All posts by Sydnee Hudson

Final Essay: Gender in Speculative Fiction

What makes an author give their characters the personality traits that they do?  Generally speaking, in every book that you read or film that you watch there is one distinguishable trait that you fall in love with that the main protagonist has.  This could be some special power that they have, or a personality quirk, or even a scar (yes, I am talking about you, Harry Potter). One of the key traits that writers quickly distinguish is if that particular characters is going to be portrayed as masculine or feminine.  Masculinity is defined as having qualities or appearance traditionally associated with men, especially strength and aggressiveness.  While femininity is defined as having qualities or appearance traditionally associated with women, especially delicacy and prettiness.

In our society, it is typically frowned upon for women to come off as masculine and for men to have any sort of feminine side.  Men are considered weak if they show any sort of femininity in their actions or thought process, just as women are considered to be less of a woman if they display any sense of masculinity.  However, how is it that if you look at different genres of film and literature that the masculine and feminine roles are often reversed from that of which would be expected and celebrated throughout our society?  Writers use the gender roles that we have established in our lives and spheres of the world in ways that are different than what we would typically see in order to get a point across or to support a social movement.  By exploring the different ways in which speculative fiction authors use gender as a tool, one can see the different types of points they are trying to get across.
Gender and the way that it is portrayed has a monumental effect on how the entire story or plot line will evolve.  For example, with a stereotypical gender placement it is easy to envision how the story will go.  This leads to twists, turns, and plot twists to be a lot more predictable because it will follow the same pattern as every other gender normal story that there is.  However, speculative fiction writers bend and twist these gender norms in able to create a more thrilling, suspenseful, and exciting story for all parties involved.

Generally speaking, there is a pattern or theme for every gender stereotypical reading that is available to the public eye.  In most readings with a conventional female protagonist the story is about her love life, or lack thereof.  The plot will then thicken with some sort of melodrama that escalates into some sort of life changing romance.  The new couple will then ride off into the sunset, seeming as though they have faced no hardships along the way, at least nothing that was out of the ordinary for the reader. Following the story of a typical male protagonist, the reader typical follows one of two stories.  The first being another romantic genre type of story where the man has been wronged by so many women, or been misunderstood, but he finally finds true love and happiness after overcoming some drastic hardship in getting there, while still maintaining the male identity.  This is much like the typical female protagonist story.  The second story line is one that is full of adventure and strength, and just all around masculinity.  This plot line, as well as the other two that have been mentioned, are all very predictable and stale.  They might be good stories and keep the reader entertained for a portion of their time, but it will never be a story that truly sticks out in their mind.  That is a gift that speculative fiction writers have.

It is often wondered why writers place their characters at such drastically far ends of the spectrum.  A female character typically cannot just be a little tomboyish in order to satisfy the writer.  She has to be completely defeminized and sometimes seemingly unfeeling to help prove or fulfill the point that the author is trying to make. The same type of situation goes for male characters as well.  They are portrayed as being extremely emotional and in touch with their feelings.  This type of male character is most popularly seen in the romance genre, but there have been traces of this sort of character in the speculative fiction genre as well.  Often times, there will be two parallel characters either within the same series or same general universe that portray these two types of female and male roles.

The first example of these parallel characters comes from the Marvel Cinematic Universe in the forms of Jessica Jones and Matt Murdock (aka Daredevil).  Jessica Jones is a dry humored alcoholic who just so happened to gain super strength after she was involved in a bad car accident when she was younger.  Immediately from the first episode of the Netflix original series “Jessica Jones”, Jessica is portrayed as a very masculine woman.  This is not shown so much in her physical appearance, as the actress is a very petite woman, but in her physical and emotional demeanor.  Jones is very standoffish, rude, and straight to the point.  She also is a borderline alcoholic and her drink of choice is whiskey, which is more typically known to be a man’s drink of choice.  She is not very “lady like” in the slightest- she uses her fists more often than her words and when she does use her words it is not without a strand of obscenities.  Jessica Jones is absolutely the type of person who would rather fight and punch the answers out of someone, rather than first trying to talk to the person and figure out what is going on.  While it is seen briefly in the show, Jessica is not focused on her love life, unlike the stereotypical female protagonist.  Yes, there are some instances in which she is taken off guard by a certain gentleman, but she stays extremely focused on her plan and end goal throughout the entirety of season one of the show.  In your typical female protagonist there would have been a huge breakup/makeup portion that took up two episodes just to envelop all of the drama.  This is not the case with Jessica Jones.

Matt Murdock is the stare of the Netflix original series “Daredevil”.  Matt is blinded in a chemical spill when he is a young boy, so from the beginning he is already in a vulnerable state compared to that of the other men he is around.  Matt is very much against killing, which already differs him from the ever violent Jessica Jones, and has a softer side about him.  He is very involved with people’s lives and tries do what is best by everyone in any given situation.  When he is not saving the world as Daredevil, he is saving the lives of innocent people as a lawyer.  Matt will take any case, even if it seems like he has no chance of winning, if he believes that the person is telling the truth.  That goes to say something about the heart of this man.  We also see a very different and emotional side of him when we are introduced to the Nurse.  This is the romantic aspect that we are missing from Jessica Jones, which is just another tally under the feminine column for Matt Murdock.

The Hunger Games is another series in which there are two parallel characters that display masculinity and femininity in the opposite sex.  Katniss Everdeen, “The Girl on Fire”, is a one hundred percent tomboy.  Not so much because of that is how she wanted to be, but that is what her circumstances molded her to be.  After her father died, leaving behind herself, her mother, and her sister, Katniss adopted the role of “man of the house”.  This meant that she had to learn how to be one of the guys. Meaning that Katniss had to learn how to hunt, fish, trap, kill, and be the overall provider for her family.  She did not, as her sister did, learn how to cook or heal people.  Katniss is also very blunt and does not have the overall girly charm that most women, especially the women in her family, seem to have.  She comes off as unfeeling, hard, rude, and just a generally dislikable person.  Her entire upbringing and demeanor is the complete opposite of her counterpart Peeta Mellark.  After being thrust into The Hunger Games, her demeanor while she is in the arena does not vary far from her demeanor outside of it.  The only time that we see her act more feminine while she is competing in the games is when she pretends to fall in love with Peeta, but this too is just a ploy in her ultimate plan to try and stay alive.

Peeta Mellark is the antithesis of Katniss Everdeen.  He is very kind, trusting, giving, and loving.  He also has the ability to charm just about anyone that he has an interaction with.  Peeta was raised as the baker’s son, so when Katniss was out in the woods foraging for food, Peeta was in the kitchen baking.  This is the complete reversal of the gender stereotypes that our society is accustomed to.  Peeta is very much so the sensitive one in the relationship that he and Katniss share; he opens up conversations to get to know her better, he can recall the way he felt about Katniss as a school boy, and he ultimately fall in love with her.  These are all traits that readers would expect Katniss to have, but the speculative fiction genre never fails to ignore these gender norms.  While being thrust into The Hunger Games forces Peeta to act in a much more masculine way, but this was only because he could have lost his life if he did not step up and fulfill a more masculine role.  However, it is still clear to the audience that Katniss is actually the more cunning and masculine person out of the pair of them.

Lastly, Star Wars: Episode VII- The Force Awakens.  The two characters that are at opposite ends of their gender spectrum here are Finn and Rey.  Rey is an orphaned young woman living by herself in the harsh desert land of Jakku.  She survives and makes her living by scavenging the land for anything useful that she can trade in for rations.  From the start, Rey is a very tough acting girl and the viewer learns that it is not just an act, but something she had to become due to the circumstances that were thrust upon her.  She is not one to shy away from conflict and is not one opposed to using her fists to solve problems in opposed to her words.  It is later learned that she has the power of “The Force” within her.  This in itself was a major shock to the cinematic audience because all of the viewers expected Finn to be the new Jedi, when in fact it is the meek and petite girl who holds all of the power.

Finn, for much of the movie, is on an emotional roller coaster.  He was taken from his family as a baby to be trained and become a storm trooper for the republic.  In the opening scene of the film, the audience watches Finn freeze up and become immobilized when he witnesses one of his best friends being killed.  This serves as a clue as to Finn’s sensitive nature and demeanor.  The audience gets another peek as to the type of person that Finn is whenever he is trying to help another character escape from prison.  As soon as things start to get tricky, Finn wants to desert the people that he had been trying to help and run so that he can save himself.  Finn is ultimately the most sensitive one out of the group that he is working with.  This ultimately makes him seem much more feminine and makes Rey appear to be a lot more masculine than him.

Speculative fiction authors have a way of bending the gender stereotypes in a way that creates a new and exciting story.  Speculative fiction authors are constantly testing the boundaries and limits of their writings and doing away with gender norms is one way in which they accomplish this. Authors take the typical gender norms and stereotypes and throw them out of a metaphorical window.  In doing this, it opens the door full of possibilities that the author can test out and explore.  The writer is no longer bound to certain expectations just because he/she decided to cast the character as a male or female.  Speculative fiction authors have proven that a masculine female protagonist can sell just as many books and be just as entertaining as a masculine male protagonist.  On the flip side of that spectrum, the same can be said about feminine males; feminine male protagonists can hold their own against feminine female protagonists.  By throwing out the typical story lines, speculative fiction authors are constantly surprising and confounding their readers.

One way in which speculative fiction authors manage to keep readers and avid fans on their toes is by producing new literature and plot lines that have not been thought of before.  An example is this is by writing about societies in which there is no gender; androgynous societies.  By creating works of fiction where there is an androgynous society, speculative fictions authors create a space where they can create whatever type of world that they want to.  This could be a society in which they wish our world was, one that they think we are headed towards, or it could be one designed to argue a point.  Whatever the case, by creating these new androgynous worlds, the author is able to formulate the exact type of what that he or she desires.  The author does not have to give any sort of thought to gender stereotypes because in that world in which they have created there is no gender to stereotype.  By eliminating gender completely, speculative fiction authors give themselves the opportunity to fully unlock their creative potential and give the readers the type of story that they wish every genre had.

An example of a piece of speculative fiction that is centered around an androgynous society is Ursula K. Le Guin’s book The Left Hand of Darkness. This work of fiction has won the best science fiction novel of the year in the form of both the Hugo and Nebula awards and is often referred to as, “[A] science fiction masterpiece.”  This novel is centered around a man, Genly Ai, who is sent to study the ethnology of the Gethenians on the planet Winter.  This society functions very differently than that of which Genly Ai, and the readers, are used to.  The citizens of this planet and specific society are androgynous beings, meaning that they have no specific gender and do not understand nor recognize behaviors and stereotypes that are associated with being male and female.    The citizens of this society are able to pick and choose whether or not they want to assume the male or female role when it comes time for them to participate in sexual reproduction.  Genly Ai, being a resident of Earth, is seen as an oddity on this planet by constantly being a man and never going into the in between stage where he is neither a male or a female.  The Left Hand of Darkness was considered one of the first feminist pieces of science fiction.  By eliminating gender from this society, Guin was able to examine and address the effects the sex and gender have on culture and society.  By eradicating gender and creating an androgynous society, Ursula K. Le Guin was able to create a world in which there are no constrictions caused by gender roles and norms.

Speculative fiction authors mold and shape gender and its stereotypes in a way that makes our society as a whole examine and rethink about the structural framework that we have set in place regarding gender.  In fiction pieces such as The Left Hand of Darkness, by removing gender and making the entire society androgynous, we are forced to look at what our society would potentially look like if we did not have those gender roles set in place.  By removing gender from the society, we, the readers, are forced to look at what is left.  We are forced to imagine how different things might be, how decisions could be made, and we are forced to look at how much gender and sex dictate our society that we live in.

It is also possible to see how gender and sex effect our society by looking at the novels and adaptations of books in which the male and female characters have been given characteristics that do not typically belong to their gender.  By doing this, speculative fiction authors force their readers and viewers to face what it is that might make them feel uncomfortable about a character that is so vastly different the conventional male and female characters that we are used to in what we face and see in our day to day lives.  Citizens in our society are forced to question whether or not these typical gender roles are true reflections of who we are as not only people of a society, but as individuals as well.

Gender is a key component of the genre that is speculative fiction.  Being able to stretch and flex the roles and norms of gender are key factors that aid authors in writing books that are not only entertaining, but thought provoking as well.  Even the lack of gender in certain societies is still helpful in examining the flaws that we might have in what we think is an otherwise perfect society.  Molding and shaping gender allows for the opening of many various avenues that authors can take in order to make the most thought provoking, while still entertain, works of speculative fiction that they can.

 

Game Of Thrones Theory

GOT6

***WARNING: SPOILERS AHEAD***

If you are anything like me, then you have been eagerly awaiting for the new season of Game of Thrones to commence.  It just so happens that a brand new trailer was released today that features a shot of the beautiful Jon Snow *swoons*.

Jon Snow

Seriously, check out the trailer for yourself.  Now, you may be thinking that after last season’s finale we saw the end of Jon Snow.  I, along with many other fans, do not think this is the case.  I will do my very best to explain my theory to you, but if you get lost along the way I offer my sincerest apologies.

The Theory

So, here’s my theory.  Just before Jon Snow was unjustly murdered by his brothers (I hate you Ollie) the Red Woman, Melisandre, mysteriously appeared back at Castle Black (just kidding, it wasn’t mysterious at all, she finally realized that Stannis was not going to win the war he was trying to fight).  However, I do not think that she is going to use her dark, weird, witchy light powers and bring Jon back to life.  I do think that Jon is going to be resurrected and that she is going to realize that he is the warrior that she has been having visions of all along. Now, you might be wondering why I think this is going to happen. Well, allow me to lay out some evidence for you.

The Evidence 

  • Jon Snow is a bastard, hence the last name Snow, but are you sure that he is Ned Stark’s bastard.  Throughout the show hints are dropped to make you doubt whether or not Ned is his father, because it was extremely out of character for him. This leads you to believe that Jon’s mother is actually Ned’s sister, Lynna Stark.
  • Lynna Stark was kidnapped by Rhaegar Targaryen, but there are nuances that point to Lynna actually being in love with Rhaegar and eloping with him.  This would make Rhaegar Jon’s father.  Which would make Jon a Targaryen, which is why Ned may have claimed him in order to protect him.
  • If Jon is a Targaryen, then the possibility of his rebirth (or resurrection) through fire exists.
  • It is typical after a death for the body to be burned.
  • Jon (Tarygaryen) + fire (because he’s dead) = New and Improved Resurrected Jon!

Upon seeing this, Melisandre will realize that Jon is the one that we should put our faith in. Well, Jon and Daenerys (if she isn’t killed first). Do with this what you will, but I’ve got $20 that says this happens.

dragon

She’s Just a Chatty Kathy

Never let me go pic 2

If you haven’t yet finished Never Let Me Go by Kazuo Ishiguro, then this blog post may not be for you.  I give a fair warning now that there are probably going to be a couple of spoilers at some point in this post, so continue reading with caution.  I have a lot of mixed feelings about this book.  On one hand I really enjoyed reading it and the way it was written like Kathy H. was just an old friend of mine and we were catching up over tea.  On the other hand, I hated the way that some of book was written, alluding to things but never fully explaining them, and some of the characters and their (lack of) development.  However, the main thing I want to focus on is the language of the book.

Ishiguro writes Never Let Me Go  in a very conversational manor.  Kathy is basically just catching the reader up on what has been going on in her life and everything that she has been feeling.  This can be endearing at times and make the reading go by faster, but at other points it can be pretty frustrating.  For starters, she never gives you all of the facts at once.  An example of this is how she mentions donations over and over again, but never fully explains what they are until chapter seven.  Also, what about the fact that they are all clones?  I did not see that one coming and I did not appreciate Kathy H. keeping me in the dark about that.  What a jerk.

Kathy also seems unable to keep a clear timeline of when everything happened.  She is constantly jumping back and forth between the present and the past.  Her flashbacks happen so randomly that it can get confusing as to what is going on.  However, I think this sort of plays into her being like an old friend and just chatting with you.  When you are catching up with someone yo u often remember the things that happened out of chronological order, so it would make sense that our narrator would do the same.  I think that Ishiguro might make Kathy tell her story like this so it wouldn’t feel like she was just droning on and on about her past.  He lets little details slip and makes hints at certain things so that we are constantly interested and intrigued as to what is going on and what has happened.

Ultimately, even though it could be annoying at times, I think that the language of the story and how Ishiguro wrote it works to his advantage.  I think that it makes this narrative a much more relatable and personal story.  I felt as though Kathy was my friend, so I was much more invested in what she was saying,  how people treated her and how certain situations affected her (I’m talking about you, Ruth). I suppose my overall rating of this book would be a 6/10 would potentially recommend.
P.S.: Here is a great quote that I actually loved from the book:

It never occurred to me that our lives, which had been so closely interwoven, could unravel with such speed.  If I’d known, maybe I’d have kept tighter hold.

Doesn’t that just break your heart?

 

Ave Atque Vale to Comic Books

I recently  finished V for Vendetta by Alan Moore and David Lloyd.  I have to say that I have mixed feelings about this book.  On one hand, I very much enjoyed the fact that it was written out as a comic.  Being able to actually see the action play out instead of imagining it in my head made the reading go by much faster.  However, some of the pictures confused me as to what was going on and some of the characters were so similar looking to one another that I became confused more often than not as to which character was doing what.  While there were some definite perks to having the book as a comic, I think that I would have preferred it written as a standard novel.

     I think that comic books should be made for much shorter stories.  While the comic was broken down into different volumes in V for Vendetta, I still think that there was too much going on.  A lot of the time I was too distracted by the pictures to really grasp what was happening in the story.  I would have to reread a blurb twenty times just so I could actually understand and process what was going on at that particular moment.  While it was really interesting to see what the authors had in mind whenever they wrote the story, some of the graphics just left me more confused, especially in terms of which character was which.  Could you spot the differences between Mr. Almond and Mr. Susan just by a glance? You couldn’t? Yeah, me either.

 

Can you tell who these three characters are? It took me a while too.

     Earlier I stated that the pictures made the reading go by much faster and it is true that it went by faster.  However, I don’t think that I was able to get everything that I could out of this book since it was written as a comic.  Maybe it being produced as a comic made me take it less seriously.  I felt like I didn’t need to focus on it as much as I would have if it would have been written as a regular novel.  I also feel like I lost out on the detail of the story.  Since it was portrayed as a comic all of the action of the story was drawn out.  I feel as though I missed small details of the action that I would not have missed otherwise.

     I guess my overriding opinion is that I would have much rather read this book as a novel rather than a comic book.  I think that novels are more suited to my style of reading and processing the information presented to me.  In a debate about comics v. novels one man wrote this statement and I find that I very much agree with it:

“It’s said that a picture paints a thousand words; I’d rather read the thousand words. With a picture I can see the place; with a thousand words I can taste it.”
So, ave atque vale to you, comic books.  I shall not miss you too much.

Oppression of Women as Seen in Two Genres

As we have read through Kindred by Octavia E. Butler and A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood I have noticed the stark differences between what is known as speculative fiction and what we classified in class as historical science fiction.  Another topic that that kept reappearing for me (and probably much of the class) was the portrayal of women in these two clashing societies.  The women were put down, demoralized, and under appreciated.  While the absence of women in The Left Hand of Darkness by Ursula K. Le Guin was noticed, I was personally not a huge fan of that book so I do not feel like discussing it.

Let’s begin with Kindred. kindred

I was a big fan of this novel.  I thought that it read easily and had a very interesting plot line.  I was fascinated with the idea of time travel and wanted to figure out how this time travel between Dana and Rufus worked.  I am still unsure as to how it worked, but I do know that it had something to do with Rufus being one of Dana’s ancestors.  This aspect of time travel without explanation is what really put this novel into the genre of science fiction for me.  I know that time travel is something that I do not think will ever happen, at least not this kind.  I still have hope that one day very smart scientists somewhere will be able to build something that will allow you to go back in time.

The female protagonist, Dana, is transported back to the Antebellum South time and time again to help rescue her troublesome ancestor, Rufus.  When she is transported back in time she has to assume the role of a slave.  By being a slave she is already subjected to a certain amount of degredation, but being a woman on top of that makes things worse.  Towards the end of the book, when Rufus has grown into a man, she has to start worrying about Rufus trying to take advantage of her like he has done to Alice, and how several masters used to treat their female slaves.  One woman that is talked about was passed down from Tom Weylin to the overseer Jake Edwards.  Women were not treated as people, but as objects and property – free to give and be traded as the masters saw fit.

“Poor Tess. Weylin had tired of her as a bed mate and passed her casually to Edwards. She had been afraid Edwards would send her to the fields where he could keep an eye on her. ”

“You do everything they tell you,” she wept, ” and they still treat you like a old dog. Go here, open your legs; go there, bust your back. What they care! I ain’t s’pose to have no feelin’s!”

Now on to The Handmaid’s Tale. thehandmaids-tale

Margaret Atwood made it a point to say that this book is not science fiction, but speculative fiction.  Speculative fiction generally is more realistic than your average science fiction novel.  Speculative fiction does not have what we would identify as “monsters” – aliens, ghouls, dragons, and other types of creatures  that you could find in any fantasy or science fiction novel.  Speculative fiction gives you the sense that what is going on in the book could actually happen in our society.  As terrifying as it is to think about, it would not be that hard for government leaders to suddenly decide that the society of Gilead is one that we need in our society.  It would be extremely hard to fight.

Let’s get to the oppression of women in this book.  Where do we even begin? The Handmaids are not even considered people to the families that they work under.  They are a vessel, a way to get a child- they are a means to an end.  They are used for their bodies and if they are not able to produce a child, regardless if it is their fault or if the man is not fertile, then the Handmaid is banished to the colonies, or some other terrible fate. However, the Handmaid’s are not the only women that have to suffer mistreatment and oppression.  Women of all stations, Wives, Econowives, and Marthas all have to answer the the men of their society.  They are expected to behave in a certain manner according to their station, dress a certain way, and be obedient and silent about the orders given to them and their roles in society.

“Mother, I think. Wherever you may be. Can you hear me? You wanted a women’s culture. Well, now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies.”

So far in the books that we have read the oppression of women is a reoccurring theme. It was interesting to view this theme from two different genres of fiction, thus further exploring the contrasts and similarities between these two genres.

spec-fic-and-subgenres

Left Handed People Can’t Do Anything Right.

One aspect about the Left Hand of Darkness that I have not been able to shake is the name of the book itself.  I know that we touched on this some in class, but it still bothers me.

What is it about the left hand that makes everything seem worse?  The mistrust of left-handers seems to have stemmed from ancient sun worship.  Since the sun moved from left to right, the worshipers related everything to the right as “good” and everything to the left as “bad”. left hand

There are also passages in the bible that are not in favor of the left hand.  The most prominent one comes from Matthew 25: 31-34, 41:

“When the Son of man shall come in his glory, and all the holy angels with him, then shall he sit upon the throne of his glory; and before him shall be gathered all nations: and he shall separate them on from another, as a shepherd divided his sheep from the goats: an he shall set the sheep on his right hand, but the goats on the left. Then shall the King say unto them on his right hand, ‘Come, ye blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.’… Then shall he say also unto them on the left hand, ‘Depart from me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels.”

Even pictures describing the fall of man in the Garden of Eden depict Eve reaching up to pick an apple with her left hand.

dammit eve

In summary, left-handed people seem to get the short end of the stick.