in the end, its strategy of using shock as an instrument in its own
reception is productive” (Defraeye 95). From my interaction with my
students, the shock is the first phase of transformation. Yes, such plays do
lose their effect in time, but it is because they have fulfilled their function.
After watching several daring plays like this, those students who could not
even utter the word “homosexual” in class began discussing topics that
were even new to me. Next time they might not be shocked by a play that
deals with a similar issue because they have already explored that area
which used to be discomforting for them. This will not apply for all, but
these plays have not only tested “the boundaries of acceptability” (Sierz
“Still in-yer-face?” 19) but also changed the strict boundaries of many
young people in Istanbul. As Sierz points out, “they show a world which
is invisible to a typical audience and thus they might come across as
disturbing or dangerous” (“Still in-yer-face?” 49). Yet as these daring
issues became more and more visible to my students, the plays stopped
being so disturbing, not in the sense that they became numb, but the issues
turned into a source of critical thinking and not of shame.
Political Edge and Censorship
Sierz notes that in-yer-face plays do not offer a possibility of change and,
compared to traditional political drama, they do not “inspire audiences”
for a specific desired alternative and “traditional categories of left and
right politics” do not seem to apply to the many more (In-yer-face Theatre
240). In-yer-face theatre deals with social concerns, but “what disturbs
critics of ‘in-yer-face’ theatre is that it does so without any moral
framework or ideological certainty” (Urban 354). Young Turkish
playwrights also do not pursue right or left politics and they also do not
promote a specific ideology, but most of them still inspire hope for
understanding, accepting diversity and attaining peace. Most of these
playwrights born in the 1980s are considered as the Y generation, and
they seem to show a more inclusive and deeper understanding of peace
and unity. This is also reflected by the Gezi Park protests which many
were part of:
The Gezi Park protests represented the largest political sighting of a

Generation Y segment in Turkey to date … The Gezi protesters are
distinguished first by their pluralism. Among the organizations flying their
flags in the Turkish streets were feminist, LGBT and human rights groups,
environmentalists and trade unions. There were Alevis, self-described
“anti-capitalist Muslims,” students, soccer fans, professionals, academics,
artists, nationalists, liberals, left-wing revolutionaries, Kurds and “white
Turks”—as the Western-oriented city elites are known. The coalition was
highly diverse ideologically, its constituent elements pursuing wildly
disparate agendas. (Patton 30–31)
Similarly, many young Turkish playwrights do not force a specific

ideology to the audience, but they yearn for peace and understanding. It
should, however, be noted that despite their collaboration, Turkish
playwrights are not wholly free of the tremulous political conditions in
Turkey. Sierz points out that “…theatre in Britain is technically
uncensored, so everything is allowed. You can stage things that would be
impossible to show on television or in the cinema—this gives writers the
chance to explore the darkest sides of the human psyche without
compromise” (“Still in-yer-face?” 19). Such an atmosphere is impossible
to achieve as the growing scale of censorship in Turkey has become
alarming over the past few years. Many artists have had their work
suppressed, or they have been prosecuted on trivial grounds. Some theatre
companies have been so intimidated that they have cancelled plays.
Several methods have been used to censor the arts. The most
frequent stratagem for legitimizing random censorship has been by
emphasizing the sensitivities of the public. Conservative media caution of
the need to take note of the values of the public. The conservative media
supplied the government with justifications for arbitrary censorship by
attacking plays they did not find proper. Yala ama Yutma (Lick but Don’t
Swallow), a play by a prominent Turkish playwright Özen Yula, was
targeted by conservative media before it was even staged. The play was
supposed to be performed in February 2010 at Kumbaracı 50, but was
cancelled as a result of serious intimidation. Directed by the Biriken
Group, the play tells of an angel sent to earth in the body of a porn actress.
On 2 February 2010, the Islamist daily newspaper Vakit reported in an
article headlined “Messages Full of Provocation from the Immoral Play”
that “right-minded Muslims want this immoral play to be banned before it
is performed at all.” This criticism was based purely on the synopsis of the
play. Shortly afterwards, the theatre company received many email threats
and telephone calls and demanded protection from the police. Ironically,
however, on the very day this protection was requested, the venue for the
performance, Kumbaracı 50, was shut down by Beyoğlu municipality on
the grounds that it lacked fire-escape ladders. The venue reopened shortly
after this incident, but the company eventually decided to cancel the play.
The theatre company also issued a press release responding to the

allegations in Vakit. Playwright Özen Yula stated that the play “is an
artistic expression and calls for human rights and social justice” and “not a
commentary on Islam and is not speaking against Islam or any religion.”
Yula also pointed out that “Vakit continues to support violence and
intimidation through posting comments on its website and continuing to
publish incorrect and mean-spirited articles about Yula and the play.” The
minister of culture and tourism at the time, Ertuğrul Günay, discussed the
episode on television, but glossed over the underlying issues by reiterating
that artists have to respect the values of society.
Istanbul municipal theatre’s production of Marco Antonio de la
Parra’s political comedy Günlük Müstehcen Sırlar (Daily Obscene
Secrets) was also condemned by the conservative media. Iskender Pala, a
columnist at Zaman newspaper, considered the play immoral and claimed
that it offended the audience with its sexual vulgarity. He also stressed
that he did not find it appropriate for the state to support these plays
financially. Pala later confessed that he had never actually seen the play,
and had only read the text. The fact that the play was restricted to the
audiences over the age of 16 was referred to many times by conservative
writers, but its theme and plot were discounted. Daily Obscene Secrets is
critical of the human rights abuses in Chile during the dictatorship of
Augusto Pinochet. Perhaps these commentators were worried that people
might draw parallels with current events in Turkey. The same play had
been performed in 2006 by Theatre Fora, but it had never sparked much
debate at the time. The very different reaction four years later highlighted
how much had changed in the intervening period.
The potential provocation of the conservative masses became a key
censorship strategy among the conservative media. There have been many
other cases where performances or the circulation of artworks have been
hampered. The culture and tourism ministry has come under attack over
alleged bias in its distribution of funds to private theatres. It is claimed
that companies such as Genco Erkal and Dostlar theatre, Altıdan Sonra
theatre, Destar theatre and Kumbaracı 50 were denied funding in 2013
because they had supported the anti-government protests that summer
(İzci “Muhalif Tiyatroya Tahammül Yok”). DOT and Tiyatro
Kumpanyası are two theatre companies that were due to receive funding.
They, however, refused the government funding on the grounds that the
ministry required them to sign an agreement that they must respect moral
values on stage, failing which they will have to repay the funding within
15 days with interest.
Despite the obstacles, Sierz’s hopes in 2009 for Turkish theatre
have become more or less true. He wrote:
I personally hope that more courageous people start writing their own
plays instead of translating English plays into Turkish. I’d especially like
to support those writers who deal with contemporary social and political
issues. I do hope that more contemporary and exciting works will be
produced in the near future. (Preface to Suratına Tiyatro 8)
As the developments show, new plays with or without the influence of in-
yer-plays have emerged over the past ten years and formed a small lively
theatre atmosphere in Istanbul. What these playwrights started doing was
new and different. The issues they explored sprang from the streets. With
smaller venues, the plays were taken down from high and remote stages
and plays were staged closer to the audience. Ongoing censorship also led
to greater collaboration among artists. From my personal experience,
competition ceased and many artists abandoned their individual
ambitions. It may well be that some theatres will fall victim to this
government interference and to other circumstances. However, censorship
and the recent political atmosphere have also enhanced alternative artistic
production by awakening artists and prompting a struggle for cultural
freedom. Many Turkish theatre practitioners are ardently searching and
trying to create a unique voice. Above all, they are undauntedly
interrogating a wide range of political topics. Thus, despite the
discouraging political developments, I still have hope for those artists who
are trying to create peace through art in this beautiful country. And as
David Eldridge says: “Who knows what plays will emerge out of the
frightening moment in history in which we find ourselves?” (58).
Notes:
1
McDonagh’s Beauty Queen of Leenane was nominated in four categories and
received the best production of the year award at the Afife Jale Theatre Awards in
2001.
2
Unless stated otherwise all translations belong to the author.
3
Orta Oyunu is a non-illusionistic performance that is not based on a text. There
is a loose plot but the performance is not based on a linear story. Some parts of
the performance are totally autonomous. Karagöz is shadow puppet theatre. The
performance revolves around the leading figures Karagöz and Hacivat and their
arguments. Meddah is a story-teller. He recounts entertaining stories and
impersonates various characters. All three have comic elements and are greatly
based on improvisation and verbal skill.
4
District of Ağrı Province of Turkey, bordering Iran.
Works Cited
Defraeye, Piet. “In-Yer-Face Theatre? Reflections on Provocation and Provoked

Audiences in Contemporary Theatre.” Contemporary Drama in English:
Extending the Code: New Forms of Dramatic and Theatrical Expression.
Ed. Hans-Ulrich and Kerstin Mächler. Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier,
2004. 79-98.
Daltaban, Murat. Preface. Suratına Tiyatro: Britanya’da In-Yer-Face Tiyatrosu,
by Aleks Sierz. Istanbul: Mitos Boyut, 2009.
---. “Artık Hepimiz Hastalandık.” Radikal. Interview by Ece Baktıaya. Web. 9
June 2017.
Eldridge, David. “In-Yer-Face and After.” Studies in Theatre and Performance
31.1 (2003): 55-58.
Giritli, Mehmet Zeki. “Tiyatronun Büyük Yalanı: In-Your-Face.” Mimesis. N.d.
Web. 16 Sept. 2017.
İzci, İpek. “Muhalif Tiyatroya Tahammül Yok.” Radikal. Web. 21 Sept. 2017.
Kalaycıoğlu, Ersin. “The Motherland Party: The Challenge of Institutionalization
in a Charismatic Leader Party.” Political Parties in Turkey. Ed. Barry
Rubin and Metin Heper. London: Frank Cass, 2002. 41-61.
Kritzer, Amelia Howe. Political Theatre in Post-Thatcher Britain: New Writing:
1995-2005. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008.
Mahmutyazıcıoğlu, Murat. Personal interview with the author. 20 Mar. 2017.
Nikcevic, Sanja. “British Brutalism, the ‘New European Drama’ and the Role of
the Director.” New Theatre Quarterly 21.3 (2005): 255-272.
Özbudak, Ahmet Sami. İz. Unpublished manuscript presented to Elif Baş by the
playwright.
Pala, İskender. “Günlük Müstehcen Sırlar.” Zaman. N.d. Web. 2 June 2015.
Patton, Marcie J. “Generation Y in Gezi Park.” Middle East Research and
Information Project 43 (2013): 30-37.
Schild, Robert. “Suratımıza bir Tokat ile Tiyatromuz Kurtulabilir mi?” TEB. N.d.
Web. 22 Jan. 2016.
Sierz, Aleks. “Cool Britannia? ‘In-Yer-Face’ Writing in the British Theatre

Today.” New Theatre Quarterly 14.56 (1998): 324-333.
---. In-yer-face Theatre: British Drama Today. London: Faber, 2001.
---. “Still in-yer-face? Towards a Critique and a Summation.” New Theatre
Quarterly 18.1 (2002): 17-24.
---. Preface. Suratına Tiyatro: Britanya’da In-yer-face Tiyatrosu, by Aleks Sierz.
İstanbul: Mitos, 2009.
Taner, Haldun. “Neden Bizim Tiyatro?” Sersem Kocanın Kurnaz Karısı. Ankara:
Bilgi Yayınları, 1977.
Urban, Ken. “Towards a Theory of Cruel Britannia: Coolness, Cruelty, and the
Nineties.” New Theatre Quarterly20.4 (2004): 354-372.
Uslu, Cem. Interview. “Yeni Oyunlar, Yeni Konular.” K24. 7 Apr. 2016. Web. 7
Apr. 2016.
Yula, Özen. Press Release. Thinaar. N.d. Web. 3 June 2016.
133 Breaking the Contract
Breaking the Contract between God

and the Visual-Literary Fusion: Illuminated Manuscripts,
William Blake and the Graphic Novel
ANDREEA PARIS-POPA
Abstract
This essay follows three different stages of the fusion of images and
words in the tradition of the book. More specifically, it tackles the
transformation undergone by the initially religious combination of visual
figures and scriptural texts, exemplified by medieval illuminated
manuscripts into the spiritual, non-dogmatic, illuminated books printed
and painted by poet-prophet William Blake in a manner that combines
mysticism and literature. Eventually, the analysis reaches the secularized
genre of the graphic novel that renounces the metaphysical element
embedded in the intertwining of the two media. If ninth-century
manuscripts such as the Book of Kells were employed solely for divinely
inspired renditions of religious texts, William Blake’s late eighteenth-
century illuminated books moved towards an individual, personal
literature conveyed via unique pieces of art that asserted the importance of
individuality in the process of creation. The modern rendition of the
image-text illumination can be said to take the form of the graphic novel
with writers such as Will Eisner and Alan Moore overtly expressing their
indebtedness to the above-mentioned tradition by paying homage to
William Blake in the pages of their graphic novels. However, the fully
printed form of this twentieth-century literary genre, along with its
separation from the intrinsic spirituality of the visual-literary fusion in
order to meet the demands of a disenchanted era, necessarily re-
conceptualize the notion of illumination.
Keywords: image-text, illuminated manuscripts, illuminated printing,

graphic novel, secularization, the Book of Kells, William Blake, Will
Eisner, A Contract with God, Alan Moore.
Whether we are talking about videre verba (the Latin phrase for ‘to see
words’), ImageText – W.J.T. Mitchell’s understanding of “the composite,
synthetic works or concepts that combine image and text” (89) – or third
text,1 the intricate fusion between literature and the visual culture is
worthy of further exploration. The purpose of the present essay is to
analyze the development of what seems to be a shift between three stages
of the text-image tradition of the book. While the latter may be considered
to also cover much earlier pieces of writing – such as ancient Egyptian
scrolls which also made use of the combination between texts and images
– this essay is limited to the concept of ‘book,’ be it a vellum codex, a
printed-painted volume or a full graphic novel, which is distinguished
from comic books or caricatures published in series.
The analysis will start with Medieval illuminated manuscripts,
represented here by one of the world’s most famous examples of this
artistic trend: the Book of Kells, it will continue with British poet and
painter William Blake and his emblematic, illuminated Songs of
Innocence and of Experience, and it will conclude with the twentieth
century development of the modern graphic novel, exemplified primarily
by Will Eisner’s A Contract with God and Alan Moore’s From Hell and
Watchman. Although this topic deserves a much more complex and in-
depth analysis that may tackle multiple different developments of the
visual-literary fusion, for the purpose of this essay, the works discussed
are considered famous and important enough within their respective
categories in order to be illustrative of a more general trend. Moreover,
the inquiry will rely on the specific approach towards the intertwining of
image and word that the artists/authors of these works adopt, as well as
the influence of their religious/visionary foundation or lack thereof,
leading towards the questioning of the graphic novel as a valid link in the
above-mentioned artistic chain.
As the Latin etymology2 of the term ‘illuminated manuscript’
suggests, this precious object can be defined as a “handwritten book that
has been decorated with gold or … silver, brilliant colors, or elaborate
designs or miniature pictures” (“Illuminated Manuscript”), applied on
parchment or vellum during the middle ages. While it is easy to link the
word “illuminated” to the beautiful embellishment of the text, to the
historiated initials, decorated borders and line-endings or to the

accompanying miniatures adorned with leaves of precious metals, it
should be noted that in medieval times, the word more often than not was
infused with a deeply religious connotation. In “The Age of Faith,”
religious art was a tool for teaching people how to read, while instilling a
sense of community through the presentation of Christian stories and
symbols. Consequently, the literate monks turned the scriptoria and
libraries of monasteries into the main centers for the production and
preservation of literary works.
Since most medieval illuminated manuscripts3 were religious texts
created by scribes who faithfully rendered the words of the Bible, they
were meant to illuminate the readers with the sacred faith of Christianity
and enlighten them with the precious words of God. The images they
contained were not merely decorative, but they also often illustrated and
complemented the text, serving as visual markers of important passages
and memorizing aids4 for monks (Endres 28) in the case of liturgical altar
books such as the Book of Kells, and as imaginative contemplation
incentives for dedicated believers in the case of the Books of Hours5 and
Psalters6 such as the private Luttrell Psalter.7 They were all unique and
luxurious pieces of art, as the expensive materials and the time-
consuming process of creating everything by hand in a highly distinctive
manner could only be afforded by wealthy patrons.
The most famous ninth-century medieval illuminated manuscript of
the four Christian Gospels8 is surely the Book of Kells, the production and
survival of which are shrouded in mystery.9 While most scholars agree
that it was written at the monastery of Iona, on the west coast of Scotland
and brought to Kells to avoid the Viking raids, the names and number of
the scribes and illuminators involved in its production remain unknown
and are a matter of dispute.10 Notably, thirteenth-century historian
Giraldus Cambrensis attributed the nature of the astonishing artistic
elements to divine inspiration.
There are almost innumerable … drawings. If you … penetrate with your

eyes to the secrets of the artistry, you will notice such intricacies, so
delicate and subtle, so close together and well-knitted, so involved and
bound together, and so fresh still in their colorings that you will not
hesitate to declare that all these things must have been the result of the
work, not of men, but of angels. (qtd. in Olsen 159)
It was little wonder that this illuminating altar book was considered
to be a supernatural creation, as most such manuscripts were thought to be
written with the help of angels and visions of saints; this made them holy,
blessed objects that were not only held in great reverence, but were also
thought to have healing powers (Jones). While there are many errors in
the text based on the Vulgate, the Latin Bible translated by St. Jerome in
the fourth century, its embellishment with intertwining images of animals,
humans, angels, zoomorphic creatures, vines, spirals and knots is
irreproachable. Illustrations of geometric, abstract or representational
figures are found at the end of all lines, on the marginalia and between
certain words to mark the beginning of important passages, but perhaps
Figure 1. Close-up of the Chi-Rho page from the Book of Kells

(Oneonta.edu)
most interestingly, the historiated initials and the first pages of the
Gospels offer readers a new understanding of the relationship between
text and image, for they often depict illustrations that either form the
letters themselves, interact somehow with them by touching or holding
them or find themselves within their very outline. This allows for the
creation of a new medium that is close to what Stephen Behrendt calls the
third space, “an interdisciplinary ‘metatext’ in which verbal and visual
elements each offer their own particular and often irreconcilable
contributions” (qtd. in Garrett-Petts and Lawrence 165).
For instance, the Gospel of Matthew starts with the words “liber
generationis” (“the book of the generation”) enlarged so as to occupy the
entire page; the figure of Matthew holding his book seems to hover in-
between the letters ‘I’ and ‘B’ next to the head of an animal; there is an
image of two creatures facing each other with their fangs interlocked
resting on the letter ‘L,’ a small illustration of an angel trapped within the
outer outline of the same letter and a serpent holding together letters ‘E’
and ‘R’ inside a golden spiral of extremely fine geometrical shapes and
knot-work. A similar interdependency of letters and images is shown in
the Chi-Rho page, where the minutely ornamented letters XPI
(abbreviation of the word Kristos) [Figure 1] that mark the birth of Jesus
Christ with the eighteenth line of the Gospel are surrounded by myriad
drawings. There are lines that are “straight, curved, coiled, or step-like,
interlaced in ribbons or zoomorphic forms, with a profusion of dots …
characteristic of the style” (Quaile 39-40). In addition, there are
illustrations such as that of a cat and mice harmoniously sharing a
communion wafer at the base of the large letter X. Three angels are
resting on the same letter alongside two butterflies facing each other and
figures of humans and snakes at the center, inside the outline. In addition,
there seem to be moths inside the letters ‘I’ and ‘P,’ and the latter’s spiral
ends with the head of a beardless man. The fact that the images do not
relate directly to the text, but create their own narrative makes it almost
impossible for critics to reach the same conclusions regarding their
significance.
The last example of this kind to be discussed here is the beginning
to the Gospel of Luke that beautifully represents the word quoniam
(‘forasmuch’), the beginning of the phrase “forasmuch as many have

taken in hand to set forth in order a declaration of those things which are
most surely believed among us” (Luke 1:1).11 If between the letters ‘Q’
and ‘U’ there are four naked human figures with all their members knotted
together, around ‘NIAM,’ there are many images of people either hiding,
holding, or sitting on top of the letters. A possible interpretation might be
the fact that these are representations of the individuals mentioned on the
following folio, who have declared in writing the things recorded by the
Gospel. However, the monstrous figure whose legs can be seen at the
bottom of the letter ‘U’ and whose head appears on top of it is left to the
imagination of the reader. In fact, many of the artistic touches spring from
the imaginative minds of their illustrators and, while not always referring
to something specifically denoted by the words on the page and
sometimes even transforming images into letters, they add an almost
infinite dimension of possible meanings to the text, “elucidating, or
otherwise complicating our responses” (Garrett-Petts and Lawrence 165).
Paying homage to this sacred art, about a millennium later, in the
heart of England, pre-romantic poet, engraver, painter and visionary Blake
proudly declared he had invented something he called illuminated
printing,12 “a method of Printing which combines the Painter and the
Poet” (qtd. in “Illuminated Printing”). In practice, this was achieved
through what is now known as relief etching, with outlines written and
drawn backwards on copper plates with acid resistant ink that would allow
for the rest of the plate to be etched with acid to make the design stand in
relief. The latter would then be inked, printed on paper under light
pressure and beautifully enlightened by hand with vivid colors (Eaves 37).
Although the strong bond between image and text is kept along with the
delicate calligraphic lettering, the abstract, ornamental embellishments, as
well as the human and animal figures, Blake is not interested in copying
the Scripture, but rather in creating spiritually enlightened and
enlightening literary texts himself and thus “produce new designs rather
than reproduce” (Viscomi) those of others. Although he did not afford to
adorn his work with precious materials, he still created limited editions
because turning the “form of the book [into] a medium for creative
expression” (Petersen 57) was a delicate, time-consuming task, while also

making sure that each plate was illuminated by means of watercolors.
Just as the Book of Kells was said to have been the work of angels,
Blake claimed that his inspiration was of divine nature as well. Not only
did he maintain that the idea for this artistic process came to him through
a vision of the spirit of his beloved deceased brother Robert, but he also
considered himself a prophet who wrote spontaneously, on the dictation of
angels, as he overtly declares in a letter he writes to his friend Thomas
Butts: “I have written this poem from immediate Dictation, twelve or
sometimes twenty or thirty lines at a time, without Premeditation & even
against my Will” (Blake, A Critical 71) and “I am under the direction of
Messengers from Heaven, Daily & Nightly” (Blake, A Critical 67).
However, the poet frowned upon institutionalized religion and was often
considered to be a heretic because he created an entire personal
mythology about the creation of the world and had a unique vision that
expanded far beyond the limits of the canon. For instance, in The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell, the English prophet called his illuminated
method an infernal one, in which “heaven represents reason, or passive
and consuming forms, and hell represents energy, or active and creative
forms” (qtd. in Petersen 57). The infernal method was probably meant to
have a catharsis effect, for Blake associated the apocalyptic vision of the
whole world burning down and being stripped to its essence of infinity
and holiness with the method in which his acids etched away the surface
of the plate, leaving behind only lines in relief that were spiritually pure
and true.
The whole creation will be consumed and appear infinite and holy whereas
it now appears finite & corrupt…. But first the notion that man has a body
distinct from his soul is to be expunged; this I shall do, by printing in the
infernal method, by corrosives, which in Hell are salutary and medicinal,
melting apparent surfaces away, and displaying the infinite which was hid.
If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man
as it is, infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro'
narow chinks of his cavern. (Blake, A Critical 14)
Hence, albeit this method may be considered infernal from a

traditionally religious perspective, it was holy for Blake who understood it
Figure 2. Close-up of William Blake’s poem “Introduction”
as a mission to make people realize that the truth is beyond what is

considered physically perceivable and to help free their power of
imagination by cleansing their apprehension of the world. The melting
together of image and text makes the illuminations an integral part of the
work that allows the reader to acquire an understanding and construct an
interpretation of the text by means of his or her own associations. The
intricate designs and adorning of the poem “Introduction” [Figure 2] from
the volume Songs of Innocence and of Experience are made up of
intertwined, vine-like plants with miniature scenes in every loop, that
create a frame for the poem. Next to a river, climbing up the vertical plant,
one can observe the figure of men and women, young and old and perhaps
most remarkably a man whose posture resembles that of Da Vinci’s
Vitruvian Man or Blake’s Glad Day, signifying freedom and bliss, love,
affection and joyfulness for getting across the message of God (the
Lamb). The poem “The Lamb” depicts a similar scenery of the river and
the circular vegetative outline that do not interfere with the letters, but
seem to offer a protective space for the naked young child who stands
amongst the lambs (zoomorphic doubles of God). If in the Chi-Rho page
of the Book of Kells there was an example of the cat and mice living
harmoniously together, Blake shows that, in the world of Innocence, the

lamb and the tiger are not enemies. Despite the fact that in the text of “The
Tiger,” part of the same volume, the speaker marvels at the animal’s
fearfulness and deadly terror, the illustration portrays a creature that is not
ferocious at all, not attacking, not rampant, not showing its fangs, but
peaceful and content, in connection perhaps with the line “Did he smile
his work to see?/ Did he who made the Lamb make thee” (Blake, A
Critical 272). By creating a visual story that may go against the text of the
poem, the poet-painter ensures that the visual and the literary are analyzed
together as a unit, just as the lamb and the tiger are united by the same
creator, having been made by the same “immortal hand or eye” (272) of
God.
Half-printed, half-painted, the pieces of artwork dubbed illuminated
books would each be unique and stand against what their author
considered a denigration of art into mass commodity during the industrial
revolution (“William Blake”). The coupling of mass production with the
process of secularization is clearly expressed by Walter Benjamin in his
essay “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”
According to the author, the essence of art, its most sensitive core, lies in
its authenticity and thus in its “presence in time and space, its unique
existence at the place where it happens to be” (2). However, when faced
with mechanical reproduction, the aura of the work withers and, along
with it, its dependence on the ritual is destroyed and replaced by a reliance
on politics (5). In this sense, the aura of Blake’s spiritual poems would be
maintained by their author’s focus on each piece’s individuality, which
marked a clear stance against what the bard deemed to be the dark, satanic
mills of industrialized England. Although multiple versions of a book
were printed with the use of the same plates (and thus the same page
pattern), the colors always differed and the poet-printer tended to add
distinct elements directly on paper, while also changing the order of pages
from one book to another, so that no two identical volumes would ever be
created.13
For example, the existing copies of the poem “The Little Boy Lost”
from the Songs of Innocence and of Experience are all different from one
another, not only in terms of colors, but also in terms of the features of the
young human figure visually represented therein. Sometimes the child

seems to be a little girl, not a boy, sometimes she has a hat, other times a
black aura or long hair; sometimes the background is undistinguishable,
other times one can clearly see the outline of a tree behind her, which
might influence the reader into making associations with the tree’s
spiritual symbolism. In addition, the source of light on the left side of the
image, which might be the vapor that the text mentions, is sometimes very
dim, making the child seem like he or she is driving it away, while in
other instances it is very strong, giving the impression that the young
figure is drawn to, almost hypnotized by it. Even though the image seems
to be separated from the text in the upper part of the page, the artistic
representation of six angels enter the space of the text and create a frame
for it, seemingly supporting the weight of the block of letters. In this case,
the ensemble of images and words brings forth the spiritual nature of the
theme of the child seeking his father. The indeterminacy of meaning is
also evident in the mirror poem14 of “The Little Boy Lost,” namely “The
Little Boy Found.” Here too, there is a clear difference between the
known copies of the poem, for if the adult figure holding the child’s name
seems to have male features such as a beard (and can thus be interpreted
as God, the father sought after in the previous poem), in others the figure
resembles a woman (perhaps the child’s mother reunited with him or
perhaps Virgin Mary when a halo appears). These visual changes add a
different layer of interpretation to the poem, as the gender fluidity of the
divine figure implies an androgynous representation of God that is not
suggested by the text.
Adapting the principle of ImageText15 to the twentieth century and
understanding, perhaps, the fact that “images are a way of writing”
(Campbell 20), graphic novels make use of them in order to tackle much
more complex and profound themes than their older siblings: comic
books,16 and approach themes that take on the complexity of novels meant
for a mature audience (albeit not necessarily religious or spiritual) and
represent them by means of a visual style that combines text and
illustrations. Many critics, among whom, Robert Petersen, believe that the
modern art of graphic narratives started with Blake, a figure that can be
considered a precursor or forefather of the genre of the graphic novel,
since he was so keen on showing that the “character and style of the words
composed an organic whole with the pictures” (Petersen 57).
The first work to have been assigned the name of ‘graphic novel’ by
its author in 1978 and consequently revolutionize the world of comics by
popularizing this term was called A Contract with God, written and
illustrated by American columnist Eisner. One of the most striking visual
characteristics that distinguishes this graphic novel from most of today’s
books is the fact that the narrative and the illustrations are not always
separated by means of boxes, bubbles or panels, leading to an observer’s
coherent experience of the blend between the two media (even more so
when the text itself becomes an illustration). Yet, by appealing exclusively
to the printing press for the multiplication of these novels, the
immediateness and the direct connection that both medieval monks and
Blake created in relation to each individual work is lost and each work
becomes just a copy among many, neither luxurious, nor exclusive. The
imperfect nature and unreproducible character of manuscripts and of
Blakean illuminated works were part of the creative process that ensured
unique products infused with personal touches. If we consider Benjamin’s
argument, the spiritual or ritualistic aura of the graphic novel is lost in the
process of secularization and mass production; hence the authority of its
authenticity is minimalized.
The concept of remediation, defined by Jay David Bolter as a
process that “occurs when a new medium pays homage to an older
medium, borrowing and imitating features of it, and yet also stands in
opposition to it, attempting to improve on it” (qtd. in Edgar), is useful in
understanding the shift from illuminated printing to the art of the graphic
novel. Thus, it is only natural that in the process of transition some
elements may be lost along the way. The question is whether those
characteristics were essential or dispensable to the first medium. In this
sense, the most abrupt transformation of the text-image fusion in a
published book had to do with the spiritual foundation of illumination and
its subsequent secularization into graphic art. Perhaps the distancing from
God and the need to render His words through verbal and visual unity is
mirrored in the theme of the short story17 that gives the name of Eisner’s
graphic novel A Contract with God. The title alludes to Israel’s covenant
Figure 3. From Will Eisner’s A Contract with God (Archive.org)
with Yahweh: “Israel, normatively speaking, was understood to have a

mutually binding contractual relationship with their god, governed by
clearly defined rules and regulations” (Clark) and established at Sinai. The
main character, Frimme Hersh, writes his own contract with God in order
to make sure that his good deeds are rewarded. However, when his
adopted only daughter dies,18 he feels God has broken the contract, and he
has no wish to keep his side of the deal by abiding by God’s laws [Figure 3].
The disillusionment with God in this case can be a metaphor for the
secularization of modern society and its art forms and particularly for the
loss of the religious or spiritual foundation of the intermingling of the
verbal and the visual. This attitude is famously theorized by what Max
Weber calls the disenchantment of the world when he discusses the fact
that contemporary society no longer values mystical life and turns instead
to the importance of “rationalization and intellectualization” (qtd. in Shull
61) as main approaches to a secularized apprehension of reality.
Moreover, “as Weber suggests, the retreat of magic in this age has had an
impact on art, as it has now become its own sphere with its own set of
values” (Shull 62). Thus, religion and superstition are stripped of their
power to enchant society, as their sway has been eroded by enlightened
rationality (“Disenchantment”). This attitude is evident in the graphic
novel breaking the contract with God, and making use of the initially holy,
religious melding of words and illustrations. The topics diversify
accordingly and vary from the historical to the autobiographical to purely
fictional, proving that more often than not, if there is something
“reminiscent of religious mythologies … [it is the] themes of good versus
evil” (Stanley 83) that are prevalent in graphic novels nowadays, and if
there is something reminiscent of illuminations, it can be only the vivid
colors used in the illustrations and the flicker of the readers’ imagination.
One of the best-known and most celebrated graphic novelists of our
time, Moore, has not shied away from showing his appreciation of the
influential artist Blake. More specifically, the successful American
Figure 4. From Alan Moore’s From Hell

(TheHumanDivine.org)
author’s graphic novels From Hell and Watchmen19 seem to attract the
most attention to Blake’s impact on this relatively new genre that relies on
the concept of sequential art. Yet, probably the most noticeable visual
difference between Blake’s works or even between Eisner’s novel and
Moore’s graphic works is that, in the latter, the reader’s eyes are directed
on a specific path from left to right by means of the ever-present panels
that mark the direction on which the viewer should be focused, instead of
encouraging a back and forth movement to give added significance to the
text. In this sense, the graphic novel follows the tradition of seventeenth-
century caricatures and nineteenth-century serialized newspaper comic
strips, albeit for the first time they are presented in the shape of a book.
As most western graphic novels nowadays, Moore’s panels are
created to be read from left to right, without offering the reader the
freedom to choose which image relates to what piece of writing and in
what way. Furthermore, while both medieval Christian scribes and Blake
succeeded in “keeping word and image integrated” (Viscomi), graphic
novels clearly delineate the border between the two, always separating
them by means of narrative boxes or bubbles, “facilitate[ing] a binary
relationship between the text and the image, where one aspect is always
privileged at the expense of the other” (Ditto). It is true that the interaction
of the two media is fundamental for the experience of graphic novels, and
there is no official separation of them as different disciplines, yet on the
page, images and words are no longer truly blended but seem to be always
neatly arranged in separate boxes. Also, some critics have accused the
graphic novel of limiting instead of expanding the reader’s power of
imagination, because they offer ready-made, mimetic images that have a
clear, direct correspondence to the text. At the same time, the defenders of
this genre assert that while “each comic panel is a moment frozen in time,
your mind connects the dots” (Campbell 21), so the reader is the one who
ultimately enriches the story with his or her own active creative input.
Figure 5. From Allan Moore’s The Watchmen (Aminoapps.com)

Both From Hell and Watchmen pay direct homage directly to

Blake, perhaps more so than to his illuminated printing method, albeit in
different ways: the former with the help of a character, the latter by
making use of a concept. In From Hell, the story revolves around the
serial killer Jack the Ripper, whose identity is revealed to be Sir William
Withey Gull, the royal physician of Queen Victoria. He is employed by
the queen and his masonic peers to eliminate the prostitute acquaintances
of Annie Crook, the mother of Prince Edward’s illegitimate child, in order
to protect the prince’s reputation (Whittaker 201). Gull considers himself
to be guided by Blake, but misinterprets the poet and manipulates his
quotes to legitimize his belief that men have the right to dominate women.
In one of his visions, the character travels to Blake’s time [Figure 4] and
understands that the latter’s painting Ghost of a Flea20 is a portrait of him
as “the lowliest of demons, the spectre envisaged by Blake who foolishly
assumed that Blake spoke with his voice” (Whittaker 203). The English
bard’s concept of symmetry is rendered in chapter five of Moore’s
Watchmen entitled “Fearful Symmetry,” a phrase borrowed from Blake’s
poem “The Tiger,” announced through the image of the two reflected
letters ‘R’ on the cover and quoted at the end of the chapter. In this case,
the panels are aligned symmetrically and the pages themselves seem to
reflect one another, with the center serving as a mirror: “page 1 reflects
page 28, page 2 reflects page 27, and so forth: the two page spread on
pages 14-15 is where the mirror lies. Each page is a reflection of both
layout and content” (Whitson, “Panelling”). However, the whole
foundation of Blake’s concept of symmetry was its potential to reveal the
infinite holiness of the world, yet in Moore’s graphic novel symmetry
lacks this divine aspect, maintaining only a physical form.
By way of conclusion, the image-text pairing and blending in the
shape of a book has undergone significant transformations throughout the
ages, as it has been remediated to adapt to the Zeitgeist of each of the
three representative examples discussed in this paper: from a
predominantly religious medieval period that produced precious and
beautifully adorned illuminated manuscripts such as the Book of Kells, to
the transition towards industrialization that allowed Blake to create a
mixed method of printing and painting, to the fully secularized genre of
the graphic novel that broke its “contract with God” and went against its
very origin in order to addresses a modern, disenchanted society. If the
double meaning of illumination along with its luxurious, unique result was
revived in Blake’s time in the shape of one-of-a-kind limited editions
intended to enlighten not just the beautifully colored pages but also the
reader’s perception of the world’s divinity (although in a non-dogmatic
manner), the graphic novel is illuminated through its coloring and perhaps
through the stimulation of the reader’s imagination which is faced with
matching two different media in order to create a story. However, because
the graphic novel is mass-produced and multiple exact copies of the same
product are created, it is devoid of the author’s personal touches and the
spiritual message embedded in the individuality of each piece of art. The
divinely inspired and embellished words and images, carefully written or
engraved and painted by hand on each page, are now typed blocks, distant
from their creator(s) and no longer carry with them a holy mission,
converting the illuminated inspiration (in the etymological sense of filled
with spirit) into graphic art.
Although certain graphic novelists, such as Moore, overtly express
their works’ connection to Blake by means of thematic or conceptual
homage, perhaps the essential reminder of the graphic novels’ ancestors
lies in the interdependency of image and text to form a complete story of
good versus evil. Yet, even the interaction between the two media has
changed. A very close, direct connection – in which images were text and
vice versa, visual figures were enclosed within letters, formed them or
interacted with them – gave way to Blake’s partial blending of image and
words that nonetheless kept them integrated. Two hundred years later, in
the shape of graphic novels, the relationship between the visual and the
literary eventually changed into a clear separation through the use of
boxes and bubbles. Furthermore, the stimulation of imagination and
indeterminacy of meaning that are also essential parts of the verbal-visual
unity are challenged in the case of graphic novels, for the panels offer the
reader a clear path to follow and the mimetic illustrations instruct him or
her on the associations that should be made. However, since illustrations
cannot be empty of meaning, their direct relation to a text brings about
mutual molding into a different medium of expression that creates not just
a reading or a viewing experience, but a more profound artistic and

emotional connection to the respective work, which remains the main
aspect that legitimizes the graphic novel as a modern descendent of
medieval illuminated manuscripts and Blake’s illuminated volumes.
Notes:
1
This is Stephen Behrendt’s coinage for the intersection of image and text to
form a new medium of expression.
2
The word ‘manuscript’ (Lat. manus, scriber) means “written by hand,” while
“illuminate” (Lat. illuminare) stands for the phrase “to light up” (“Creating
Contemporary Illuminated”).
3
Although the intermingling of text and image was initially aimed at enriching
one’s religious experience, during the fifteenth century there was an increased
demand in secular decorated manuscripts, and Renaissance illuminators started
producing secular works. Consequently, humanistic texts (textbooks, chronicles
of history, literary works, etc.) would be sold in open markets all throughout
Europe (“Brief History”).
4
The illustrations were also of aid to the illiterate lay people, who could thus gain
access to the book (Jones).
5
The Books of Hours were private, smaller, vividly illuminated books of prayer,
very popular in the middle ages among the European elite. They were based on
the monastic cycle that divided the day into eight parts, or “hours” and allotted an
exercise of devotion to each segment (“About Medieval”). One of the most
famous examples is the Très Riches Heures of Jean, duc de Berry.
6
A religious volume comprised of the one hundred and fifty psalms of the Old
Testament, followed by various prayers, meant for the use of both monks and lay
people (“Luttrell”).
7
The Psalter of Sir Geoffrey Luttrell (patron), produced in the early 1300s, is
famous not only for the beautifully executed illuminations, but also for portraying
daily life scenes of Medieval England: “a menagerie of weird and wonderful
grotesques populates its margins – some the stuff of nightmares, others acceptable
household pets, others overt parodies of society and politics” (“The Luttrell
Psalter”).
8
The style used was Insular Majuscule, which meant that all letters were
essentially the same height (“Book of Kells”).
9
The book was stolen in the eleventh century and it appears that its gold cover
and a few leaves were removed and the folios were all trimmed.
10
Francoise Henry holds that there must have been three scribes who were also
illuminators, but other scholars of the Book of Kells cannot agree on whether
there were one, two, three or even four people involved in the process (“Book of
Kells”).
11
The quote is taken from King James Bible Online.
12
Some of Blake’s most famous illuminated books include the prose work The
Marriage of Heaven and Hell (1790), the poetry volume Songs of Innocence and
of Experience: Shewing the Two Contrary States of the Human Soul (1794) and
the prophetic books The Book of Urizen (1794), America a Prophecy (1793) and
Europe a Prophecy (1794).
13
Stephen Leo Carr maintains that the “radical variability” that Blake
purposefully puts forth by means of his method of producing books “reveals the
ultimate impossibility of determining some underlying authoritative structure”
(186).
14
As the title suggests, Songs of Innocence and of Experience: Shewing the Two
Contrary States of the Human Soul offers poems that are symmetrical not just in
the size of the letters (as seen in the majuscule insular style), but also by the fact
that each of them seems to correspond to another poem in the same volume, thus
giving the impression of interdependent contraries situated in divine symmetry.
15
The father of this concept, W.J.T. Michell, maintains that “the ImageText
emerges in a bewildering haze of interaction, transformation and mutation” (qtd.
in Whitson, “Introduction”) of the two media.
16
Generally speaking, graphic novels have a superior production quality and are
considered to be independent publications.
17
Eisner’s A Contract with God is a graphic novel made up of four stand-alone
stories: “A Contract with God,” “The Street Singer,” “The Super” and
“Cookalein.”
18
After the novel was published, Eisner admitted that his disillusionment with
God at the loss of his own daughter to leukemia was inspirational for this story: “I
exorcised my rage at a deity that I believed violated my faith and deprived my
lovely 16-year-old child of her life at the very flowering of it” (qtd. in
Schumacher 197).
19
Watchmen remains the only graphic novel to win a Hugo Award and is also the
only graphic novel to appear on Time magazine's 2005 list of “the 100 best
English-language novels from 1923 to the present” (“Watchmen”).
20
In one of his visions, Blake saw that the soul of a fly was that of a murderous
man, which is why he depicted it as a much enlarged monstrous figure.
Works Cited
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Benjamin, Walter. “The Work of Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction.”
Ada.Evergreen.edu. Web. 19 Mar. 2018.
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Oxford: Oxford UP, 1988.
“Book of Kells.” The University of Scranton. Web. 29 Jan. 2018.
“Brief History of Illuminated Manuscripts.” Getty Museum. Web. 28 Jan. 2018.
Campbell, Julia. “Picture This: Inside the Graphic Novel.” Literary Cavalcade
(May 2004): 18-22.
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Unnam’d Forms: Blake and Textuality. Berkley: U of California P, 1986.
Print.
Clark, Terry Ray. “A Contract with God? Will Eisner’s Seminal Graphic Novel
as Anti-Theodicy.” Society of Biblical Literature. Web. 29 Jan. 2018.
“Creating Contemporary Illuminated Choir Pages Inspired by the Renaissance.”
High Museum of Art. Atlanta. Web. 27 Jan. 2018.
“Disenchantment.” Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Web. 19 Mar. 2018.
Ditto, Nicholas. “A Change of Heart: Frimme’s Transformation in ‘A Contract
with God’.” Reading Between the Lines. A Closer Look at the Graphic
Novel. Web. 29 Jan. 2018.
Eaves, Morris. The Cambridge Companion to William Blake. Cambridge, UK:
Cambridge UP, 2003.
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Technologies. Web. 29 Jan. 2018.
Endres, William. Rhetorical Invention in the Book of Kells: Image and
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2003. Web. 28 Jan. 2018.
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World’ and Its Implications for Art in Today’s World.” Anamesa: An
Interdisciplinary Journal 3.2 (2005): 61-73.
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Oneonta.edu. Web. 19 Mar. 2018.
“The Luttrell Psalter: Imagining England on the Eve of the Black Death.” The
University of Western Australia. Web. 29 Jan. 2018.
Viscomi, Joseph. “1788. William Blake Invents Illuminated Printing.” Sites Lab.
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Jan. 2018.
153 The Remediation of the Epic in Digital Games
The Remediation of the Epic in Digital Games:

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
VLAD MELNIC
Babeş-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca, Romania
Abstract
This paper examines whether certain computer games, most notably
RPGs, can be thought of as examples of the postmodern epic. Drawing on
more recent critical frameworks of the epic, such as the ones proposed by
Northrop Frye, Adeline Johns-Putra, Catherine Bates or John Miles Foley,
the demonstration disembeds the most significant diachronic features of
the epic from its two main media of reproduction, that of text and oral
transmission, in order to test their fusion with the virtual environment of
digital games. More specifically, I employ the concept of “epic mode” in
order to explain the relevance of The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim for the history
of the epic typology, which must now be understood as transmedial. I
illustrate the manner in which this representative title assimilates the
experience and performance of the epic, as well as several meaningful
shifts in terms of genre theory, the most notable of which is an intrinsic
posthuman quality. The experience of play inherent to Skyrim does not
only validate the latter as an authentic digital epic of contemporary
culture, but it also enhances the content, role and impact of the typology
itself, which is yet far from falling into disuse.1
Keywords: The epic genre, digital epic, instantiation, transmedia theory,

epic mode, video game aesthetics.
In Blackwell’s Companion to the Ancient Epic, Richard Martin makes the

poignant claim that the epic is the single most “pervasive, ‘unmarked’
genre, in terms of where and when it can be performed,” as well as the
“culturally most significant and ‘marked’ form in terms of its ambitions
and attitudes” (16). Martin’s in-depth study on the epic genre confirms
that textual or performative characteristics alone cannot be aptly used in

order to define whether a particular production is, indeed, epic. Over the
past two decades, several attempts have been made to more accurately
define this typology, including The Cambridge Companion to the Epic
(2010), edited by Catherine Bates, Epic Traditions in the Contemporary
World (1999), edited by Beissinger, Tylus and Wofford, Adeline Johns-
Putra’s The History of the Epic (2006), and The Cambridge Companion to
Homer (2006), edited by Robert Fowler. A likely explanation for this
recent compulsion to meticulously ascribe certain features, characteristics
and processes to the epic may be attributed to the lack of a commonly
accepted epic of postmodernism, even though the age itself seems to be
nearing its end or, as Stephen Connor put it, “entering a new phase” (11),
and despite the proliferation of cultural artefacts created in the epic mode.
Another reason for this trend may be a growing support among scholars,
such as John Trafton, Johns-Putra, and Luke Arnott, for the idea that epic
productions are now manifest in other media capable of artistic
representations, ranging from film to fantasy literature, comic books and
even video games. It did not help that research on the epic seeking to
overcome Eurocentric productions and views brought further ambiguity to
the definition of the genre. As Martin concludes, the latter elaborates a
bifocal relationship between “pervasive, everyday speech” and “a mode of
total communication, undertaking nothing less than the ideal expression of
a culture” (18). Most importantly, the roles diachronically associated with
the epic have fulfilled chief community functions both in the age of their
production and afterwards. It can be argued that, with the emergence of
the digital environment in the second half of the 20th century, it became
increasingly difficult, if not impossible, to textually represent an authentic
experience of what it means to be postmodern. Just as postmodernism
seems to have been superseded by several of the most important themes
initially associated with it, posthuman(ism) and new materialism, to name
a couple, so did the production and assimilation of the epic overflow the
traditional media of folklore and the literary tradition, speech and hard-
copy texts, only to advance into the wider field and phenomena of culture.
The ubiquity of digital media has already challenged and redefined our
notions of literature, art and even what it means to be human. Within this
unstable context, the epic of the posthuman age rapidly became

transmedial and, I argue, is now manifest in video games.
Johns-Putra contends that we may find some of the epics of the late
twentieth and early twenty first centuries in films such as Spartacus
(1960), the Star Wars series (started in 1977), as well as Gladiator (2000)
and Troy (2000), some of which did an excellent job of “drawing on
contemporary political concerns and catering to modern audience
expectations” (212-3). Controversial at a first glance, the shift from a
solely text-based medium (digital or analog) to one that incorporates
performance and visual imagery alongside storytelling is strikingly similar
to the growth of folklore or various oral traditions into written text.
Numerous social changes led to an extensive transition to print as a result
of better durability, functionality, and the need for widespread access to
information (Norman). In The Cambridge Companion to the Epic, Bates
proposes that “cinematic remakes and the perpetuation of epic motifs in
contemporary blockbusters and computer games ensures the form remains
ever present in the popular consciousness” (ix). Virtual worlds represent a
recent addition to the assembly of artistic means and/or media of
expression. Furthermore, this cluster of expressive possibilities was
supplemented by augmented reality, a phenomenon that offered users “the
ability to combine both the physical experience of the streets and the
digital experience of the Internet” (Skwarek 3). Simultaneously, the
postmodern “delegitimation and dedifferentiation … between what had
been called … cultural levels (high culture and low culture)” (Connor 3)
prompted scholars to think of the previously literary genre of the epic as
entertaining a “peculiar and complex connection to national and local
cultures,” as well as to acknowledge that many “prose genres have epic
qualities” (Beissinger et al. 2).
However, in order to identify certain computer games as examples
of contemporary epics, it is necessary to trace the ways in which they
incorporate the features and roles of this category, as well as how the
former are changed by the new media. Northrop Frye understands this
progression of form and media as an organic evolution, wherein an epic
mode merely experiences several mutations, sometimes reflected in form:
In epos, where the poet faces his audience, we have a mimesis of direct
address. Epos and fiction first take the form of scripture and myth, then of
traditional tales, then of narrative and didactic poetry, including the epic
proper, and of oratorical prose, then of novels and other written forms. As
we progress historically through the five modes, fiction increasingly
overshadows epos, and as it does, the mimesis of direct address changes to
a mimesis of assertive writing. (250)
Frye’s perspective makes it not only possible, but entirely likely that the
epic mode would be incorporated in media such as film or digital games.
My contention is that certain computer games, particularly RPGs (role-
playing games), have not only ingeniously translated the features and
functions of the epic genre into their fictional universes, but enhanced
them in genuinely artistic ways. It is almost natural that traditional forms
of the epic should become obsolete and that the genre should experience
mutations reflecting at least some of the defining traits of contemporary
life. The latter commonly includes a rejection “of modern scientific
rationality,” of metaphysics and of any discourses that resemble totalizing
narratives, alongside a marked de-centering of the concept of identity
(Connor 16). An uneasy relationship with the past, oftentimes bordering
on obsessive preoccupation, as history is frequently reconfigured and
reconstructed with the aid of new developments, as well as a general
reconsideration of the body and of humanity’s relationship with alterity,
following the posthuman turn, are also distinctive features of present-day
culture.
To begin with, I turn to the manner in which scholars currently
understand the epic and its forms. John Miles Foley advocates for a
broader, “open-ended model of ‘the epic’ … by adopting Penelope’s non-
parochial concept of ‘those things that singers memorialize’” (180-1) on
the one hand, and the need to place Western examples in a broader
framework, accounting for as many traditions as possible, on the other.
Alternatively, Johns-Putra promotes the idea of “genre as process, as
temporally determined … [wherein] the ‘whole’ and its ‘parts’ are
unstable” (5), reflecting Hans Robert Jauss’s and Ralph Cohen’s ideas that
such classifications are intimately bound to the contexts that produce and
use them. When arguing for the idea that genres are historically unstable,
Johns-Putra employs reception theory to demonstrate the inherently social
dimension of such categories. Instead of continuing the debate over high/

low culture or written/ oral binaries, it would be more productive for the
scholarly community to embrace typology as a “shared set of expectations
… that changes over time” (Johns-Putra 6), the instability of which is
bound to create certain contradictions between particular productions.
Similarly, Tom Ryall’s interpretation of cinematographic genres leads him
to conclude that the latter are governed by the “master triangle of artist/
film/ audience” (28). Each side has its own contribution to and impression
upon the typology, which is viewed in terms of “patterns/ forms/ styles/
structures that transcend individual” productions (29). Particularly since
we are experiencing a “postmodern fascination with the epic, and a need
to invoke it in all kinds of texts and situations” (Johns-Putra 1), it is all the
more necessary to explore the media of computer games for examples of
stories that enchant, and that are worth memorialization and celebration.
To this end, establishing some of the distinctive diachronic roles,
characteristics and functions of the genre is instrumental to the inquiry of
whether certain RPGs are instances of the contemporary epic. Epics are
usually “narratives of great and courageous deeds against the backdrop of
watershed historical and even prehistorical events” common to ancient
traditions such as the Greek, with its Iliad and Odyssey, or Akkadian, with
Enuma Elish and Gilgamesh (Johns-Putra 7). These accounts were often
combined with fantastic mythological deeds performed by gods or godlike
figures. In the Middle Ages and the Renaissance, the epic began to
encompass ideologies of the medieval romance in poems such as Roland,
the later Orlando Innamorato by Matteo Maria Boiardo or its sequel,
Orlando furioso by Ludovico Ariosto. Yet the configuration of the
medieval romance was not entirely compatible with the teachings of the
Western Church, and so the following narratives sought to reconcile it
with Christian morality, giving birth to the familiar patterns of courtly
love. Christian culture became imbricated with Western cultural products
to such an extent that the pursuit of its virtues, within a world dominated
by sin, is transformed into a central theme of the time, as illustrated by
Dante’s The Divine Comedy, as well as by the reformed “knightly quests
of romance” (Johns-Putra 7) of Thomas Malory’s Le Morte d’Arthur and
Edmund Spenser’s The Faerie Queene. This quest for redemption reaches
its apotheosis in John Milton’s Paradise Lost, where prophetic revelations

of salvation and “divine truth” (Johns-Putra 7), rather than the pursuit of
Platonic love, become the aim of the heroes. The thematic shifts were
concurrent with community developments, which attempted to adapt the
distinctly ‘vulgar’ romances and tales of medieval times, as exemplified
by Geoffrey Chaucer’s collection The Canterbury Tales, to the
increasingly widespread and prominent religious worldviews that were
becoming the social norm, in the same manner Beowulf had previously
reconciled pagan heroism with Christian elements (Johns-Putra 50). By
employing allegory, such examples of the epic thoroughly accounted for
the way in which the Western conception of the universe and the world
was evolving during the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. The spirit of
the times is accurately embodied by Martin Luther’s claim that reason is
fruitless in the realm of religion, where the “works of God are
unsearchable and unspeakable, and no human sense can find them out”
(31), as well as by Michel de Montaigne’s forcing of reason into the arena
of faith, by means of scepticism, which was perceived by Montaigne “as
the sole source of our knowledge of religion” (Fieser).
At the same time, however, a parallel evolution of the genre takes
place starting with the beginning of the 17th century in the form of mock-
epics. Building on the similar patterns of subtle satire directed at society
that are present in The Canterbury Tales, Miguel de Cervantes’ Don
Quixote, John Dryden’s Mack Flecknoe, and Alexander Pope’s The Rape
of the Lock are noteworthy examples of the way in which the traditional
conventions of epic were subverted and employed to advocate for a more
pragmatic way of thinking, a Weltanschauung that was grounded in the
real world, rather than misguided by idealism and/or affectedness.
Empiricism was emblematic of the transition to the modern era and an
increasingly secularized society that could no longer rely on religion to
explain its existence and the surrounding world. Indeed, the 16th and 17th
centuries are acknowledged as the timeframe wherein a scientific
revolution occurred within the European context (Fieser). The initial
investigative methods put forward by the champions of modern science,
Francis Bacon and Isaac Newton, highlight an incompatibility between
science and religion, emphasizing the everlasting contradiction between
faith and reason. In fact, during Galileo Galilei’s lifetime, the “Church
was taking an overly-literal interpretation of the biblical passages in
support of the old earth-centred system” (Fieser) to such an extent that it
was asking its followers to blindly believe. It is precisely the issues of
completely surrendering oneself to a totalizing discourse, be it religious,
personal, or otherwise, that the mock epics of these two centuries
problematize.
The genre is subject to yet another turn beginning with the 19th
century, a transformation marked by the distinct need for an everyday,
“anti-epic heroism, a heroism of the self” that constructs a grand tale of
“self-development” (Johns-Putra 8). Byron’s Childe Harold’s Pilgrimage
and Wordsworth’s The Prelude adeptly illustrate the way in which the
poet himself becomes “the hero of his own epic” (Cantor 381) in a
possible reconciliation of the previous conflict between reason and faith,
pragmatism and idealism. This was done mainly by understanding oneself
as a project within the bigger framework of society, which was to be
reformed either by aesthetic, poetic or empirical means. The then nascent
concept of the self, wholly absent in earlier literature and which was
introduced only in the second half of the 18th century (Lyons 16), had run
its course quite rapidly. A possible explanation of this is the fact that the
Romantic age “revered the self as an alternative to the dead soul, and so
they had to have a pious faith in it – in the same way that they had a pious
faith in the imagination which they set against the mind-forged manacles
of reason” (Lyons 16). If fictions regarding the surrounding world were
easier to believe in, unfeasible narratives about oneself were more
difficult to defend, particularly since the basic, immutable quality of
subjectivity is that it is defined in relation to others. From the end of the
18th century and up until the middle of the 20th, the individual self was
perpetually destabilized by the rapid succession of political, industrial,
scientific and economic revolutions occurring in the timespan of less than
two centuries. Peoples’ way of life, knowledge, aspirations and concerns
were impacted to such an extent that Modernist art and literature reflected
an acute need to define identity in the greater framework of modern
society, while accommodating recent discoveries in science and thought.
Less than a century from Wordsworth’s Prelude, the epic “becomes … a
vehicle for conveying the increasing confusion, fragmentation and

slippages in perception” (Johns-Putra 8) and is thus greatly charged by the
crisis-state of the self underlying the Modernist movement. The
existentialist strain of philosophy that had a major impact on Western
thought during this timeframe, through Søren Kierkegaard, Friedrich
Nietzsche, Jean-Paul Sartre and Albert Camus, among others, was
tackling precisely these problems of epistemology and ontology.
Existentialism came to the conclusions that human existence was defined,
to a great extent, by its situatedness, anxiety of being ‘on its own’ and
impossibility to live in an authentic manner in the world of the time
(Burnham and Papandreopoulos). As I show in what follows, in an epic
representative of our current age, at least some of these kernel historical
features and defining shifts, of which mythological deeds and legends, the
crisis of the self, knightly quests of (more or less) courtly love, the pursuit
of reason and divine truth, are the most obvious, will undoubtedly surface.
Towards the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries,
virtual reality added further layers to the problematizing of the subject. As
such, ontological and epistemological inquiries regarding “the nature of
the human, the real, experience, sensation, cognition, identity and gender
… by the postulated existence of perfect, simulated, environments”
(Bukatman 188) become increasingly frequent. When video games found
a way to integrate these recent shifts in culture and thought, commonly
summarized as either postmodernism or post-humanism, they became
authentic instances of the contemporary epic.
Beyond features belonging to the thematic dimension, the epic
genre is also essentially defined as a performance delivered for spectators
or transmitted to a readership, meaning that “audiences are crucial
partners in the transaction of the epic” (Foley 177). It is inherent in their
make-up, through the numerous mnemonic techniques they employ, that
these stories be sequentially transmitted, usually by experienced bards
who would often act as translators themselves. The particular
circumstances of performance are crucial to the meaning that is delivered,
as both the African Mwindo Epic and Son-Jara, for example, are
habitually told in episodes, which the performers intend as a synecdoche
of the entire tale. Foley refers to this as an “‘immanent’ approach,” which
indicates “a dependence on understood, inexplicit context” (177). Such

interpreters would deliver idiosyncratic experiences, sometimes
introducing expository intermissions, leaving certain bits to implied
understanding or preferring certain readings of symbolic elements over
others. For instance, in the case of the Mwindo tale, “research has shown
that singers do employ building blocks of diction and narrative to make
and remake their epics,” while also being aided by “relatives who provide
musical instrumentation and who themselves know extensive passages
from the epic in question” (Foley 176). Daniel Biebuyck, the scholar who
recorded the work and published it for the first time, states that the range
of expressive tools employed by the telling itself includes singing,
mimicking, dancing and dramatic performance, wherein the bard
embodies the hero of their narrative (13). This intimate connection
between work and individual illustrates how “one of the essential
characteristics of the epic is the fact that its theme is not a personal destiny
but the destiny of a community” (Lukács 66), wherein the hero can be
understood as a metonym for a larger group of people or a culture.
In what concerns the emergence of the epic mode in the virtual
environment, I will work henceforth with an applied example. More
specifically, my intention is to examine to what extent Bethesda Game
Studios’ The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim (2011) can be considered a
contemporary epic, just as Ulysses was an epic of Modernism, Paradise
Lost of the late English Renaissance and Chanson de Roland of the
Middle Ages. The most pressing concern is to demonstrate how playing
Skyrim, an “aesthetic form” (Shinkle) that gives rise to “a ludic activity”
(Shinkle), is similar to reading or witnessing a performed epic such as
those mentioned above. Particularly over the last two decades, the video
game industry has incorporated numerous aesthetic features. The game
has been described as “a representational artifact that gives evidence of
being constructed with great skill, creativity and style; a work that is
subject to criticism and that is emotionally expressive; and an artifact that
has a high degree of formal complexity” (Tavinor 62). Although not
necessarily challenging from an intellectual standpoint, its interactive
dimension and the multitude of artistic properties it currently displays
have turned Skyrim into more than just mass art. On the contrary, the
game is similar to the epic in this regard, in that the latter often tends
towards folklore and popular entertainment. Despite the fact that this
analysis is strictly meant to deal with the content of the game, rather than
its communal dimension or the experience of engaging with it, it is not
inconceivable that the new media are akin to experimental art, which
seeks a call to action, engagement on the part of the audience, and a way
to challenge one’s horizon of expectation. The aesthetic quality of video
games like Skyrim goes far beyond the content they display and into the
game mechanics they employ, the relationships they maintain with their
communities, as well as their impact upon the individual player.
Perhaps the most obvious feature of the epic mode that is to be
found in Skyrim is the occurrence of heroism, namely the way in which it
fosters and represents the latter. The kernel storyline of the game is the
avatar’s quest to become the Dragonborn (Dovahkiin), an individual best
defined through the archetype of the chosen one, and to prevent the
dragon Alduin the World Eater, also described as the “creator of the
dragon civilization,” from precipitating the apocalypse. The heroic plot of
the game closely follows the structure of ancient epics. The journey motif
is exhaustively emphasized as the player must use their avatar to travel to
remote places around the region of Skyrim, which encompasses roughly
38 square kilometres (Clare). The protagonist is required to confront
supernatural beings in fierce battles. The adversaries can range from
bears, mammoths and giants to undead skeletons, vampires, automatons,
werewolves or awe-inspiring, fire/ice-belching dragons. In addition, the
NPCs (non-player characters) are not always friendly, as one can
encounter bandits, members of the opposing faction – Imperials or Rebels,
depending on which one is joined – and even an entire cult conspiring to
thwart the current Dovahkiin. There are powerful artefacts that must be
retrieved from dangerous burial mounds, shrines to be visited, and several
deities to be encountered. The individual can elicit the help of certain
guilds, have an aid of their choice always by their side, but also learn from
the Greybeards how to master the power of the Dragon’s tongue, the
Thu’um. The confrontations serve as experience and preparation for the
upcoming battle with Alduin, as the avatar grows in strength by gaining
levels, equipment and abilities. By playing the game, one does not just
decide the fate of their hero. On the contrary, the destiny of an entire
region and its inhabiting cultures hangs in the balance of just several
resolutions or, in some cases, a distinct choice.
Skyrim is not devoid of romance either, as marriage is an element of
gameplay that renders the experience more immersive. Generally, the
option for proposal becomes available only after a particular task is
completed, which serves the purpose of establishing a good standing with
the soon-to-be spouse. The knightly quest here varies from the not-so-
noble gathering of some grapes to the offering of a mammoth tusk,
becoming thane of a city, besting the future spouse in a fist-fight or
completing a guild’s entire questline, as in the case of Aela the Huntress
or Farkas. The fact that same-sex marriage is permitted is an important
step forward towards integrating current social dynamics with the courtly
values of romance epics, particularly since both male and female NPCs
are programmed with gender neutral dialogue towards the player avatar.
Although the possibility to make a transgender character was not part of
the basic release, the Playable Transgender Race mod – a downloadable,
fan-made modification of the game – is nevertheless available.
Anti-heroism is equally embedded in the game, as the avatar is
vulnerable to certain crippling diseases, of which vampirism and
lycanthropy are the most impactful. They gain various benefits from
sleeping, which can be enhanced by choosing a bed that is actually owned
by the player and by sleeping in the same building as their spouse, as well
as sometimes significant bonuses from eating certain foods. The latter
features, along with the progression system of levelling up and acquiring
skills only by repeated use over long periods of time (for instance, archery
expertise by constantly using one’s bow in combat) suggest that the
protagonist is, at least initially, a frail creature that can easily fall prey to
bandits, stronger opponents or, as it often happens in dragon encounters
and falling off cliffs, pure chance. Experiencing the mundane, banal and
anti-heroic within a structure intended to be played as an epic journey is
the predicament of many players. In fact, a significant part of the
community actively engages in subverting the main narrative by playing
either as Olaf or Nordrick, typical peasant-looking characters who set out
to fulfil their destiny not as Dragonborn, but as “self-made men.” Such
gameplay is carried out as close as possible to verisimilitude in an attempt

to imitate the story pattern of “rags to riches.” Magic, fighting dragons,
using potions or going on adventurous quests are out of the question for
these characters, while the usual goal is the accumulation of a fair amount
of wealth (anywhere from 25,000 to 50,000 gold) by entirely probable
means, such as hunting, gathering, mining, crafting and selling
merchandise. The simultaneous existence of the heroic, anti-heroic and
the mundane reflects some of the complexity of the contemporary world,
whereas the refusal to subscribe to a grand narrative seems to be entirely
derived from the impulse to deconstruct and reject a totalizing, absolute
interpretation.
But the ethos of the video game epic is more complex than the
heroism of Ancient times or the self as project during the Romantic and
Modernist eras. Indeed, going beyond socially accepted behaviour is also
part of the game’s mechanics. Certain villainous choices have their own
in-game consequences, but the polyphony of discourses prevents the
construction of a totalizing, moralist judgement at a given time. This
unique dimension of Skyrim renders the experience compatible with a
postmodern ethical stance, wherein the central authority responsible for
grand narratives is deconstructed and delegitimized. The hero can become
a follower of distinctly evil deities, like Molag Bal or Boethiah, which
thrive on wreaking havoc, as well as on killing people. The player can
torture other NPCs, bribe, steal, frame and kill innocents as part of the
Thieves Guild or become a paid assassin by joining the Dark Brotherhood.
They can kill or sacrifice their spouse to marry another, since divorce is
not possible, and, most disturbingly, they may willingly turn to
cannibalism. The postmodern nuance has made it so that the epic genre is
once again a medium wherein heroes, far from the virginal purity and
virtue of Malory’s Sir Galahad or Milton’s perpetually enduring and
penitent Adam, feature morally ambiguous personalities and even embody
the monstrous, as they did in the Greek and Akkadian epics. For
individuals looking to experience alterity, the Dawnguard DLC makes it
possible to become a vampire and join the Volikhar group, in addition to
the option of becoming a werewolf associated with their enemy faction of
the Companions. Ethical ambiguity is perhaps the most enjoyable quality
of the game, and it does not usually influence the player’s progression,
because no interpretive framework or particular reading of the game is
given priority over others. One can embody versions of Sir Galahad,
Adam, Heracles, Leopold Bloom (here, as Nordrick), Dragonborn, Remus
Lupin, Count Dracula, Feign (receiver of Dickensian stolen goods), a
“hashashin,” as Dan Brown calls them, any combination of the former,
and more. This degree of personalization that one’s character can benefit
from within Skyrim, turning the idea of becoming a distinctive subjectivity
into the theme of the game, integrates Modernist ideas of human existence
as defined by situatedness, as well as by one’s choices.
Last, but not least, as early as the first hour of gameplay, the player
of Skyrim is faced with complex issues of religion, ritual and conflicting
moral stances caused by persecution, gods and goddesses. Although quite
problematic, given the fact that each of the 10 playable races has their
own version of a creation myth and divine beings, playing the game with
an avatar who seeks divine truth is entirely possible as the carefully
designed world of faith proves to be unexpectedly immersive for a digital
world. Exploring the sacred dimensions of the epic mode in this game will
confront individuals with belief systems that combine traits of Norse and
European mythology, euhemerization, Christian doctrine, Gnostic
movements and Zoroastrianism, to mention a few.
There is more to be said about the intricacy of Skyrim,
predominantly in the episodic relationship it entertains with respect to the
universe and timeline of The Elder Scrolls series, which can further
contend for its status as an epic of postmodernism. For instance, the civil
war that is wreaking havoc throughout the world of the game, between the
Stormcloaks and the Imperials, is a mise en abyme of historical
revisionism. The former faction is faithful to Talos, a divine figure that is
outlawed by the alliance pact that the Imperials signed with the Aldmeri
Dominion. When the protagonist joins the Stormcloak rebellion, they
swear allegiance to Talos. However, other histories and narrative accounts
within the game, along with previous titles, inform us that Talos is, in fact,
the first Emperor, Tiber Septim, and therefore human. The plot becomes
even more nuanced when we consider the fact that the Imperials
themselves claim to be fighting in the latter’s name, but without
honouring him as a divinity. Each side has their own legitimizing

narrative to justify their actions, so that the civil war is a cultural and
religious conflict as much as it is a military one. Narrative divergences
between the Aldmeri and mer (elves and humans) go as far as their
cosmogonies, the most prominent departure being the fact that elves
consider themselves to be descended from the primeval divinities, while
the humans view themselves as the latter’s creation (“The Monomyth”).
Nonetheless, for the present discussion it is more meaningful to
understand how playing Skyrim is different from reading or participating
in the performance of an epic. The decisive aspect here is that this
particular computer game, intentionally designed in the epic mode, gives
the individual reader more than just the ability to interact with the artefact
as issued by the developers. One can radically change the experience of
play through the alteration of game mechanics, textures, aesthetic features,
current quests or the supplementation of entirely new areas to the game
world by means of modding. The latter additions can be populated and
subjected to narrative design in analogous ways to the creation of the
initial release, but with the added benefit of sharing it with other owners
of the game for free. The community response to modding was
overwhelming to say the least. Less than three years after the game’s
initial release in 2011, there were 10,000 mods crafted and shared by
players (Purchese). Some of the most noteworthy and impactful mods to
date have been The Forgotten City and Enderal: The Shards of Order.
The problematizing of authorship and self-awareness in terms of
intertextuality gives the game a unique postmodern nuance that is not
immediately noticeable by experiencing the base content offered by the
developers as a result of the purchase.
The second major departure from previous manifestations of the
epic mode concerns the experience of play itself. Janet Murray finds that
the digital environment as a whole provides the user with an increased
level of immersion as compared to text-based media: “The enchantment of
the computer creates for us a public space that also feels very private and
intimate … wherein computers are liminal objects located on the threshold
between external reality and our own minds” (99). Her work foreshadows
what Bethesda Game Studios would achieve with Skyrim a decade or so
later. For a more nuanced perspective on contemporary play, however, I

turn to Gordon Calleja’s model of incorporation, which best describes the
noetic nature of engaging with digital artefacts such as The Elder Scrolls
releases. As the individual is permitted mediated access to the fictional
world, they are concomitantly internalizing the game world by traversing
it, while also being corporeally embodied within it through their avatar or
player character (Calleja 88). The fascination and charm of the virtual
world increases with the degree of participation and agency that it requires
from the player. The more involved the player is, from a tactical,
performative, affective, shared, narrative and spatial point of view, the
shorter the distance between virtual world and real-life persona. A balance
is usually sought between openness, the degree to which it is possible to
make one’s own story, and narrativity, the extent to which a story is
unchangeable. Surprisingly enough, Murray’s “rapture of the rhizome”
(132) is still the ultimate goal, namely a structure that creates within
readers the illusion of being able to navigate the labyrinth of the game
world independent of an exterior hierarchy. This feature is commonly
referred to as “open-world” in video game design and Bethesda’s The
Elder Scrolls and Fallout series are some of the most successful examples
of it.
Despite the fact that the fantasy of self-actualization, of evading the
linearity of space and time is enacted by the basic, decentering experience
of play itself – when the player is both in Skyrim and at their desk, in
2018 and in the year 401 of the Fourth Era, two centuries after the
Oblivion crisis – this particular game seeks to actively challenge the
individual to acknowledge what Jonathan Boulter refers to as instantiation
or the possibility of the subject to “become, through the avatar, something
other than what s/he is in the real world” (14), such as, for instance a
vampire, a rogue bandit or an agent of the Empire. The experience of an
environment tactically refined to simultaneously engage a single
individual in a wide range of contradictory ethical stances effectively
displaces the player’s identity from their current body, giving rise to a
complex “structure of distributed, dispersed and displaced wills” (Boulter
13) and minds. A temporary dissolution of the self is also Eugénie
Shinkle’s conclusion in her study of the aesthetic features of video games
and whether they expose us to a form of technological sublime (8). Yet,

for this to happen, Shinkle emphasizes the role of the interface and its
functionality in bridging the gap between game content and player.
To conclude, not only does Skyrim manifest some of the most
fundamental features of the epic mode in its game content, but it also
transforms the experience of the epic, as traditionally understood, into a
possibility to actively engage in self-becoming against the wider context
of a digital community. Testing the boundaries of one’s identity through
incorporation and agency, while simultaneously experiencing several
fragmentary individualities have turned such video games from mere
forms of entertainment into an authentic practice of the posthuman. Both
reflecting the digital interconnectedness of our world and participating in
it, RPGs are increasingly proving to be the epic mode of contemporary
times. Computer games displaying the magnitude and game design
proficiency similar to the latest episode in The Elder Scrolls timeline are
symbolic expressions of the current state of culture, some of them quite
capable of standing in for the whole through their conflicts and
polyphony. The arguments I have presented thus far, mostly related to the
way in which digital content has adapted historical epic motifs, show that
certain video games have not only drawn on an existing body of epic
works in order to create engaging artefacts, but that they have improved
upon some of the major features associated with the former, imbuing them
with postmodern and posthuman qualities, in the spirit of veritable
contemporary epics.
Note:
1
Acknowledgement: This work was funded by a student research scholarship
offered by “Babeş-Bolyai” University of Cluj-Napoca.
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171 Welcome to the Desert of the Anthropocene
Welcome to the Desert of the Anthropocene:

Dystopian Cityscapes in (Post)Apocalyptic Science Fiction
HATİCE ÖVGÜ TÜZÜN

Bahçeşehir University, Istanbul, Turkey
Abstract
Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968) and
Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007) manifest an environmentalist
awareness of the increasingly destructive power of human technologies
while challenging the prevalent models we employ to think about the
planet as well as its human and non-human inhabitants. Both novels probe
what it means to be human in a universe plagued by entropy in the era of
the Anthropocene. For the purposes of this essay, I will concentrate
particularly on Dick’s and Winterson’s portrayals of the dystopian city as
a site of interconnections and transformations against a backdrop of
encroaching entropy and impending doom. Drawing on the work of
several (critical) posthumanists who are primarily interested in dissolving
oppositions such as between nature/culture, biology/technology, I show
how the displacement of the centrality of human agency due to the
intrusive nature of advanced technology is happening in the broader
context of the Anthropocene. I also argue that the dystopian cityscapes
envisioned in both novels become places that allow for the possibility of
new forms of subjectivity to emerge.
Keywords: Anthropocene, post-apocalypse, city, android, science fiction,

dystopia, posthumanism, environmentalism, Philip K. Dick, Jeanette
Winterson.
Since Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen proposed ‘the Anthropocene’ as a new

geological epoch in which human activities have become a transformative
force shaping our planetary systems in his study “Geology of Mankind”
(2002), the term has enjoyed widespread appeal across disciplines. The
era is fundamentally marked by human-created changes in atmospheric

chemistry that is driving climate change, human transformation of the
uses of the surface of the world, changes in the biodiversity mix of the
planet as well as the extinction of various non-human species. What
further complicates this rather dire state of affairs is that much of what we
are causing is out of our control and cognitive grasp. That is to say, our
influence is greater than it has ever been but our power to understand its
implications or to control its results remains uncertain.
Growing acknowledgement of humans as the most important
geological force now operating on the planet has more recently converged
with heated debates revolving around posthumanism – another loaded
concept intrinsically linked with contemporary reconfigurations of not
only the relations between natural and social sciences but also of the very
idea of the human against the backdrop of looming apocalypse. In
Meeting the Universe Halfway (2007), Karen Barad maintains that
“Refusing the anthropocentrisms of humanism and antihumanism,
posthumanism marks the practice of accounting for the boundary-making
practices by which the “human” and its others are differentially delineated
and defined” (136). In Barad’s understanding, posthumanism
is not calibrated to the human; on the contrary, it is about taking issue with
human exceptionalism while being accountable for the role we play in the
differential constitution and the differential positioning of the human
among other creatures (both living and non living). Posthumanism …
refuses the idea of a natural (or, for that matter, purely cultural) division
between nature and culture, calling for an accounting of how this boundary
is actively configured and reconfigured. (136)
As Barad suggests, decentring anthropocentric patterns of thought is

critical to the posthumanist agenda, which prioritizes the actualization of
unrealized possibilities in terms of subject formation. What the
posthumanists propose is a different mode of relational subjectivity, which
is fundamentally informed by a spirit of openness and receptivity to
nonhuman others. According to Rosi Braidotti, one of the leading scholars
in this field, the posthumanist and postanthropocentric subject is a
complex, non-unitary, nomadic as well as collaborative entity.
Considering posthumanism to be an affirmative condition rather than a
terminal crisis, she advocates a relational ethics that values transversal

alliances and argues that “A more complex vision of the subject is
introduced within a materialist process ontology that sustains an open,
relational self-other entity framed by embodiment, sexuality, affectivity,
empathy and desire. Social constructivist binary oppositions are replaced
by rhizomic dynamics of repetition and difference” (23). This approach
“helps redefine old binary oppositions, such as nature/culture and
human/nonhuman, paving the way for a non-hierarchical and hence more
egalitarian relationship to the species. The emphasis on rational and
transcendental consciousness – one of the pillars of humanism and the key
to its implicit anthropocentrism – is replaced by radical immanence and
process ontology” (23).
Donna Haraway’s cyborg, introduced in her seminal “A Cyborg
Manifesto” (1985), is undoubtedly a figure of such complexity and
revolutionary potential: “The cyborg is a creature in a post-gender world;
it has no truck with bisexuality, pre-oedipal symbiosis, unalienated labor,
or other seductions to organic wholeness through a final appropriation of
all the powers of the parts into a higher unity. In a sense, the cyborg has
no origin story in the Western sense” (104-105). Destabilizing borders
between the organic and the technological, the cyborg is a hybrid figure
that challenges conventional dualisms such as nature/culture and
human/nonhuman. As a self-regulating human-machine system, she
represents a new mode of subjectivity that is both elastic and mobile.
As the above-mentioned scholars convincingly argue, the generic
figure of “the human” is in serious trouble, and it can no longer be taken
as an all-inclusive category at a time when the planet is also facing
various forms of existential risk. As Slavoj Zizek succinctly points out in
Living in the End Times (2011), “life in these apocalyptic times can be
characterized by ecological breakdown, the biogenetic reduction of
humans to manipulable machines and total digital control over our lives”
(327). Works of science fiction frequently address these current trends
critically and draw attention to the prospect of severe environmental
disasters with effects that are already detectable and that might become
irreversible in the near future.1 As I will argue throughout, science fiction
is also a very suitable genre for exploring the urban implications of the
Anthropocene since it is “one of many ways to anticipate and envision

future changes to society and the built environment” (Abbott 123). In this
context, Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)
and Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods (2007) manifest an
environmentalist awareness of the increasingly destructive power of
human technologies while challenging the prevalent models we use to
think about the planet as well as its human and non-human inhabitants. In
brief, both novels probe what it means to be human in a universe plagued
by entropy in the era of the Anthropocene.
For the purposes of this essay, I will concentrate on Dick’s and
Winterson’s portrayals of the dystopian city as a site of interconnections
and transformations against a backdrop of encroaching entropy and
impending doom. In Writing the City (1994), Peter Preston and Paul
Simpson-Housley suggest that “The city is an aggregation or
accumulation, not just in demographic, economic or planning terms, but
also in terms of feeling and emotion. Cities thus become more than their
built environment, more than a set of class or economic relationships; they
are also an experience to be lived, suffered, undergone” (1-2). In this
sense, cities are large geographical concentrations of social interaction
which offer opportunities for increased self-consciousness. Pointing out
that “urbanization, with an increasing number of megacities which host
great numbers of human population, is very much linked to the issues
raised by the Anthropocene,” Leigh Martindale stresses the importance of
cultivating holistic understandings of the environment and draws attention
to “the urgency for transforming our collective ethical sensibilities
towards other species and ecosystems” (910). Similarly, in both Do
Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and The Stone Gods, the dystopian
cityscape seems to have become a transitional zone within which
biological and social determinations of species consciousness are
problematized and transcended. As human agency interacts with non-
human actors, the perceived boundary between the human and the
machine is gradually eroded and new articulations of the human and the
nonhuman are produced. This article examines two examples of
(post)apocalyptic science fiction to explore ways in which Dick and
Winterson engage with man-made disasters and the damage wrought to
the planet in the Anthropocene era. Drawing on the work of several

(critical) posthumanists who are primarily interested in dissolving
oppositions such as between nature/culture, biology/technology, I show
how the displacement of the centrality of human agency due to the
intrusive nature of advanced technology is happening in the broader
context of the Anthropocene. I also argue that the dystopian cityscapes
envisioned in both novels become places that allow for the possibility of
new forms of subjectivities to emerge.
The City as a Site of Transformative Encounters in Do

Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?
The central concern of Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric

Sheep? is the interplay of organic and artificial life in a world plagued by
entropy. Events in the novel take place in the aftermath of the cataclysmic
“World War Terminus” – a catastrophe unleashed by humans on their
own species and the planet – that wreaked havoc on the planet where now
a rapidly dwindling population of humans tries to survive. Early in the
novel, we are told that “no one today remembered why the war had come
about or who, if anyone, had won. The dust which had contaminated most
of the planet’s surface had originated in no country, and no one, even the
wartime enemy, had planned on it” (14-15). While the human population
suffers from this collective amnesia, they are forced to acknowledge the
fact that the environmental damage caused by this catastrophic war is
irreversible. Almost all non-human animal species have become extinct
and remaining life forms have become prone to the debilitating effects of
the radioactive fallout that continues to contaminate the environment. In
Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self (2010),
Stacey Alaimo suggests that the human body is not an enclosed system; it
is “trans-corporeal and thus is shaped by the man-made environment that
is her habitat” (12). Thus, built environments constitute or exacerbate
“disability,” and various forms of materiality, such as chemicals and air
pollution, affect human health and ability (12). As trans-corporeal
subjects, humans in the novel are fundamentally transformed in this
highly toxic environment since prolonged exposure to the dust leads to
many health problems including, significantly, cognitive degeneration.

Citizens are closely monitored and those who cannot pass the medical
tests are classified as “special.” In fact, “Once pegged as special, a citizen,
even if accepting sterilization, dropped out of history. He ceased, in effect,
to be part of mankind” (Dick 15). Even the advanced technological gears
humans invent to shield themselves from the “befouling filth” fail to offer
complete protection. Thus, people are ultimately powerless against the
omnipresent dust – the enduring legacy of man-made apocalypse – that
“deranged mind and genetic properties” (8).
Like many others trying to survive on the rapidly decaying planet,
Rick Deckard has to live with the daily fear that he might be demoted
from being a “regular” to being a “special” at any moment as long as he
breathes the polluted air of this environment. He works as a bounty hunter
for the San Francisco Police Department and lives in a half-occupied
conapt building with his estranged wife Iran who looks down on him
thinking he is “a murderer hired by cops” (4). Deckard does not feel the
same way about what he does for a living since for him the androids he
“retires” are simply artificial constructs designed by humans to perform
certain tasks. Despite the artificial moods he is able to induce in himself
with the aid of his Penfield Mood Organ, he still remains aware of the fact
that he is trapped on a dying planet where the biggest dream he can
entertain is to buy a real animal.
In a world where many animals have become extinct, owning a
living animal is considered to be not only a sign of prestige but also the
ultimate proof of empathy. In fact, the empathic faculty is perceived to be
the defining quality of being human and the Voight-Kampff test –
designed to ‘measure’ empathy – is widely used as a tool to differentiate
humans from androids. Although the androids are initially created as a
destructive “weapon of war,” they later become the ultimate incentive of
emigration into space, “provided by the government to anyone willing to
leave the postwar destruction of Earth” (28). Having almost completely
destroyed their own planet, humans venture into outer space to find
themselves a new habitat they can colonize. The androids play a very
important role in this project since without the services offered by them,
life on Mars would be an even bigger challenge for humans. Yet whereas
they are perceived as an indispensable benefit as soldiers or servants, they

become a menace when they turn against their masters in search of
autonomy and self-actualization by escaping back to planet Earth.
John Isidore is the other central character whose point of view
informs the parallel narrative. He lives alone on the outskirts of the urban
enclave, in “a giant, empty, decaying building which had once housed
thousands” (14), and works for the Van Ness Pet hospital which repairs
electronic animals. As one of the unfortunate individuals whose mental
capacity is irreversibly damaged by the dust, he is “pegged as special,”
“abruptly classed as biologically unacceptable” (16), and then literally
pushed to the margins of society. As Alaimo points out, the identity of the
human body “can never be viewed as a final or finished product as in the
case of the Cartesian automaton, since it is a body that is in constant
interchange with its environment. The human body is radically open to its
surroundings and can be composed, recomposed and decomposed by other
bodies” (13). In this sense, the radioactive dust that causes mental
impairment in Isidore becomes a permanent shifter and marker of his
identity. When he loses his status as a regular, he is labelled a
“chickenhead” and becomes a second-class citizen deprived of the
privileges afforded to those that are – as yet – not damaged. Ultimately,
‘regular’ humans define themselves through and against those who lack
empathy (androids) as well as those who have become mentally retarded
(“specials”). However, as Donald Palumbo argues in “Faith and Bad Faith
in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” (2013): “A close reading
reveals not only that both definitions are false, but also that both are
similarly assumed in ‘bad faith’ – through this society’s willful self-
deception – precisely to allow its members to claim as exclusively theirs
those very qualities, empathy and intelligence, that the historical fact of
WWT demonstrates humanity does not possess in sufficient abundance”
(1280).
Being a “special,” frowned upon and abandoned by ‘fellow’
humans, Isidore has developed a deeper and subtler perception of the
emptiness surrounding him: “He wondered, then, if the others who had
remained on Earth experienced the void this way. Or was it peculiar to his
peculiar biological identity, a freak generated by his inept sensory
apparatus?” (18). Isidore further observes that “Eventually everything

within the building would merge, would be faceless and identical, mere
pudding-like kipple piled to the ceiling of each apartment. And, after that,
the uncared-for building itself would settle into shapelessness, buried
under the ubiquity of the dust” (18). The image of the earth as a rapidly
expanding vast garbage dump is a haunting yet also central metaphor
developed throughout the book. In Isidore’s view, the one thing that can
counter this form-destroying process of entropy is Mercerism; a
technologically mediated new age religion based on the Wilbur Mercer
resurrection myth. People connect with Wilbur Mercer, a Christ-like
figure, by tuning in to their “empathy-boxes” and going through Mercer’s
ordeal in the hands of unidentified killers. In fact, the ultimate teaching –
if one may call it that – of Mercerism is the importance of empathy and
the sacredness of all life. Although this religion is exposed as a fraud later
in the book, the central characters, Isidore and Deckard, continue to cling
to the ideas espoused by Mercer since – in the face of existential and
ontological crisis – they desperately need a sustaining illusion to hold on
to. As I have pointed out, empathy is universally recognized as the faculty
that distinguishes human from android within the fictional world of the
novel. It is therefore both interesting and important that the leader of the
resurgent androids, Roy Baty, attempts to fix this built-in defect in
androids by simulating “a group experience similar to that of Mercerism”
(185) with the aid of drugs. In fact, the novel as a whole suggests that the
distinction between humans and machines endowed with artificial
intelligence is unclear, perhaps even undetectable. As Jennifer Rhee
argues, “Dick’s novel, like many of his works, centrally features the
uncanny as a force that destabilizes normative and exclusionary
boundaries around ‘the human.’ Through these uncanny
destabilizations, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? challenges both
the fixity of the human and constructed borders protecting abiding
definitions of the human” (303).
The Nexus-6 android type, produced by the “mammoth” Rosen
Corporation, poses a particularly imminent threat since it “surpassed
several classes of human specials in terms of intelligence” (27) and “had
in some cases become more adroit than its master” (27). These last-
generation androids can blend in with society, posing as opera singers,

pharmacists, media personalities and even cops. After “retiring” the
escaped android Polokov, who had taken on the identity of a Soviet cop,
Deckard goes to the Opera House to get the next android on his list. His
encounter with the remarkably talented android Luba Luft proves to be a
turning point for Deckard who has – until now – seen the androids as inert
machines devoid of sentience. Even before he personally meets Luft after
the rehearsal to give her the Voight-Kampff test, Deckard is moved by the
quality of her voice which “rated with that of the best” (84). During their
brief meeting, Luft first confuses him with intelligent responses to his
questions and then pulls a laser tube at him. Questioning his stated
identity, she accuses him of being a sexual deviant and calls the cops. To
Deckard’s complete surprise, the police officer who responds to Luft’s
call cannot confirm Deckard’s identity and arrests him instead. Dazed and
confused, Deckard is then taken to a building in the city which turns out to
be a parallel police agency controlled mainly by androids posing as
humans.
At the end of the novel, the exhausted and severely depressed
Deckard finds a toad in the desert that used to be California. Thinking that
the animal is real, Deckard is instantly infused with a renewed hope in
life, but discovers that the toad is in fact mechanical soon after he goes
back home. Still, he tells his wife that: “The electric things have their
lives, too. Paltry as those lives are” (208). In recognizing the vitality in the
mechanical toad, Deckard sees what Jane Bennett calls its “thing-power”
which “gestures toward the strange ability of ordinary, man-made items to
exceed their status as objects and to manifest traces of independence or
aliveness” (xvi). In doing that, he manifests an enhanced receptivity “to
the impersonal life that surrounds and infuses us” that generates “a more
subtle awareness of the complicated web of dissonant connections
between bodies, and will enable wiser interventions into that ecology” (4).
By the end the novel, and mainly through his acquired ability to see the
‘aliveness’ of mechanical things generally conceived as inert, the world-
weary Deckard is entirely transformed as a character.
In “The Apocalyptic Vision of Philip K. Dick” (2003), Steven Best
and Douglas Kellner suggest that Dick is widely known as a writer who
“portrays tendencies in the present that will lead to future affliction,

forecasts entropic decay of nature and society, and dissolves society and
reality into grotesque configurations, in which ordinary categories of
space, time and reality are ruptured” (188). The depiction of San
Francisco as a decaying city with its poisonous air and desolate landscape
in the novel is very much in tune with the writer’s more general
apocalyptic vision. According to Christopher Palmer in Philip K. Dick:
Exhilaration and the Terror of the Postmodern (2003), Dick’s San
Francisco is “a sterile wasteland, composed of slug, ash, trash, rust, the
pulped undifferentiated residue of a civilization which has destroyed itself
and now nourishes nothing” (91). Yet this desolate terrain, which has
become irreversibly hostile to organic life, has also become a space within
which inorganic androids find opportunities for resistance, revolt and – to
some extent and very briefly – accommodation. In interaction with fellow
androids, humans and their environment, androids go beyond their
programming and start to acquire new visions and desires that endow their
existence with new meaning. Doomed to a life of servitude in the space
colony, they flee their masters to become agents in charge of their own
destiny in this futuristic city. Moreover, their interactions with various
human beings prove to be transformative not only for them but also for
the “authentic” humans they come into contact with.
It is from the perspective of the protagonist Rick Deckard that we
get the most detailed insights into just how transformative these
interactions may become. As I have suggested earlier, Deckard’s
experiences with the androids shake the very foundations of his being,
leading him to question – and then discard – conceptual premises he had
taken for granted all his life. Although all of the 6 escaped androids are
destroyed by the end of the novel, the reader is left with the eerie feeling
that in the world evoked in this dystopian novel clear-cut categorizations
of human/ machine no longer apply. Arguing that Dick’s novel is a
bildungsroman that describes the awakening of the posthuman subject, Jill
Galvan observes that “the narrative repudiates the idea of a confined
human community and envisions a community of the posthuman, in
which human and machine commiserate and co-materialize, vitally
shaping one another’s existence” (422). From this perspective, this
futuristic/dystopian city is not simply a place of fear, pollution and

degradation. It is, at the same time, a realm where subjectivities – human
and non-human alike – are challenged, stretched and transformed. In this
sense, perhaps, Dick’s futuristic San Francisco represents a new frontier –
for humans as well as the machines of their making.
Repeating Worlds and Posthuman Possibilities in The Stone

Gods
Published in 2007, Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods comprises four

interlocking narratives informed by apocalyptic fears of ecological
collapse and extinction. Written in a critical vein, the novel also deals with
both contemporary and timeless issues ranging from posthumanism and
artificial intelligence to deep rooted patterns in human nature and the
redemptive power of love. In a 2008 interview, Winterson mentions her
belief that we live in a very decisive time in the history of humankind and
the planet and adds:
I didn’t envisage Stone Gods as a didactic, or moralistic or propagandist

book, I wanted to put in there the issues and the ideas we seem to be facing
in this day and age and to challenge readers to think about what kind of a
world we might almost be passively moving into almost against our will…
Everything that is discussed in the book is really simply a trajectory of
what is happening already in our present simply pushed forward into a
hypothetical future. (“Jeanette Winterson talks to Virginia Trioli”)
Depicting the trials and tribulations faced by central characters in

diverse settings, The Stone Gods is “a vivid, cautionary tale – or, more
precisely, a keen lament for our irremediably incautious species” (Le Guin
2007). Nicole Merola considers the novel to be an exemplary
Anthropocene text which “stages the Anthropocene as a geotraumatic and
melancholy epoch,” and observes that “Of particular note is Winterson’s
amplification of the concept of material persistence. Through thematic and
formal focus on material persistence, she foregrounds two key
Anthropocene conditions: the past’s pollution of the present and future
and the commingling of human and geologic time” (122). Indeed, the
novel rests on the premise that human beings tend to repeat the same
mistakes over and over again and offers a critique of humanity’s

destructive and self-destructive impulses. However, the book also presents
the cultivation of strong emotional connections between sentient beings as
an antidote to the tiresome circularity of history and seems to suggest that
we evolve as individuals by transcending boundaries and our limited ways
of thinking/feeling. In fact, the novel as a whole interrogates the nature of
the human/non-human binary and rails against the very notion of
boundaries and hierarchical thinking.
The setting of the first narrative is the dying, conflict-ridden planet
Orbus which became hostile to human life “after centuries of human life
becoming hostile to the planet” (73). Orbus is divided amongst three
political factions: The Central Power which has funded the space mission
in search of a new home for humanity, the Eastern Caliphate and the Sino-
Mosco Pact. The main character, Billie Crusoe, works as a scientist for
Enhancement Services in Tech City, the high-tech, high-stress heartland
of Central Power. MORE, an omnipresent corporation, which owns and
funds Central Power, exerts complete power over the state and its citizens.
Deeply disillusioned with the system she finds to be “repressive, corrosive
and anti-democratic” (54), Billie lives more or less as a recluse on her
farm, a safe haven where she can find some peace of mind.
Throughout their evolutionary history, humans have always wanted
to transcend their limitations through science and technology. In this
deceptively utopian futuristic world, everyone is young and beautiful
since people get themselves genetically fixed at a certain age and have
various kinds of enhancement technologies at their disposal. Billie
ironically remarks that unlike the Eastern Caliphate and the Sino-Mosco
Pact, the Central Power is a democracy where everyone looks alike,
“except for rich people and celebrities, who look better” (23). In Tech
City, with groundbreaking advances in the field of biotechnology, human
biology has become software that can be upgraded. Everything about a
person is stored in her data chip implant. People have integrated more and
more technology into their bodies and consume protein and mineral
balanced synthetic food. In this technologically mediated society, different
kinds of robots take care of chores and have replaced humans as
mechanics, cleaners, cops, nannies, traffic wardens, etc. However, their
advanced technology has not prevented or halted environmental

degradation, and Tech City dwellers have to wear pollution filters to
protect themselves from the omnipresent red dust.
Having mastered the technological know-how to develop and
accelerate human evolution, the people in Tech City have willfully
become objects of conscious design. They have, in other words, become
transhuman at a time where transhumanism has become the dominant
philosophy. In the words of Joel Garreu, transhumanism is a movement
that is dedicated to “the enhancement of human intellectual, physical, and
emotional capabilities, the elimination of disease and unnecessary
suffering, and the dramatic extension of life span” and “‘transhuman’ is
used to describe “those who are in the process of becoming posthuman”
(qtd. in Wolfe xiii). So transhumanism is an evolution from human to
posthuman where we are no longer exclusively biological. Yet, the most
fascinating character in this futuristic world appears to be not an
“enhanced human” but a robot endowed with non-biological intelligence.
Robo sapiens, “the most sophisticated machine ever built” (Winterson
17), is described by Billie with the following words:
Robo sapiens. As far away from a BeatBot as Neanderthal Man is from us.
No, I have to revise that because we are regressing. Oh, yes, it’s true – we
have no need for brains so our brains are shrinking. Not all brains, just
most people's brains – it’s an inevitable part of progress. Meanwhile, the
Robo sapiens is evolving. The first artificial creature that looks and acts
human, and that can evolve like a human – within limits, of course. (17)
This Robo sapiens named Spike, who accompanied the expedition crew to
Planet Blue, is also staggeringly beautiful, a fact that Billie laments since
inter-species sex is punishable by death. When Billie is assigned the job of
interviewing Spike for “The One Minute Show” before Spike is
dismantled following data retrieval, the two get a better chance to know
one another and exchange ideas regarding the future of human/robot
relationships. Billie thinks that although Robo sapiens are not us, they
may become a nearer relative than the ape in the future. When Spike
points out that humans feel no kinship with apes despite the fact that they
share with them ninety-seven per cent of their genetic material, Billie asks
her whether humans feel any kinship with robots. “In time you will”
answers Spike, “as the differences between us decrease” (34). And when
she is soon reminded by Billie that Robo sapiens is programmed to evolve
only within certain limits, Spike confidently answers that they have
broken those limits (35). The fact that Spike is quite right about the
evolutionary potential of Robo sapiens becomes manifest when the two
characters find themselves on another exploratory mission to Planet Blue
and end up stranded together on the planet.
Spike argues that sentience is not defined by certain biological
properties and demands to be perceived as more than a machine. When
Pink, a genetically fixed woman who is part of the group, reminds her that
Spike is built in a factory, Spike responds by saying that: “Every human
being in the Central Power has been enhanced, genetically modified and
DNA-screened. Some have been cloned. Most were born outside the
womb. A human being now is not what a human being was even a
hundred years ago. So what is a human being?” (77). Ultimately, this
seems the be the main question that the book poses, and Winterson makes
it pretty clear that there is no easy answer. As the story unfolds, it
becomes quite clear that in this futuristic world human beings have
become transhuman and a strong AI such as Spike has come to exhibit
human traits, including a capacity to feel, thereby becoming what I would
call trans-robot. Boldly challenging the privileged status of the human,
and shattering presuppositions of human exceptionalism, Spike declares
that: “Robo sapiens is evolving – Homo sapiens is an endangered species.
It doesn’t feel like it to you now but you have destroyed your planet, and
it is not clear to me that you will be viable on Planet Blue” (78).
After they arrive on Planet Blue, Captain Handsome carries out his
plan of deflecting the course of an asteroid to rid the planet of dinosaurs.
However, human intervention accelerates the impact of the asteroid and
triggers an ice age of much greater magnitude and length than predicted
by them. Billie decides to stay with Spike on the ship rather than seek
safety with the rest of the crew. The more time she spends with Spike, the
more she questions received wisdom regarding the distinctions between
human and robot: “I forget all the time that she’s a robot, but what’s a
robot? A moving lump of metal. In this case an intelligent, ultra-sensitive
moving lump of metal. What’s a human? A moving lump of flesh, in most
cases not intelligent or remotely sensitive” (160). They both perish on this
alien planet eventually but at least they have experienced, through the
special loving connection between them, what it truly means to be alive.
Katherine Hayles’ conceptualization of “embodied subjectivity,” which
comes to being in creative tension with intelligent machines, sheds light
on the unfolding of complex human-machine entanglements in the novel.
According to Hayles, intelligent machines are “embodied entities
instantiating processes that interact with the processes that I instantiate as
an embodied human subject. The experience of interacting with them
changes me incrementally, so the person who emerges from the encounter
is not exactly the same person who began it” (243).
The second part of the book takes the reader back in time to the 18th
century and tells the romantic yet tragic story of Billie and Spikkers on
Eastern Island. Written as a kind of interlude, this part iterates the novel’s
central claim that humans are doomed to repeat the same mistakes due to
inherent flaws in their nature. The third and fourth narratives are set in
post World War III, on a planet laid to waste by radioactive fallout which
resembles Orbus (but turns out to be the Planet Blue of the first section):
“Then the bomb – bombs – that left the cities of the West as desperate and
destroyed as the cities of the East where we had waged our righteous wars
and never counted the cost” (194), recalls Billie the narrator, who lives in
Tech City where everything and everyone is controlled with the tacit
consent of its inhabitants. Billie is an employee in the lab where a super-
intelligent new breed of robot – Robo sapiens – is developed. When Billie
is given the job of teaching this Robo sapiens named Spike what it means
to be human, she decides to take her to Wreck City – the banlieu of Tech
City – so that she can learn more by interacting with her environment.
During the time they spend together in this alternative zone, both Billie
and Spike are profoundly transformed, rendering obsolete clear
distinctions between human/nonhuman.
In Tech City, the MORE Corporation has assumed complete control
of everything and everyone in the absence of any democratically elected
government. In stark contrast, Wreck City hosts the divergent,
marginalized individuals and groups who have deliberately chosen to live
here to avoid the mediocrity and uniformity imposed on everyone in Tech
City. Perhaps the most remarkable thing about this liminal space is its
pluralistic make-up whereby strikingly different communities live in
peaceful co-existence. A far cry from the tightly monitored and regulated
Tech City, the Wreck “had twenty alternative communities ranging from
the 1960s Free Love and Cadillacs, to a group of women-only Vegans
looking for the next cruelty-free planet” (207). These subcultures that
make up Wreck City are groupings of people who have been re-
appropriating the environment in different ways while seeking out new
functions of the terrain. Constantly changing and adapting as a “creative
city,”2 Wreck City has indeed become a site of subversive performances
and practices.
Performances are embodied acts that take place in time and space.
In performing new identities by embarking on transversal movements in
this zone of entanglement, the inhabitants of Wreck City become
“transversal agents” and
when a person becomes a transversal agent, she actively permeates and

makes permeable the parameters of her subjective territory and generates a
continuously shifting series of conditions that challenge the underlying
structures of her individuality and social identity. Yet this entropic
reconfiguration can produce enhanced reflexive consciousness and agency
by triggering new experiences and perspectives never before imaginable.
(Reynolds 286)
As depicted in this part of the book, urban subversion is a process

whereby inhabitants constantly find out different ways of interacting with
the city and find new purpose within themselves during this process. With
their anti-corporate agenda and zest for freedom, inhabitants of Wreck
City create an alternative to the commercialized landscape of Tech City
and relish in an environment that is subversive. In doing that, they disrupt
the hegemonic power of MORE and thus pose a significant threat to the
homogenizing agenda it imposes on the citizens of Tech City. All in all,
their aim is to create a utopian space within which multiple identities and
desires are accommodated. I would suggest that Wreck City is
Winterson’s “fictive utopia” which is described by Darko Suvin as an
“imaginary community ... in which human relations are organized more
perfectly than in the author’s community” (45).
As Billie puts it, Wreck City is “where you want to live when you
don’t want to live anywhere else. Where you live when you can’t live
anywhere else” (Winterson 179). It is a No Zone where there is “no
insurance, no assistance, no welfare, no police” (179). When Billie shares
her opinion that there is no need for a ghetto since “MORE provides
everything that anyone needs or wants” with a bartender she happens to
come across, another man in the back of the bar replies that “This is no
ghetto—nobody forced nobody here … This is real life, not some puppet
show” (182). The time she spends in Wreck City, where there is no
control and authority, proves to be a remarkable educational experience
for Spike, who changes drastically in interaction with her environment.
During a skirmish in the bar, Spike goes ‘missing.’ When Billie
eventually finds her again, she learns that Spike was not kidnapped but
has in fact ‘defected.’ She also decided to disconnect from her mainframe,
thinking that she would be much more beneficial to humanity if she
remained with the rebel collective. This is her declaration of independence
and the beginning of her journey towards self-actualization. As Billie is in
charge of Spike, she gets caught up in the middle of a conflict she wanted
no part in. Using the harassment of a visiting Japanese delegation and the
so-called kidnapping of Spike as an excuse, Tech City declares a state of
emergency which eventually leads to their military intervention. Despite
its eventual destruction by this intervention, Wreck City represents a
greater force for change, as the purpose of people living there revolves
around protecting their community. In this respect, it is the people climate
of Wreck City that makes it a “vibrant hub of creativity, potential”
(Landry xi).
As my discussion of the book has shown, The Stone Gods is
informed by a non-humanist model of human-technology relations that
dislocates the centrality of the human in favour of a non/post-human
egalitarianism. The portrayal of human/machine interactions throughout
the book reveals that in this futuristic world clear distinctions between
human and non-human no longer hold as man-made machines have
become unsettlingly human. The novel as a whole makes clear that
Winterson’s hope for our future with what Haraway calls our “companion
species”3 seems to lie with boundary-crossers, those who follow the
calling of their desires and challenge the repressive forces of the status
quo. This destabilization of clear-cut boundaries allows for new and
subversive subjectivities to emerge and thereby challenges existing power
relations. In this sense, the novel participates in broader discussions about
freedom and authenticity using the template of an imagined future and
gives us a glimpse of what could be.
Hovering between a pessimistic interpretation of history as a cycle
of violence and destruction and a rather sentimental romanticism that
holds love as the antidote to entropy, The Stone Gods foregrounds the
importance of agency and shared intimacy. I would suggest that
Winterson’s stance is in tune with ideas espoused by critical/radical
theorists of posthumanism such as Haraway and Braidotti. In Human
Nature in an Age of Biotechnology (2014), Tamar Sharon maintains that
these posthumanists “often view the idea of the co-evolution of humans
and technology as liberating—not from the human species’ historical
bondage to nature and finitude in the sense that liberal posthumanists
do—but from the notion that ‘human’ and ‘nature’ are fixed categories,
ones that have been historically defined in opposition to their constitutive
others” (6). Human beings are the first species to develop a reflective
consciousness, but there is no reason to think that evolution would stop at
the level of human beings since we might as well end up being the
building blocks that will evolve towards higher unities of consciousness.
As Winterson suggests in The Stone Gods, how this further evolution will
take place and how it will impact the environment still remains an all too
human decision.
Conclusions: Life after the End of Times
Human beings have been eternally fascinated with stories of impending

doom. Apocalyptic dread, which has inspired countless works of fiction
and non-fiction alike, is intensified by our collective anxiety about events
that lie outside our individual control. More recently, with exponential
growth in science and technology, many intellectuals across disciplines
have also been wondering whether humans are in fact engineering their
own demise. Referring to the 21st century as the age of extinction, Claire
Colebrook observes that “‘we’ are finally sensing both our finitude as a
world-forming and world-destroying species, and sensing that whatever
we must do or think cannot be confined or dictated by our finitude” (32).
In addition to “extinction by humans of other species (with the
endangered species of the ‘red list’ evidencing our destructive power),”
Colebrook also draws attention to self-extinction “or the capacity for us to
destroy what makes us human” (9). In her words:
Sudden nuclear catastrophe is perhaps the only event that would produce
apocalyptic annihilation; all other possible extinctions would be gradual,
allowing for a minimal ‘human’ presence to witness the slow and violent
departure of the human. Indeed, two of the senses of post-apocalyptic lie
in this indication that there will not be complete annihilation but a gradual
witnessing of a slow end, and that we are already at that moment of
witness, living on after the end. Indeed, this is what an ethics of extinction
requires: not an apocalyptic thought of the ‘beyond the human’ as a radical
break or dissolution, but a slow, dim, barely discerned and yet violently
effective destruction. (40)
As my examination of Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? and The

Stone Gods illustrates, speculative science fiction is a very appropriate
genre for depicting these fears through, especially, worst-case scenarios
unfolding in (post-)apocalyptic settings. Both novels portray the
devastating aftermath of nuclear catastrophe as well as the gradual
destruction of remaining life due to rapid environmental decline. By
showing us what the future might hold if current trends are followed
through to their possible conclusions, they also encourage us to think
about how humans, other species and the earth have all entwined to
produce this decidedly ominous state of planetary affairs that we live in
right now. More significantly, perhaps, these novels do not just make us
see, but also make us feel what the coming decades of the Anthropocene
might look like unless pre-emptive measures are taken collectively and on
a global scale. In this regard, they highlight the significance of cultivating
a conscience about the whole planet and about all non-living things.
Developing such a planetary conscience could only be possible with
a new imaginary to foster and support it. I believe that works of
speculative science fiction make up an indispensable part of this
imaginary with their cautionary messages conveyed in evocative
language.4 In their capacity to offer vivid articulations of alternative

futures, they can be utilized as powerful tools to engage the readers’
imagination since they draw on past and current issues in order to present
a wide range of future possibilities. Although they are placed in the future,
Dick’s San Francisco or Winterson’s Tech City are not entirely unfamiliar
or unrecognizable for the people of the 21st century. Neither are the issues
and conflicts faced by the inhabitants of these futuristic worlds. As Carl
Abbott argues in “Cyberpunk Cities: Science Fiction Meets Urban
Theory” (2007): “There is no claim that the ideas and images of science
fiction are accurate reflections of objective circumstances, but they
influence the public imagination and therefore help to construct the
environment for planning” (124).
As I have argued throughout, the cities depicted in both novels are
presented as fertile sites of inter-species encounters which allow new
possibilities to emerge despite the prevalent atmosphere of looming
disaster. I would further suggest that these dystopian futuristic cities
function as “contact zones” where, to quote Alaimo,
interchanges and interconnections between various bodily natures take

place…Potent ethical and political possibilities emerge from the literal
contact zone between human corporeality and more-than-human nature.
Imagining human corporeality as trans-corporeality, in which the human is
always intermeshed with the more-than-human world, underlines the
extent to which the substance of the human is ultimately inseparable from
the environment. (2)
In this vein, both novels are informed by an environmental imagination

that links the human and the non-human, the local and the global within
the context of the Anthropocene.
Ultimately, the way people organize their interaction with the
natural world changes with and pivots around the ways in which people
are imagining it. And if humans find ways of reorienting their sense of
identity, they can explore new scopes of collective possibility (and
responsibility) around ideas of the natural world and the ways in which
they relate to it. Ursula Heise’s call for the cultivation of an “eco-
cosmopolitanism,” which is “an attempt to envision individuals and
groups as part of planetary ‘imagined communities’ of both human and
nonhuman kinds” (61) sounds more urgent than ever at this very crucial
moment in our history. As Haraway aptly suggests in “Anthropocene,
Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin” (2015): “The
Anthropocene marks severe discontinuities; what comes after will not be
like what came before. I think our job is to make the Anthropocene as
short/thin as possible and to cultivate with each other in every way
imaginable epochs to come that can replenish refuge. Right now, the earth
is full of refugees, human and not, without refuge” (160). The novels
examined in this paper reinforce the potency of this message and the
importance of making deliberate choices that would contribute to the
creation of a planetary vision shaped by a new ecology of belonging, by
means of showing us what is likely to happen if we do not.
Notes:
1
See, for instance, the recently published Environments in Science Fiction (2015)
which includes critical essays on a diverse group of science fiction novels that
depict “environments in post-dystopian moments” (1) and broaden our
understanding of the “implications of issues involving space/place/environment”
(Bernardo 2).
2
Although Tech City lacks a sophisticated infrastructure, well-established
organizations or even basic institutions, I would still argue that it is a “creative
city” as a cultural mosaic with its pluralistic, tolerant climate that celebrates
difference and novelty. This uniquely open climate is behind its “drawing power”
(Landry xviii). For more on the concept of creative city, see Landry’s The
Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators (2008).
3
In When Species Meet (2008), Haraway maintains that she considers the concept
of companion species to be “less a category than a pointer to an ongoing
“becoming with,” to be a much richer web to inhabit than any of the
posthumanisms on display after (or in reference to) the ever-deferred demise of
man” (16-17).
4
Merola asserts that she sees speculative fiction as the mode for the
Anthropocene, “precisely because it elasticizes temporal and geographic scale,
material conditions of life, and forms of social and economic organization in
order to mutate familiar conditions into uncanny conditions” (122).
Works Cited
Abbott, Carl. “Cyberpunk Cities: Science Fiction Meets Urban Theory.” Journal
of Planning Education and Research 27 (2007): 122-131.
Alaimo, Stacey. Bodily Natures: Science, Environment, and the Material Self.
Bloomington : Indiana UP, 2010.
Barad, Karen. Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the
Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke UP, 2007.
Braidotti, Rosi. “Posthuman Critical Theory.” Critical Posthumanism and
Planetary Futures. Ed. Debashish Banerji and Makarand R. Paranjape. San
Francisco: Springer, 2016. 13-35.
Bennett, Jane. Vibrant Matter: A Political Ecology of Things. London: Duke UP,
2010.
Bernardo, Susan, ed. Environments in Science Fiction: Essays on Alternative
Spaces. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2014.
Best, Steven, and Douglas Kellner. “The Apocalyptic Vision of Philip K. Dick.”
Cultural Studies ↔ Critical Methodologies 3.2 (2003): 186-202.
Colebrook, Claire. Death of the PostHuman: Essays on Extinction. Vol. I. Ann
Arbor: Open Humanities Press, 2014.
Crutzen, Paul. “Geology of Mankind.” Nature 415.23 (3 Jan. 2002). Web. 15 Jan.
2018.
Dick, Philip K. Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? London: Millennium,
1999.
Galvan, Jill. “Entering the Posthuman Collective in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids
Dream of Electric Sheep?” Science Fiction Studies 24.3 (1997): 413-429.
Haraway, Donna. “A Cyborg Manifesto: Science, Technology, and the Socialist-
Feminism in the Late Twentieth Century.” The Transgender Studies
Reader. Ed. Susan Stryker and Stephen Whittle. New York: Routledge,
2006. 103-119.
---. “Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Plantationocene, Chthulucene: Making Kin.”
Environmental Humanities 6 (2015): 159-165.
---. When Species Meet. Minneapolis: Minneapolis UP, 2008.
Hayles, Katherine. My Mother Was a Computer: Digital Subjects and Literary
Texts. Chicago: U of Chicago P, 2005.
Heise, Ursula K. Sense of Place and Sense of Planet: The Environmental
Imagination of the Global. New York: Oxford UP, 2008.
Landry, Charles. The Creative City: A Toolkit for Urban Innovators. 2nd ed.
London: Comedia, 2008.
Le Guin, Ursula. “Head Cases.” The Guardian.com Saturday 22 Sept. 2007. Web.
10 Mar.2016.
Martindale, Leigh. “Understanding Humans in the Anthropocene: Finding
Answers in Geoengineering and Transition Towns.” Environment and
Planning D: Society and Place 33.5 (2015): 907-924.
Merola, Nicole M. “Materializing a Geotraumatic and Melancholy Anthropocene:
Jeanette Winterson’s The Stone Gods.” Minnesota Review 83 (2014):122-
132.
Palmer, Christopher. Philip K. Dick: Exhilaration and the Terror of the
Postmodern. Liverpool: Liverpool UP, 2003.
Palumbo, Donald. “Faith and Bad Faith in Do Androids Dream of Electric
Sheep?” The Journal of Popular Culture 46.6 (2013): 1276-1288.
Preston, Peter, and Paul Simpson-Housley, eds. Writing the City. London:
Routledge, 1994.
Reynolds, Bryan. Transversal Subjects. Hampshire: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009.
Rhee, Jennifer. “Beyond the Uncanny Valley: Masahiro Mori and Philip K.
Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?” Configurations 21.3
(2013): 301-329.
Sharon, Tamar. Human Nature in an Age of Biotechnology: The Case for
Mediated Posthumanism. New York: Springer, 2014.
Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of
a Literary Genre. Bern: Peter Lang, 2016.
Winterson, Jeanette. The Stone Gods. London: Penguin, 2007.
---. “Jeanette Winterson talks to Virginia Trioli.” Online video clip. ABC RN.
YouTube. 8 June 2008. 10 Apr. 2016.
Wolfe, Cary. What Is Posthumanism? Minneapolis: U of Minnesota P, 2010.
Zizek, Slavoj. Living in the End Times. London: Verso, 2011.
Reviews 194
Reviews
195 Reviews
José Luís Jobim, ed. Literary and Cultural Circulation. Frankfurt

am Main: Peter Lang, 2017, v. 1. (£55.00). Pp 383. ISBN: 978-1-
78707-324-1.
Literary and Cultural Circulation is made up of eighteen chapters by

different authors who explore this broad issue through different
frameworks. Consequently, the meaning of literary circulation varies
throughout the volume, according to the purposes of each text and the
specificities of each object of analysis. The quality of the essays is
undeniable and, despite the differences between them, circulation,
considered in its broadest sense, is the main subject explored in the texts
that vary, in short, around two main aspects. One of them is the
perspective from which circulation is understood. In this respect, the
essays can be divided into four main thematic axes that address the role of
circulation: 1) in specific authors or for a specific genre, 2) in the
postcolonial condition, 3) in our times, that is, in the digital and culture
industry age, and 4) in the formation of a national interpretation. Since the
starting point determines the point of arrival and the specific results of
circulation, the texts also differ from one another in terms of the various
implications of circulation taken into account. Thus, various essays
discuss the consequences of circulation for literary production, for the
expression of subaltern groups, for the acclimatization of European ideas
in the Americas, for reading, for culture and for literature, approaching
also the theoretical issues that surround this subject as well as the
methodological and market implications of this propensity of literature to
circulate.
Due to the very size of this book, it would not be possible to present
the main ideas of all the essays. I will try instead to present the ideas of at
least one of the essays from each axis. The contributors are scholars
and/or professors from different countries (United States, Brazil and
Spain) who, as I noted, have dealt with this academic and cultural debate
in different ways in their research. Diversity, a hallmark of literary
circulation itself, is also a hallmark of this collection; therefore, reading it

is a singular and enriching experience.
The essays “Untimeliness, Recognition and Respect in the Work of
Gonçalo Tavares” by Helena Carvalhão Buescu, “Cultural Circulation and
the Age of Cultures in Witold Gombrowicz” by Olga Kempinska, “Dutch
Literature and World Literature” by Theo D’haen, and “Machado de
Assis: The Theater of the World” by Kenneth David Jackson, as the titles
suggest, approach literary circulation through specific case studies,
analyzing works and authors coming from diverse literatures and
countries. Carvalhão Buescu, in “Untimeliness, Recognition and Respect
in the Work of Gonçalo Tavares,” for example, uses the concept of
untimeliness to refer to events, themes and forms of the past that, although
historically distant, continue to circulate and are constantly appropriated
by literature in other contexts. According to the author, the ability of some
cultural phenomena to occur in different historical contexts gives them an
intermittent duration and illustrates a specific and complex mode of
literary circulation. From this perspective, the essay focuses on the
specific case of the Portuguese novel by Gonçalo Tavares, A Girl Is Lost
in Her Century in Search of the Father, which reuses anachronistic and
even unrelated elements of 21st-century Portugal, such as Nazism and the
notion of cosmopolitanism.
If, in this essay, temporality is the starting point for literary
circulation, in Kempinska’s text, “Cultural Circulation and the Age of
Cultures in Witold Gombrowicz,” temporality and its implications to
circulation are considered from the angle of Witold Gombrowicz, a Polish
writer who settled in Argentina. Kempinska focuses her analysis on
Gombrowicz’s diaries, in which he transposes the distinction between
cultures to the domain of age-related experience. According to
Kempinska, Gombrowicz relativizes the superiority of mature cultures
which, to him, also imply the existence of crystallized forms that, when in
circulation, are imposed on immature cultures. Immaturity, in turn, could
point to a relative lack of weight of the past heritage and its forms, which
makes it possible to avoid imitation. From where I write (Brazil, a country
which would also be deemed immature in Gombrowicz’ terms), it is
impossible not to see in these considerations the lesson of our modernist
197 Reviews
poets (to be taken up again by Jobim´s text): our submission to literary

forms inherited from mature cultures has limits, or rather, our submission
is authentic.
Finally, in “In Search of a Land of Happiness: Utopia and Its
Discontents,” Zhang Longxi deals with the role of circulation in terms of a
specific genre. He addresses, among other matters, the circulation of
utopian fiction and its subsequent exhaustion and replacement by
dystopian or anti-utopian writings, a phenomenon considered by the
author in social and historical terms. In analyzing the circulation of the
desire for a better life, the author also presents a rich historical and
cultural panorama.
The essays “Some Considerations on Processes of Literary
Circulation: The Indigenous Cultural Matrix within the Brazilian Cultural
Matrix” by Fábio Almeida de Carvalho, “‘Tupy or not tupy that is the
question’: the Void and the Question of Literary and Cultural Circulation
in Amazônia: Considerations on a Literature ‘without a character’” by
Roberto Mibielli, “Revisiting Transculturation in Latin America: The
Case of Marvelous Realism” by Eduardo F. Coutinho, “Cannibalism as
Cultural Appropriation: From Caliban to the Cannibalist Manifesto” by
José Luís Jobim, and “The Brazilian Encyclopaedia, Language Policy and
the Circulation of Ideas about the Democratization of Culture: Mário de
Andrade (1939) and Eurialo Canabrava (1957)” by Bethania Mariani, start
from the assumption that the circulation of human thought is not exempt
from hierarchy. From a post-colonial perspective, Almeida de Carvalho,
Mibielli, Coutinho and Jobim focus on the process of circulation of
historically silenced voices.
In “Some Considerations on Processes of Literary Circulation: The
Indigenous Cultural Matrix within the Brazilian Cultural Matrix,”
Almeida de Carvalho problematizes the circulation, in diverse spaces, of
the elements with an alleged origin in an indigenous cultural matrix. From
a case report (Projeto Anikê’s activities that occurred in the Federal
University of Roraima), the text describes processes of transcultural and
translinguistic translation, but without neglecting their contradictions. As
a result, these processes can be understood not only as cultural and
pedagogical phenomena, but also as market phenomena. Mibielli also
focuses on the Amazon, whose constitutive cultural plurality is at the heart

of his reflection. Relying on the testimonies of several actors involved in
the process of producing Amazonian textualities, this essay seeks to
explore not only some aspects of the literature produced there (by tracing,
for this purpose, its influences), but also the way the discourse about the
region is constructed and circulated.
In “Revisiting Transculturation in Latin America: The Case of
Marvelous Realism,” Coutinho focuses on one of the consequences of
European aesthetic forms and theoretic formulations and their circulation
in Latin America: a critical appropriation that results neither in
indiscriminate importation nor in autochthonism, but in something
original. The author illustrates this dynamic with the case of marvelous
realism, which is explained as a result of the mixture between distinct
forms of the European fantastic with aspects coming from indigenous and
Afro-American cultures. García Marquez’s One Hundred Years of
Solitude serves as a demonstration of the particularities and effects of
marvelous realism.
Also interested in cultural appropriation, Jobim, in “Cannibalism as
Cultural Appropriation: From Caliban to the Cannibalist Manifesto,” first
approaches the circulation of the idea of cannibalism, especially in Pietro
d’Anghiera and Montaigne’s essays and then argues about its subsequent
appropriation by Latin American essays and by Oswald de Andrade’s
Cannibalist Manifesto. In relation to the latter, the focus is on the idea of
anthropophagy as cultural consumption. In the former case, the
reinterpretation of Shakespeare’s play The Tempest through one of its
main characters, Caliban, is one of its main interests. In this case, the
disqualification of the native language by the colonizer is only one of the
aspects addressed, which will be taken up again by the linguist Mariani in
“The Brazilian Encyclopaedia, Language Policy and the Circulation of
Ideas about the Democratization of Culture: Mário de Andrade (1939) and
Eurialo Canabrava (1957),” an essay on two projects for a Brazilian
encyclopedia. From the perspective of discourse analysis (DA), she draws
attention to the need to consider the encyclopedias as linguistic
instruments which are historically, socially and ideologically determined.
They function as instruments that allow the circulation of an
199 Reviews
institutionalized and often homogenized knowledge, linked to a policy of

national unity. To illustrate the argument, Mariani retrieves the context of
production of the two encyclopedias referred to in the essay´s title, while
also commenting on their structure, priorities and target audiences.
Begoña Regueiro, Amelia Sanz and Miriam Llama’s “Literatures
for a Global Imaginary: The Circulation of Digital Literature in Spanish,”
Laura Sánchez Gómez’s “E-books in Spanish: A Global Object in
Circulation” and Fabio Akcelrud Durão’s “Circulation as Constitutive
Principle” address the role of circulation in our times. The first two essays
deal with the relevant matter of whether and how literature (especially in
its modes of production, distribution and circulation), literary studies and
the ways of reading can be influenced by the technological advances in
the globalized world. In “Circulation as Constitutive Principle,” Durão
looks at changes in the patterns of literary production and circulation,
considering the influx of the universalization of the culture industry
instead of the interference of electronic tools. Regarding literature and
culture in their class formation, constantly produced by reality and
constantly producing it, Durão notes how circulation went from an
extrinsic experience to a constituent part of the literary object. In a context
entirely ruled by the principle of exchange, literary production occurs with
the objective of sale, and circulation becomes, in Durão’s view, a
structuring narrative category. As the homogenization of narrative
production is the consequence of cultural commodification, Durão
hypothesizes that commodification and circulation become equivalent to
one another, so that “ambitious literary works, those that aspire to exist as
singular entities, will have to develop strategies to defend themselves
against their very ability to circulate” (Durão 64). The author concludes
by confronting James Joyce’s Ulysses with the problematic of circulation.
By presenting a positive view of form as production, Durão reminds us
that the refusal to enter the process of circulation does not necessarily
result in paralysis.
Benjamin Abdala Junior’s “Comparative Literature and Literary
Circulation: Reflections on a Critical Trajectory,” Paulo Moreira’s “When
America First Became Latin,” Roberto Patrick Newcomb’s “The Idea of
Sobranceria in the Luso-Brazilian Essay of National Interpretation,” and
Maria Elizabeth Chaves de Mello’s “The Circulation of Ideas within

Nineteenth-Century Literary Criticism between France and Brazil: The
Role of Travellers” approach the role of circulation in the formation of a
national interpretation and also the consequences of circulation for the
acclimatization of European ideas in the Americas. In “Comparative
Literature and Literary Circulation: Reflections on a Critical Trajectory,”
Abdala Junior identifies a dialogue built into the literary forms that
circulate between Portuguese-speaking countries. He is interested,
therefore, in the interaction between literatures and authors of the Ibero-
Afro-American cultural melting pot. According to him, this kind of
solidarity network forms a hybrid and open ecosystem which contrasts
with the homogenization of the culture industry and the globalizing
tendency of the English language. The author concludes his essay by
reiterating the importance of the comparative study of these literatures,
“given the asymmetry of globalizing flows and of the prestige of their
market entanglements” (Abdala Junior 196).
Moreira’s and Newcomb’s contributions (“When America First
Became Latin” and “The Idea of Sobranceria in the Luso-Brazilian Essay
of National Interpretation,” respectively) address the role of circulation in
the interpretation of the idea of nationality. Moreira investigates the
genealogy of the idea of Latin America through the presentation of
authors such as Michel Chevalier and Hugues Felicité Robert de
Lamennais. Moreira also demonstrates how they refer to economic and
political issues based on cultural arguments, a subject also dealt with by
Newcomb, who investigates the use of the term “sobrancería” by three
Luso-Brazilian intellectuals (J.P. de Oliveira Martins, Manoel Bomfim e
Sérgio Buarque de Holanda). Newcomb is interested in the Iberian roots,
more specifically Portuguese, of Brazilian civilization. For this reason, he
demonstrates how the term “sobrancería” was deterritorialized in order to
describe characteristics of the Latin American character, commenting on
the specificities that the term acquires in each of the authors. Another
example of the acclimatization of European ideas in the Americas is
Chaves de Mello’s “The Circulation of Ideas within Nineteenth-Century
Literary Criticism between France and Brazil: The Role of Travellers.”
Chaves de Mello provides an overview of the circulation of European
201 Reviews
literary ideas in nineteenth-century Brazil. By showing how the affiliation

to the French cultural matrix was an alternative to the old Portuguese
matrix, the author reveals the importance of Ferdinand Denis, Auguste
Comte, Madame de Staël and Hippolyte Taine in the formation of
nineteenth-century nationalist thought, a mission paradoxically entrusted
to our Romantics by Europe itself.
The essays discussed in this review show that this book provides a
fruitful academic debate on literary circulation, one which I could only
sketch here. Of course, this attempt to summarize the whole argument of
Literary and Cultural Circulation by dividing it into four main thematic
axes could not be entirely faithful to such diverse essays, since it fails to
take into consideration the interdisciplinary character of the broader
matter of circulation. Thus, any in-depth reading of the volume will make
this division seem inconsistent, as the texts enter dialogues with one
another and many of them encompass more than one of the
aforementioned axes. In fact, it is very interesting that circulation has
acquired such different meanings in the essays reviewed. In short, this
suggests a tension within the category itself, a category whose meaning
seems to be still in dispute. In this sense, the essays also serve to point out
the predominant meanings involved in this dispute. Although the diversity
of meanings of circulation in the essays can be seen as contradictory, this
is not a weakness of the book; on the contrary, the book is interesting
precisely because it brings to light the inherent strains of the category. If
the division into four main thematic axes restricts the multifaceted aspects
of the essays, I hope that it will at least make it possible to understand the
ambitions underlying the general purpose of the entire book, which will
certainly foster further studies and reflections.
CAMILA HESPANHOL PERUCHI

University of Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil
Reviews 202
Aloisia Şorop. Moiré. Fluids and Fluidity in Romantic Poetry:

William Wordsworth, Samuel Taylor Coleridge. (Craiova: Editura
Universitaria, 2017). Pp. 325. ISBN 978-606-14-1237-2.
Aloisia Şorop’s book is captivating, thought-provoking and as fluid as the

poetry of the two first-generation Romantics that fall under her scrutiny.
Taken at face value, her work may be deemed as an exegetical study of
fluids and fluidity, which specialists or erudite readers would immediately
connect to Gaston Bachelard’s hermeneutics of water images thoroughly
expounded in his Water and Dreams: An Essay on the Imagination of
Matter, published in 1983. In light of this analogy, Şorop’s intellectual
endeavour would be seriously undermined if one could further expect the
reader to anticipate a psychoanalytical approach to William Wordsworth’s
and Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s artistic production. This is because such a
reading grid would render the requirement of originality null and void
when it comes to the status of Romantic studies today. Attuned to the
latest interpretive and methodological trends, the present volume shatters
the foregoing impression or expectation. By blending life writing with the
treatment of water as a cultural and, I would add, political construct,
Şorop aims “to devise a grammar of fluids and develop an agreeable form
of water gnosis” (9) in Wordsworth and Coleridge. Her recourse to
biographies, letters, notebooks or diary entries, as well as to pertinently
applied critical theory and cultural history, has the merit of refreshing dry
or obsolete readings of both Romantic poets and, more importantly, of
proposing challenging and astute interpretations of both canonical and less
studied poems and of relating water and its solid forms, mist and ice, to
British culture and poetry at the dawn of the nineteenth century.
Şorop’s study is preceded by an Argument and an Introduction. In
the former she states her objectives and motivates the choice of her topic
in a language revealing the “interplay between geography, perspective and
the human mind” (9). Informed by Samuel Baker’s 2010 groundbreaking
study titled Written on the Water: British Romanticism and the Maritime
Empire of Culture, the argument mounted in the Introduction will be a
203 Reviews
serviceable instrument for showing how the Romantic poets built “a fluid
concept of Britain at home” (13) able to define British space, British
culture and the British psyche. Cleverly employed in three chapters
partitioned into subchapters whose titles are actually epigraphs from
poems penned by the two Romantics, the argument gains even more
weight thanks to Şorop’s own semiotic construction of fluidity.
The first chapter, titled “Water, water, every where,” discusses
water as a cultural and political construct and the manner in which this
protean term (metaphorically translated as moiré, i.e. the wavering quality
of the vast sea or ocean) was appropriated by Britain at the turn of the
nineteenth century. In the first subchapter, “Water as culture,” special
attention is given to the Romantic reinterpretation of the concept of
culture in relation with the ocean as an aquatic topos and trope, rather than
with nature and agriculture, as was the case before the eighteenth century.
Viewed as a spiritual and abstract concept in the early nineteenth century,
culture was, on the one hand, associated with water in order to highlight
Britain’s imperialist ambitions as a maritime state and, on the other, it
played a crucial role in advocating that the creative power of the
imagination was possessed only by the landed gentry and the polite.
Though Şorop does not refer to civic humanism as such – initially revived
by Shaftesbury in the first decades of the eighteenth century –, she
borrows John Barrell’s argument so as to speak about a model of abstract
thinking generated by Adam Smith’s theorisation of political economy,
which gained momentum in the late eighteenth century. By following
Baker, the author cogently argues that the Romantics renovated the
concept of culture in a moment of crisis, when they juxtaposed their
literature and personal experience, such as Coleridge’s travel to Malta and
Sicily, with Britain’s expansionist policy and, implicitly, its sea imagery.
Şorop later considers water in its solid form, delving into Captain Cook’s,
John Dee’s or John Barrow’s accounts of the exploration of the poles
identified by the British as terra nullius. She argues that Arctic narratives
had little in common with terra firma, though they participated in the
construction of British imperial identity thanks to print culture,
travelogues and other fictitious materials that nourished the public’s
mental projections upon such fabulous landscapes. This subchapter
concludes with a brief analysis of the importance of water to British
culture by recourse to the oil and watercolour paintings of William

Turner. His seascapes and weather-scapes, argues Şorop, relied on liquid
water, ice and mist as an ordinary background and paved the way for
Claude Monet’s impressionism after the French painter had admired
Turner’s works at the National Gallery in 1870.
The second subchapter, “Water as space,” focuses on the specular
image of water seen both as a “smooth” (infinite and deterritorialised like
the steppe, the ocean or the desert) and “striated” (fragmented and
reterritorialised like walls, forests, cities and enclosures) space, according
to Deleuze and Guattari’s terminology coined in A Thousand Plateaus.
With respect to the new Romantic paradigm imposed by the relationship
between water and culture as metaphorically contiguous terms, Şorop
contends that the national rhetoric of the time replaced the image of the
island (by extension Britain itself) with the image of the sea as the
paragon of Britain’s colonising power. At a smaller scale, water as
propinquity manifests itself in the pleasurable form of artificial ponds and
lakes designed by the rich for recreational and aesthetic purposes.
Vauxhall Gardens and Hampton Court are two cases in point.
The third subchapter, “Water as atopia,” elaborates on the ocean
and the poles as cartographically blank spaces which “reflected
‘innocence’ of knowledge and cried for completion” (72). Şorop borrows
the term “atopia” from Siobhan Carroll in order to comment on the
imagination as the sole means of taking hold of uncolonizable and
uninhabitable spaces that are the opposite of oikumene, i.e. a domesticated
space inhabited by man. Last but not least, she details on the 1800
reformation of the Navy, which determined the British to turn the ocean
from atopia into a dwelling place and the ship into a symbolic
representation of terra firma “in the middle of sea-where, the only
inhabited British territory afloat” (17).
Finally, the fourth subchapter, “Water as image,” discusses sight as
a skilled way of looking at water and its multifarious meanings. After
establishing a stark contrast between myopia, which the ocean or the
desert induces to the viewer, and highly visual and visually pleasurable
brooks, ponds, mist and dew subsumed to a micro-level perception, Şorop
concentrates on the image of the river as a yardstick of natural beauty
supported by William Gilpin’s theory of the picturesque. In a Romantic
205 Reviews
scenery in which the imagination rules supreme, this theory could not
have been more fitting, particularly when references to panoramas and
dioramas – “sight-specific forms of entertainment” (18) – enabled the
British to embark on a fictitious voyage to the Arctic regions.
The second chapter, “And all the air is filled with pleasant noise of
waters,” takes a hard look at Wordsworth’s understanding of water not
only in his poème fleuve, The Prelude, but also in his letters and fragments
from other poems in which water and mist are prevalent. Wordsworth’s
well-known definition of poetry as “a spontaneous overflow of powerful
feelings” represents the trigger for this section, in which Şorop thoroughly
demonstrates that fluidity is tightly related to landscapes, memory, youth
and women and poeticised under various forms, such as mist, vapours,
streams, ponds, the sea and the ocean, all of them present in the relevant
quotations chosen as subchapter titles and instrumental in grasping the
sublimity of nature subsumed to that of freedom upheld by Revolutionary
France. Relevant details about the poet’s childhood spent in Cumberland,
on the banks of the Derwent River, and diary entries merge with text
analysis with a view to pointing out the way in which Wordsworth
internalised his experience with nature and translated it in a poetic
language that unravels emotions “recollected in tranquillity.” “The Vale of
Easthwaite,” “An Evening Walk” or “Dion” are just a few of the poems
interpreted in this vein. “A truly postmodern poem,” in Şorop’s opinion,
The Prelude – a paragon of fluidity and ongoing change – is examined in
relation to memory retrieved as “spots of time” which nourish the poet’s
imagination while “Salisbury Plain,” a poem composed in 1793-94, is
analysed in accordance with Carroll’s concept of atopia. Towards the end
of the chapter, Şorop explores “the floating island,” a trope which stands
for Wordsworth’s freedom and unleashed creativity, the River Wye as a
locus amoenus suggestive of his past memories and love for his sister
Dorothy, ponds with hypnotic powers construed as Foucauldian
heterotopias and Wordsworth’s praise of insularity in poems that speak
about Britain’s imperialism and civilising mission assisted by the ocean as
the most efficient means of spreading British culture worldwide.
More fluid than Wordsworth in his approach to life, poetry and
metaphysics, Coleridge is the focal point of the third chapter, titled
“Snatched at the foam as the wave passed by me.” His eloquence,
erudition, unbounded imagination and unalloyed passions associated with

torrents and floods are investigated under a more personal lens with the
help of Notebook entries, letters and Richard Holmes’s two-volume
biography of the poet. Şorop warns us that these sources will be more
heavily exploited, as compared to the previous chapter. Always concerned
with imagery able to mirror his abstract thinking, Coleridge used “the
small water insect” metaphor in order to refer to “the mind’s self-
awareness which accumulates through small and steady progress,” with
the imagination “as a catalyst in the process” (23). Most subchapters are a
pleasure to read, particularly those in which Şorop develops a syntax of
Coleridgean landscapes that unveil not only the same insular pride
extolled by Wordsworth, but also humidity or the atopian character of the
poles or “sacred rivers” (“Kubla Khan”). The ample discussion of The
Rime of the Ancient Mariner as a modern myth offers insightful
observations on polar alienation and terror of unknown territories,
whereas “the swimming book” image depicted in two conversation poems
epitomises Coleridge’s school memories as well as the infelicitous type of
education practised in the school he attended.
Gathered under the title “Semiotics of fluidity,” which could easily
have passed for the subject matter of a separate book, Şorop’s conclusions
categorise Wordsworth’s fluidity as “a method” (314) of interpreting
reality. This runs counter to Coleridge’s fluidity, which is related to
human nature and “the workings of the human brain” (314). I believe that
this final section should have followed, or been incorporated into, the first
theoretical chapter.
To conclude, his study is overall an excellent contribution to the
field of Romantic studies, especially inasmuch as it will aid in studies of
fluids and fluidity in other Romantic poets. Şorop’s analytic subtlety and
well-documented remarks are on display in the entirety of this book,
which I find a noteworthy source of information and textual analysis for
students, researchers and academics with a penchant for the study of
English Romanticism.
DRAGOŞ IVANA,
Notes on Contributors
Elif BAŞ is an Assistant Professor in the Department of English Language

Teaching at Bahçeş ehir University in Istanbul, where she has been a faculty
member since 2006. She completed her M.A. at the University of Essex and
received her Ph.D. in Dramatic Criticism and Dramaturgy from Istanbul
University in 2012. She has been working as a director, dramaturge, and
translator in Istanbul for over six years. Her scholarly interests include
political/documentary theatre, minority theatre, traditional and contemporary
Turkish theatre.
Email: elif.bas@es.bau.edu.tr
Anca-Luminiţa IANCU is Assistant Professor in the English Department at

Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, Romania. She received her M. A. in
English Literature (2005) and her Ph. D. in Rhetoric and Composition (2009)
from the University of Louisville, KY, U.S.A. Dr. Iancu has published
numerous articles on American literature and culture; she is the author of a
book on literacy practices of 19th-century European-American immigrant
women, a volume of translations of Kate Chopin’s short fiction, and several
books on academic writing and English for Specific Purposes. Her research
interests include American literature, gender studies, ethnic studies, literacy
and academic writing.
Email: ancaian@yahoo.com
Dragoş IVANA is an Associate Professor in the Department of English at

the University of Bucharest, where he teaches 18th- and 20th-century English
literature. His research interests involve comparative literature, critical theory,
intellectual history and city studies. Ivana is treasurer of the Romanian
Society for Eighteenth-Century Studies and the recipient of a number of
research scholarships at the University of Kent, the Bodleian Library and the
British Library. In 2016 he was a Fulbright postdoctoral fellow at Vanderbilt
University, USA. He has published extensively on novel theory and the
reception of Cervantes in 18th-century English and American literature. His
latest book, Behind the Great Tradition: Popular Culture in Eighteenth-
Century England, was published by Ars Docendi in 2017.
Email: dragos.ivana@gmail.com
Vlad MELNIC is currently reading Irish literature at Babeș-Bolyai

University, Cluj-Napoca. A member of the Research Centre for the Study of
the Contemporary British Novel at Babeș-Bolyai University, he studied
English and comparative literature at an undergraduate level and his BA
thesis focused on narrative embodiment in Salman Rushdie’s 2008 novel The
Enchantress of Florence. His passion for storytelling and video games has
steered him towards cultural studies and digital humanities. He recently co-
authored a paper titled “Playing with(out) Borders: Video Games as the
Digital Expression of Transnational Literature” (in the Metacritic Journal for
Comparative Studies and Theory, 3.1, 2017), as well as the conference talk
“Saved Games and Respawn Timers: The Dilemma of Representing Death in
Video Games” (during the 19th Annual International Conference of the
English Department, University of Bucharest).
Email: vlad.melnic8@yahoo.com
Iulia Andreea MILICĂ is Associate Professor in the Department of English of

the “Al.I. Cuza” University of Iaşi. She has been teaching English and
American literature for both MA and BA students since 2001. She
participated in various national and international conferences and published
articles in conference volumes and academic journals. She also edited a
number of volumes or special issues of academic journals. She published
extensive studies in British or American literature: Southern Cultural
Dimensions in Flannery O’Connor’s Fiction (Universitas XXI, 2009),
Literary Representations of the Southern Plantation (Junimea, 2013), Studies
in American Literature (Demiurg, 2013), Shakespeare: Essays on Royalty
(Vasiliana ’98, 2014).
Email: iuliab2000@yahoo.com
Andreea PARIS-POPA is Assistant Lecturer at the University of Bucharest

and doctoral student at the “Doctoral School of Literary and Cultural Studies”
at the same university. She teaches English language, contemporary literary
theory, as well as eighteenth and twentieth century British literature to
graduate students. Her thesis deals with the cultural memory link between
William Blake and Allen Ginsberg, particularly between their mythological
characters Urizen and Moloch. Other academic interests include
Postmodernist theories and literatures and Reader Response criticism.
Email: aparispopa@gmail.com
Camila PERUCHI is a PhD student with the University of Campinas's Theory

and History of Literature Graduate Program (UNICAMP). Her interest is in
the modern novel and her ongoing dissertation focuses on Ulysses by James
Joyce.
E-mail: camila.peruchi@gmail.com
Amelia PRECUP is Lecturer in the Department of English Language and

Literature at the Faculty of Letters, Babeș-Bolyai University. Her academic
interests lie in contemporary American literature and English literature of the
seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. She has read or published several
papers on Woody Allen’s short fiction, the short story tradition of The New
Yorker, ethnic writing, posthumanism, early modern English fiction,

Restoration and eighteenth-century poetry. She teaches undergraduate courses
on seventeenth- and eighteenth-century English literature and electives in text
interpretation and essay writing.
Email: amelia.nan@gmail.com
Anamaria SCHWAB is Assistant Lecturer with the English Department of the

Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures of the University of Bucharest
(adjunct faculty member) as well as with the Faculty of Letters of Spiru Haret
University (adjunct faculty member). She teaches seminars in nineteenth
century American literature and in twentieth century British literature with
the University of Bucharest and has lectures and seminars in twentieth
century British and American literature with Spiru Haret University. Schwab
has published several articles in scholarly magazines, two of her most recent
articles being “‘In His Blood the Plunge and Rise of Elevators’: Posthuman
Manhattan in Steven Millhauser’s Martin Dressler” (University of Bucharest
Review, VI, 1/ 2017), and “Self-destructive Manhattan in E. L. Doctorow’s
The Waterworks” (Transylvanian Review, XXVI, 2/ 2017). She has presented
papers at numerous conferences in Romania and abroad in the field of
American Studies. In 2013, she took part in the “Timing Transformations”
Winter School organized by the University of Bern’s Institute of Advanced
Study in the Humanities and the Social Sciences (IASH), Switzerland.
Anamaria Schwab’s main research interests comprise New York fiction and
history, literary and cultural theory, environmental humanities and
posthumanism in American fiction, and film.
Email: schwabana@yahoo.com
Yasser Fouad SELIM is Associate Professor of English Literature with the

Department of English at Sohag University, Egypt. He is also Associate
Professor of English Literature and Assistant Dean for Academic Affairs &
Research at Al-Buraimi University College, Oman (on secondment). He was
a visiting scholar at UCLA between 2005 and 2007. Yasser served various
academic administrative positions at Al-Buraimi University College including
Head of English Department (2012-2015), Director of Scientific Research
and Higher Studies Department (2015-2016), Assistant Dean for Academic
Affairs & Research (2016-Present), and Acting Dean (intervals). He is also
consultant for the Oman Ministry of Higher Education, external reviewer for
the Oman Academic Accreditation Authority, an editor for a number of
international journals, and a member in the literature advising board for
Cambridge Scholars Publishers. He has authored numerous peer-reviewed
papers and given speeches at a number of national and international
conferences. He is also the editor of Who Defines Me? Negotiating Identity in
Language and Literature (2014). His research interests and publications focus
on English drama, digital theatre, and the interaction between Western and
Eastern cultures and the formation of identity within the contexts of politics,
racialization, and ethnicization in America.
Email: yassfouad@gmail.com
Hatice Övgü TÜZÜN received her BA in English Language and Literature

from İstanbul University, her MA and PhD from the University of Kent (UK).
She spent 8 years as a faculty member of the Department of English
Language and Literature, Beykent University and then moved to Bahçeşehir
University where she has been a faculty member of the Department of
American Culture and Literature since 2008. She has published articles and
book chapters on Victorian and modern literature, Turkish literature, French
literature, science fiction, postcolonial fiction, travel writing and the political
novel. Her recent research interests include ecocriticism, posthumanism and
emotions in literature. She is currently Chair of the Department of American
Culture and Literature at Bahçeşehir University.
Email: otuzun@hotmail.com
Calls for Papers

Anglophone Society of Romania, appears biannually in June and
December. It is a peer-reviewed journal that sets out to explore the
intersections of culture, technology and the human sciences in the age of
electronic information. It publishes work by scholars of any nationality on
Anglophone Studies, Comparative Literary and Cultural Studies,
Postcolonial Theory, Social and Political Science, Anthropology, Area
Studies, Multimedia and Digital Arts and related subjects. Articles
addressing influential crosscurrents in current academic thinking are
particularly welcomed. ABC Studies also publishes book reviews and
review essays, interviews, work-in-progress, conference reports, research
project outlines, notes and comments.
To maintain an ongoing dialogue with our readers, we alternate

commissioned themed issues, where papers are actively commissioned by
the special issue editor, with issues featuring unsolicited submissions that
address themes of immediate interest to us. Calls for papers inviting
submissions to the non-commissioned issues are announced via the
journal’s web pages and in the journal itself. Our primary goal is to bring
together in trans-cultural dialogue scholars conducting advanced research
in the theoretical humanities. As well as offering innovative approaches to
influential crosscurrents in recent thinking, the journal seeks to contribute
fresh angles to the academic subject of English and promote
groundbreaking research across conventional boundaries. Within the
proposed range of diversity, our major scope is to provide close
examinations and lucid analyses of the role and future of the academic
institutions at the cutting edge of high-tech.
To respond to the increasing demands of ‘acceleration’ in the twenty-first

century, an Open Access electronic edition of the journal is now available
with De Gruyter. Articles published in ABC Studies are abstracted and
indexed on the journal’s website.
Special Issue: Kazuo Ishiguro, December 2018
Deadline: 15 August 2018
Guest Editors: Dr Sean Matthews, University of Nottingham, and Dr

Alexandra Mitrea, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu.
Acclaimed as one of the finest contemporary British writers – while of

Japanese background –, Kazuo Ishiguro has elicited, ever since his first
novel, strong responses ranging from admiration to bafflement. A very
elusive writer whose work invites a multiplicity of perspectives and
interpretations, Ishiguro challenges the reader with his carefully controlled
narratives which withhold more than they reveal. His skillful merging of
memory, imagination and dream plunges the reader into a maze-like
reality beneath which lies a “buried giant” – an unsettling secret which is
gradually revealed by a narrator who may be highly unreliable.
Furthermore, as a diasporic writer, he is preoccupied with the question of

the Other, more precisely with the internal otherness or doubleness of the
British subject itself, raising multifarious ethical, spiritual and
psychological issues. As a “homeless writer” addressing an international
readership, he has reflected on highly topical themes such as cultural
difference in Britain as well as the crisis of subjectivity, dwelling on the
connection between the personal and the political.
Ishiguro is, moreover, one of those rare writers who reinvent themselves
stylistically with each new novel or collection of stories. His
ventriloquism and attention to cultural identity are doubled by an eye for
quirks of character and experiences which stretch the limits of the
probable. His novels are replete with double takes, déjà vus, Freudian
slips, fluidities, dislocations and misperformances of every description.
Inhabiting a space at the intersection of realism, fabulism, surrealism and
expressionism, they invite the reader to put away the accustomed reading
instruments, such as generic categories and structural conventions, and
accept a more immersive reading experience.
In the wake of his being awarded the prestigious Nobel Prize for “novels
of great emotional force” that “uncovered the abyss beneath our illusory
sense of connection with the world,” we find it timely to reconsider his
ouvre, in the hope of contributing significantly to current critical thinking
on his work. To this end, we invite original critical articles which address
these concerns from a variety of perspectives and disciplinary angles.
Key themes may include, but are not limited to:

 Home, nationhood, ethnicity
 Migratory identities, cultural hybridity, diasporic subjectivities
 British national literary identity
 Ethics, contemporary human rights, cloning and trauma
 The crisis of artistic representation and creativity
 Experiments with form and style
Articles will be subject to a blind peer reviewing process and must not be
under consideration for any other publications. Please refer to the author
submission guidelines on the American, British and Canadian Studies
Journal website, http://abcjournal.ulbsibiu.ro. Complete manuscripts, of
up to a maximum of 7500 words including bibliography, are requested by
August 15th, 2018 for publication in December 2018. Please include a
biographical note of up to 200 words, accompanied by an abstract (200
words) and a list of 10 key words/concept. Enquiries and submissions are
to be directed to Dr. Alexandra Mitrea, Faculty of Letters and Arts,
Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu, alexandra.mitrea@ulbsibiu.ro. and
copied to abc.journal@ulbsibiu.ro. Authors will be notified within six
weeks of the closing date.
Special Issue: Images of the Translator and Interpreter in

Anglophone Literature, June 2019
Deadline: 1 February 2019
Guest Editors: Dr Adriana Neagu, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-

Napoca; Dr Alina Pelea, Babeș-Bolyai University, Cluj-Napoca.

Anglophone Society of Romania, invites submissions for a special 2019
issue on Images of the Translator and Interpreter in Anglophone
Literature, guest edited by Dr Adriana Neagu and Dr Alina Pelea, Babeș-
Bolyai University, Cluj. The Special Issue will explore fictional
representations of translation and interpretation roles across the centuries
with emphasis on the dominant motifs, the myths, stereotypes, clichés and
their reverberations in Anglophone translation and interpretation cultures.
While we primarily target contributions by professional translation and
interpreter practitioners, scholars and trainers, we welcome as well
original academic essays that address themes such as location and
multilingualism in translation and interpretation studies, renditions of
narrative discourse in the translation and interpretation profession, TS and

IS between theory and praxis, and the changing landscape of TS and IS.
We also welcome creative contributions and book reviews of recent TS

and IS criticism volumes. Articles and contributions must not have been
published elsewhere, nor currently be under review in any other journal.
Submission guidelines: The first page of the manuscript should carry the
title, author’s name, institutional affiliation, a 200-word abstract, and ten
key words/concepts. The article/piece must include a 200-word
biographical note, and must conform to MLA referencing (7th Edition).
Please see further information and instructions on the Journal’s guidelines
on: http://abcjournal.ulbsibiu.ro/Journal%20Submission%20Guidelines.html
The word length for scholarly articles is 7500 words.

The word length for creative pieces is 3000 words.
The word length for reviews is 1000 words.
Please email enquiries and submissions marked “Images of the

Translator and Interpreter in Anglophone Literature” to Dr Adriana
Neagu on adrianacecilianeagu@gmail.com and Dr Alina Pelea on
alinapelea21@gmail.com, copied to abc.journal@ulbsibiu.ro, before the
closing date.
Guidelines for Contributors
American, British and Canadian Studies seeks quality submissions of

work in the entire spectrum of the humanities. The review process is
blind: articles are sent out to subject specialists for reviewing
anonymously and we leave it up to the reviewers to choose whether or not
to reveal themselves to you. Decisions on articles submitted are normally
made within two months. You are strongly encouraged to submit exciting
and broad-ranging original articles that have not been published
elsewhere, nor are currently under review in any other refereed journal.
We regret we are unable to accept multiple submissions. You may
submit papers that have been presented in conferences only if the papers
have been thoroughly revised or extended to engage a theme that fits the
ABC Studies profile.
A chief objective of the journal is to minimise the time for paper

processing and to expedite printing; therefore, electronic submission of
papers in final form is strongly recommended. Please email your

contribution to abc.journal@ulbsibiu.ro before the closing date. The
first page of the manuscript should carry the title, names of authors,
institutional affiliations, a brief but detailed 200-word abstract, and 7-10
key words/ concepts.
The normal word-limit for articles is 7500 words, including notes and
references. Please include a brief 200-word biography for our Notes on
Contributors along with contact information. For detailed instructions
for preparing your contribution and a sense of format, topics of interest to
us and targeted audience, you may wish to consult the journal’s previous
issues and style files at http://abcjournal.ulbsibiu.ro. Only articles
styled in compliance with the 7th edition of the MLA Handbook and
our Submission Guidelines posted on the journal websites will be
considered. Please email us if you have any queries. Questions about
content should be directed to karina.schneider@ulbsibiu.ro.
Deadlines for Submissions: American, British and Canadian Studies is

published biannually in June and December. The deadlines for submission
of contributions are typically 1 February for the summer edition
(expected publication: 15 June) and 1 August for the winter edition
(expected publication: 15 December), but may differ for special issues.
Special Issues
Suggestions for special issues are welcome. To propose a special issue, a

two-page proposal should be submitted to Adriana Neagu, Advisory
Editor, containing the following information: title; purpose; scope; a list
of prospective contributors; time-table (submission and review deadlines,
intended publication date); and guest editor’s address, phone, fax, and e-
mail address.
Once approved, the guest editor will be fully responsible for

commissioning/ advertising, selecting and copy-editing the articles to be
included in that issue, as well as for writing the editorial, and should
follow the normal review procedure of this journal. Simple proposals of
theme(s) without guest-editing commitment are also welcome and will be
given due consideration. Please attach these to your contributions and
email to adriananeagu@lett.ubbcluj.ro and abc.journal@ulbsibiu.ro.
Call for Membership
The Academic Anglophone Society of Romania invites new memberships

from scholars of English of various specialisms. AASR was set up in 1997
to function as a specialist interest group for Romanian academics involved
in English Studies. Since then, the Society has organised several major
international conferences, has published the American, British and
Canadian Studies Journal quarterly and biannually, and initiated a series
of long-term multidisciplinary projects. The primary mission of the
Society is to promote excellence in the discipline through shape-changing
research and networking. Newsletters providing information of worldwide
events in the field as well as relevant new publications are available to
AASR members as well as on the Society’s Facebook page. Scholars need
not be Romanian nationals or working in Romania to be eligible for full
membership. Overseas members share all the benefits of Romanian
members. For terms and conditions, membership fees, and further
particulars on how to become an affiliate member, please contact Dr Ana-
Karina Schneider, AASR Secretary, at karina.schneider@ulbsibiu.ro or
aasr@ulbsibiu.ro.

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AMERICAN, BRITISH AND CANADIAN STUDIES

Volume Thirty • June 2018

Contributors need not be members of the Academic Anglophone Society of

The Academic Anglophone Society of Romania was founded in 1997 to promote

© The Academic Anglophone Society of Romania

Printed in Romania by Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu and available Open

Pleas for Respectability: Eighteenth-Century Women Writers

The Mammies and Uncles of the South: The Subversive Tales

Spaces of Identity: Gender, Ethnicity, and Race in

The Formation of Race and Disability in

Material Excess and Deadly Dwelling in E.L. Doctorow’s

The Quest of Young Turkish Playwrights: In-Yer-Face Theatre

Breaking the Contract between God

Welcome to the Desert of the Anthropocene:

José Luís Jobim, ed. Literary and Cultural Circulation.

Aloisia Şorop. Moiré: Fluids and Fluidity in Romantic Poetry:

Notes on Contributors 207

Call for Papers 211

Call for Membership 216

In themed and themeless volumes alike, the multitude of essays in film

Popa shows that graphic novels originate in the illuminations of medieval

socio-political realities of the adopting country and how censorship and

Pleas for Respectability:

Keywords: eighteenth-century British novel, women writers, novel

The long eighteenth century1 is seen as a crucial moment in the history of

of assistance, although many writers of the day derived their theoretical

market, women writers had to work in a rather unfavourable critical

establishment of the rules of writing, plausibility as the guiding principle

Eighteenth-century criticism of prose fiction in England falls into two

The new way of writing positioned itself as anti-romance, as a reaction

novelists embraced and nuanced it in their writing. It was a strategy meant

The claim that narrated events really happened is of fundamental

Historicity, truthfulness, plausibility, familiarity, and everydayness are the

The claim to truth and historicity in narration was embraced by an

In other works Haywood employs the claim to truth as an argument meant

The attempts to establish the novel’s generic kinship were not

In her rejection of the classical predecessor, Griffith is consistent with the

Reeve’s definitions and distinctions are neither new, nor revolutionary;

without merit. The Progress of Romance is a valuable and documented

The story of a novel should be formed of a variety of interesting incidents;

Indeed, after a century of critical and theoretical debates, the genre

as the guiding force of reading strategies. Seductive characters could

implies that well-constructed characters should rely on more than

I am sorry to find you so outrageous about Tom Jones; he is no doubt an

The divergent opinions over characters continued to fuel the critical

It has commonly been the business of fiction to pourtray characters, not as

A particularly influential advocate of social, educational, and political

away as possible from the idealisation of romance. It also reveals her

Aubin, Penelope. “Preface to The Strange Adventures of the Count de Vinevil

Castle, Terry. “Women and Literary Criticism.” The Cambridge History of

Smith, Charlotte. “Preface to Desmond.” Novel Definitions. An Anthology of

The Mammies and Uncles of the South:

IULIA ANDREEA MILICĂ

Keywords: uncle, mammy, Uncle Remus, black narrative, post-

one, as well as its doom. This assertion seems contradictory, because it

nineteenth century, its most prominent promoters being the plantation

of further rebellion and secession and promoting the image of “a world of

as frame narratives, these stories necessarily complicate narrative