Hélène Cixous’s Gender Theory
Gerasimova Elena S1939858
Supervisor: Dr. Irene Visser Date: 18.06.2010
MA-dissertation, English Language and Culture Faculty of Arts, University of Groningen
Aldous Huxley‟s Brave New World and Margaret
Atwood‟s The Handmaid’s Tale : An Analysis
Preface
My intention to analyze Margaret Atwood‟s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Aldous Huxley‟s Brave New World (1932) from a gender perspective of Hélène Cixous was influenced by several factors. First of all, I have always been interested in gender differences; however, I did not want to explore the topic further relying only on literature which is too obviously associated with the problems of gender. Secondly, taking into account the recent happenings in the world, such as changing of moral values and consciousness of people, apart from catastrophes and natural disasters, I caught myself reflecting on the possible explanations of that. The creation of an utopian world without oppression could be an interesting topic for my dissertation. However, I am mostly interested in genre dystopia which shows all the negative sides of a perfectly organized society because, in my opinion, the characteristics of a dystopian community are very similar to the present situation, and this makes the analysis more interesting. Thus, the question was now how to combine the topics I was interested in.
My acquaintance with Aldous Huxley‟s novel Brave New World filled my mind with different controversial thoughts. The society he describes reminds us about the problems the world faces nowadays. Although the obvious characteristic of the novel is a male perspective of presenting the narration, I noticed some episodes where women get attention as well, and in some descriptions it seems that the borders of gender differences, implicitly present, are of no importance. However, it is not possible to get complete understanding of the topic if another perspective, the female one, is not present.
consciousness and values of the mankind over a time period. The second reason and the most important one lies in the fact that Atwood is associated with the feminist theory; thus, gender problems are central in her works, and in such a way my analysis receives a female perspective. The third reason is that Atwood‟s novel The Handmaid’s Tale is called a feminist dystopia, and this breaks the borders of the genre which used to have only masculine characteristics.
In the book by M. R. A. Habib Modern Literary Criticism and Theory: a History (2008), which we used during the course of Modern Literature and Mediation taught by Dr. Irene Visser, who is now my supervisor, at the University of Groningen, I got acquainted with the representatives of gender approach. The ideas of the three theorists who are associated with French feminism, namely Julia Kristeva, Lucy Irigaray, and Hélène Cixous seem to have similarities with each other: they all are interested in the questions of sexuality, identity, and the body, and they all believe that in order to change the position for the better, women have to challenge the masculine system instead of trying to achieve equality within it. The assumptions of all of them being important for the analysis; yet, I chose Hélène Cixous‟s theory as the central one because of the several reasons.
interested in and, in particular, apply her theory for examining the novel Brave New World which, to my knowledge, has never been read from such a perspective before. As for The Handmaid’s Tale, Coral Ann Howells, the editor of the book The Cambridge Companion: Margret Atwood (2006) also applied in her analysis of Atwood‟s heritage Hélène Cixous‟s theory; this finding only strengthen my decision.
Introduction
The paper is an attempt to analyze the novel by Aldous Huxley Brave New World (1932) and the novel by Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) from a gender perspective using Hélène Cixous‟s ideas as the theoretical foundation. Aldous Huxley (1894-1963) is a well-known author famous for such works as, for example, Crome Yellow (1921), Antic Hay (1923), Point Counter Points (1928), Women in Love (1932), and others. Huxley‟s fame was established with Brave New World (1932), the novel of dystopia which was to become a classic fable of terror. Apart from Brave New World, he is hard to place as a man of literature because his usage of both satire and intellectual brilliance, of imagination and development of ideas, gave the critics the possibility to regard him as a great writer, but not necessarily as a great novelist (Heuvelmans 218-220).
The novel Brave New World is thus an important one because it is an all-classic which established Huxley‟s reputation in the literary élite of the twentieth century. Brave New World has been characterized as a novel-of-ideas because the development of ideas, theories and ideologies is given more importance than the development of characters. Huxley himself proposed that the factor which could differentiate his novel from other similar “but inferior works”, for example, from We by the Russian novelist Zamiatin is the theme of Brave New World which problematizes the affect of the scientific revolution on human individuals, a problem which has been growing increasingly acute since the great “scientific avalanche of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries” (Baker 120).
several major themes distinguished in the course of critical studies of Huxley‟s works which are of importance for the analysis. One of the key themes is identity influenced by scientific progress: “advancement of science as it affects human individuals” (Huxley qtd. in Heuvelmans 219). One more theme is the destruction of mankind‟s common sense and of human culture; thus, the development of a human being is given attention (Heuvelmans 219). Taking into account that development happens over a period of time, there comes forth the importance of time: “Mond‟s carefully controlled society involves an immersion in the present in which Pavlovian conditioning, Marxist collectivism, Fordean technology” undermine the concept of linear progress (Baker 138). Religion is another point for discussion because in the novel Huxley wittily portrays consumer capitalism which makes itself into a religion (Murray 257). The themes of power control and freedom mostly referring to hypnopaedia, or sleep-teaching, and the theory of “conditioned reflex” are also distinguished by the critics (Watt 198). Sexuality also receives attention because Huxley raises the question of female promiscuity, depicts a society obsessed with erotic practice and ideas which lead to complete moral bankruptcy (Baker 141).
dissident account by a Handmaid who has found herself on the margins of political power (Howells 169).
The analyses of her works by such critics as J. Bouson, C. A. Howells, E. Rao, and Sh. R. Wilson bring forth the themes important for my dissertation. The critics‟ attention is given to the concept of the body and identity because the generated body of a Handmaid is written into the body of the text revealing the typical gender characteristics and problematized identity (Howells 169). Political power is one of the central points in Atwood‟s work because she has always been concerned with the interface between power in the public and the personal world, and here power politics is explored through the tyranny of the Republic of Gilead (Somacarrera qtd. in Howells 43). Another important theme in her work is the concept of freedom because in the novel “women‟s reproductive capacities” have deprived them of any natural right including the right for being free (Rao 19). Atwood also explores the difference in human development over time, namely “the confrontation between the two worlds, of present and future, is achieved by skilful manipulation of time”, and this is also the factor which distinguishes this novel from its predecessors in the dystopian tradition (Rao 18).
To place the analysis within a critical framework, it is interesting to explore the themes raised in the novels using the theoretical assumptions of an eminent contemporary French feminist theorist, writer, and critic Hélène Cixous (1937). The greatest impact of her work lies in its ability to combine writing, theory, and living. The works are crucial to an understanding of the project of sexual differences and of feminist literary criticism. A small number of texts translated into English, such as “The Laugh of Medusa” (1975) and “Sorties” (1975) are the essays where Cixous discusses the relations between sexuality and textual production (Shiach 2).
The main themes distinguished in her works are the following: correlation between power and identity and the concepts of the body and freedom – all of them in development over a time period and in relation to the category of sexual difference. In my dissertation, I use these themes turning them into the categories for the analysis of the two novels because both Atwood and Huxley focus on them in their works. Cixous necessarily rejects the boundaries of the binary division masculine/feminine in her work; thus, this enables the usage of her ideas which offer a potential blueprint for women‟s textual representation in The Handmaid’s Tale and a strategy for challenging male-inscribed discourses in Brave New World (Davies qtd. in Howells 60).
works, was critical about the idea and stated that Cixous‟s celebration of the female body risks making of it “too unproblematic, pleasurable and totalized entity” so that it turns out to be more feminist fantasy than reality (qtd. in Howells 59). Further, my intention is to show possible outcomes and shifts of the balance of Cixous‟s male/female opposition and to demonstrate that these changes occur both in male- and female-orientated societies.
The analysis is based on the exploration of the themes which were chosen for their importance for Hélène Cixous‟s theory. The central category is sexuality/gender differences, and the additional aspects are investigated in relation to this category. Cixous‟s theory provides the concept of identity, the concept of the body, the concept of politics, and the concept of time. The categories religion and the aspect of the natural development of a human being are dictated by their important position in the books. The gender approach chosen for the analysis and the method of contrastive comparison of the various aspects are organized in three chapters.
Chapter I
Margaret Atwood‟ The Handmaid’s Tale and Aldous Huxley‟s Brave New World are written in the same literary genre, namely dystopia. The 1920s to 1940s were the classic eras of the dystopia: “the devil‟s decades” of mass unemployment, mass persecution, brutal dictatorship, a world war, and a period of ceaseless scientific missionary activity (Krishan qtd. in Bagshik 110). Dystopia is a literary genre describing any alarmingly unpleasant imaginary world, usually of the projected future, where people lead dehumanized and often fearful lives. Dystopia envisions a sinister perfection of order and, in the most basic political terms, is a nightmare of authoritarian or totalitarian rule (Warren qtd. in Bagschik 110).
The central position is my dissertation is given to Hélène Cixous‟s theoretical approach. The reasons for the choice are listed in the introduction, yet a brief explanation of the key points is necessary because the main oppositional pair male/female used in the analysis as well as the major part of the aspects introduced in the introduction are taken from Hélène Cixous‟s theory. No less important is that she argues for the flexibility of the borders of the sexual opposition male/female. The system of opposition for Cixous is importantly gendered and connected to the concept of sexual difference which is not the anatomical difference between men and women, but rather morphological difference, and it does not reinforce phallocentric biologism (Bary 47). Cixous claims that sexual difference is not stable, it is “tortuous and complicated”, “there is sexual difference, and there is what becomes in its appearance and distribution in each one of us” (qtd. in Bray 48). As Shiach explains, Hélène Cixous‟s works touch upon such questions as the “relation between politics and writing”; “the dimensions and implications of sexual difference”; and “the tenability of an identity based on ethical, textual, and political difference from dominant social relations” (2). Cixous states that exchange is vitally important because “as soon as you simply touch each other, you alter each other, and the alteration “may be positive or negative”; “there are modalities of exchange that are respectful modalities, where you let yourself be sufficiently altered to feel the other of the other – not too much, because then you destroy yourself” (Conley 136). The idea is employed in my analysis because it allows to read the novels from a non-oppositional perspective in order to find out the causes of sexual differences because it is obvious that the members of the oppositional pair influence each other.
in English, for example, “The Laugh of the Medusa” (1975) and “Sorties” (1975) which discuss the transgressive potential of writing and relations between sexuality and textuality (Shiach 1-2). The understanding of Hélène Cixous‟s s writings cannot be complete without referring to the institutional political contexts and other factors which influenced the development of her ideas.
The radical nature and impact of Hélène Cixous‟s theory originates from the political and social protests and upheavals of the 1960s. It was the period when such French theorists as Roland Barthes, Jacques Derrida, Julia Kristeva and Lucy Irigaray “were re-examining some of the basic categories and assumptions of Western thought” (Habib 132). Cixous‟s contribution towards all these studies and discussions was to produce the notion of écriture feminine or feminine writing “based not on a „given‟ essence of male and female characteristics but on culturally achieved conventions, such as „openness‟” in feminine discourse as a lack of oppressive motives (Hopkins 162-164). Writing in the feminine is an attempt to move beyond the constraints of phallocentric thought, an attempt “to let the other exist without imposing the definition of the self”; however, it is not only a discourse which rewrites the body which “has been colonized by phallocentric language”, it is also about forming a philosophical and political ethics, “a calling into question of the foundations of thinking” (Bray 71-72).
determinations” (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 71). Thus, interpreting Cixous‟s theory, in one context a person can choose to follow the patterns of a more dominant masculine position, and in the other a feminine response, while sometimes the combination of both elements is more beneficial; this idea is used in the analysis as the central one.
An important factor for the formation of Hélène Cixous‟s ideas was her participating in 1970 in a literary and philosophical project which aimed at exploring the relations between sexuality and writing. It involved other theorists as well, such as Julia Kristeva and Luce Irigaray. At that moment Hélène Cixous was the member of the French political and intellectual group called “Psychanalyse et Politique” (Psych et Po) “who struggled to develop revolutionary theories of the oppression of women on the basis of psychoanalytic theory” (Shiach 27). They aimed at disturbing the present patriarchal political and cultural order, pointing out the importance of writing as means of political struggle. The importance for the analysis here lies in the connection with a psychoanalytical approach because in both novels thinking and reading a person‟s mind as well as playing with this knowledge take an important place. This helps in understanding gender differences at this level. Another fact which is necessary for understanding Hélène Cixous‟s works is her association with the University of Paris VII (Vincennes). There in 1974 Cixous established the Centre d'Etudes Féminines (Centre for Feminine Studies), a centre aimed at conducting an interdisciplinary research of femininity within modernity (Shiach 28).
which is inscribed only within boundaries” (qtd. in Evans 124). Feminine sexuality is seen as cosmic; it unconsciously covers the whole world. The woman‟s loving desire is the desire of “the other for the other”, for everything that lives (Cixous qtd. in Evans 128). The interesting point here is Hélène Cixous‟s philosophical notion of a new economy, a feminine economy, which however, cannot be defined clearly because Cixous believes that for this “all the old concepts of management are left behind” (qtd. in Evans 128). It is used in my analysis to include in its meaning a society with all its characteristics, posing central the idea of the restricted possibilities of male society and the more open female, referring to one of the main questions of the thesis which aims at investigating if Cixous reflections on the absence of oppression in a feminine society are true.
In the essay “The Laugh of the Medusa”, Hélène Cixous explores feminine writing and points out the importance of locating sexual difference at the level of sexual pleasure. This has a connection to the theme of identity which in turn is related to the importance of the body and the possibility of social and subjective transformation. Both Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale and Aldous Huxley in Brave New World pay much attention to the importance of a human body. Hélène Cixous states that humans‟ relation towards their bodies is culturally inscribed and different from nature (qtd. in Shiach 21). The realization of the body leads to the construction of gender in society. Biological sex, the physical representation of which is the body of a person, plays an important role in determining the choice of gender behaviour. Besides, biological differences between the sexes lead to different bodily experience and thus create different sources of knowledge. Although sexual experience is a small part of all the experiences which a human being receives, Cixous is sure that they involve different perceptions and contain the potential for the different understanding of the world (Sellers, Writing Differences 2). The crucial importance for the analysis of the novels is the fact that society is organized differently for men and women, and that the body, thus biological difference together with sexual difference, determines the social position of a person in the society.
However, prior to this patriarchal order of Christian rule there existed a diversity of matriarchal societies, and The Handmaid’s Tale gives the possible example of creating such a system with negative and positive results. Cixous believes in “new women” and men who will bring about and managed to bring about the change and to threaten the stability of the masculine structure. Such a shift has to transform the whole system of society, its moral values. Hélène Cixous is clear in her implications: she thinks that a new feminine economy “will be founded on love” and would presuppose the existence of the other without any threats of repression” (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 17).
The feminine economy originates from the feminine libidinal economy. The crucial importance for our analysis here is the fact that “libidinal feminine”, that is the economy of sexual life, underlies to “social or cultural feminine”; there is a connection between those two, although a negative one, and this gives the possibility for different interpretations of these relations (Wilson et al. 37). Hélène Cixous presents this feminine economy excluding the term opposition at all: she prefers to refer to difference and equality in order to avoid confrontation. This is of interest for the analysis because the absence of the rigid boundaries in the main opposition male/female which marks all the spheres in the society, which is accepted as strictly fixed, “which is completely distorted by everyday usage”, and which in this way “burdens” the society, gives way to different interpretations of the possible shifts inside it (Cixous qtd. in Wilcox et al. 36). I use Cixous‟s non-oppositional approach because, in my opinion, it helps to find the causes of the problem of inequality; in addition, it helps to analyze all the possible outcomes caused by the shifts in the binary pair male/female.
society and the position of women in it which is fixed “throughout the centuries” (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 15). This aspect, although slightly modified in the category of the natural development of a person, is used in the analysis because the novels employ different time-frames. Although Hélène Cixous‟s works are chosen as the main theoretical source, it is useful to refer to the theoretical assumptions of other representatives of French feminism whose ideas can help in the analysis.
Chapter II
The chapter is devoted to the analysis of gender aspects in the novel Brave New World by Aldous Huxley from the perspective of Hélène Cixous‟s theoretical approach. There are, to my knowledge, no such earlier attempts. The main reason for taking Hélène Cixous‟s approach is that, although she is associated with the feminist ideas and although in her theory she relies on the opposition male/female, she makes it clear that the boundaries of this oppositional pair are not rigid and that each individual has feminine/masculine characteristics which he/she reveals depending on the situation.
Huxley‟s novel refers to Freud: as we read, the chief leader of the society, his fordship Mustapha Mond, calls himself “Our Freud”, but people do not know why “for some inscrutable reasons whenever he spoke of psychological matters” (Huxley 46). It has an obvious connection to the theoretical ideas of Freud stating, in particular, that “Our Freud had been the first to reveal the appalling dangers of family life” (Huxley 46). This changed concept of family life is connected to the concept of sexuality which is central in Cixous‟s theoretical approach. Cixous developed a part of Freud‟s idea, namely that madness and oppression come if a society is functioning under the law of the father, thus again highlighting implicitly the oppositional pair male/female.
that “it seems to be natural and inevitable” (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 1). According to Irigaray, women cannot “analyze their own exploitation, inscribe their own demands within an order prescribed by the masculine” (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 1). Irigaray, Kristeva, and Cixous claim that the present history is the product of a specific male mode of understanding and organizing the world, and that the way out for women lies not just in achieving equality with men, but in challenging the system itself (Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference xiv).
The main themes taken from Cixous‟s reflections on gender differences are the following: sexuality/gender differences in relation to the concepts of identity and the body; and sexuality/gender differences in relation to the concept of power and freedom. The theme of sexuality/gender differences and religion does not have the same explicit manifestation in Hélène Cixous‟s theory, but it has an important position in the book. The problem of the correlation of sexuality/gender differences and the concept of time is given attention in Hélène Cixous‟s theory. However, in the analysis, I focus on the natural development of a person from Cixous‟s gender perspective who stated that “sexual difference is as infinitely complex as every social being is”: it establishes a kind of foundation for a person‟s identity and social status (qtd. in Bray 48).
I. Sexuality/gender differences and the concept of identity
World, not only women but also men are suffering from the indoctrinated from birth idea of the importance of the promiscuous sexual behavior because the aim of the World Controllers, who are the rulers there, is “to ensure that everyone slots in, that no friction is generated between person (or individual) and context, that the margins of possibility are not opened up” (Barfoot 103). With the help of Bokanovsky‟s Process, from a single ovary, there are produced up to ninety-six identical twins. Thus, what matters is the result when their biological gender is already determined in advance together with individuality which is cut out of a person without even being given a chance to develop.
about things which are not inserted into the minds of the citizens, for example, he once expresses his desire of being more of himself, not “so completely a part of something else” (Huxley 85). His sexual behavior is considered odd: he seems to have lack of interest in sexual life which is so important for the people in the depicted community.
The striking fact is that instead of realizing that there can be something useful in his words people prefer to have their blissfully ignorant lives where the equality of public consciousness is achieved “at the expense of individuality” (Bagschik 130). They explain such outbursts of individuality as the failure during the incubation period, too much alcohol “in his surrogate” (Huxley 88). Thus, “the normal is the extravagant and outrageous” here because the accidents in the production process of a man help to produce “high intelligence characters who are misfits” (Brander 64). One more example is Helmholz Watson, Bernard‟s friend, “the only man of his acquaintance with whom he could talk about the subjects he felt to be important”, and who has the feeling that he is different as well (Huxley 92). Helmholz was born too intelligent to accept the surroundings without criticizing them.
the social body” (Huxley 85). The reason for her fear is that she is afraid of being rejected by the male society where sexual life favors promiscuous relations because “it‟s such horribly bad form to go on and on like this with one man” (Huxley 47). Her love for John kills her in the end, in Huxley‟s dystopia death is the only logical and natural way out of the situation, but she makes an attempt to understand this strange feeling opposed to the feeling ascribed to that of “Mass Men” (Brander 61). Lenina is eager to accept the other type of sexual relations, and in this way she confirms her female individuality giving access “to her native strength”, “to her womanly being”, speaking in Cixous‟s terms (qtd. in Evans 116). Thus, a person‟s identity in this community is determined from birth and sexually influenced for the rest of the life.
II. Sexuality/gender differences and the concept of the body
explicit examples of violent repression in the novel, one can understand that women are treated as “the Others”, if one uses Hélène Cixous‟s terms (Bray 113).
The women of the depicted community, those “Civilized Girls”, are mostly concerned with getting pleasant feelings or keeping their body in a good condition with a lot of “boxes and labeled phials” being afraid of being rejected by men (Huxley 45, 207). As Lenina says, “Never put off till tomorrow the fun you can have today” (Huxley 88). Such a treatment of the body, referring to Hélène Cixous, leads to erasing, censoring, and hystericizing the body “through the unconscious” (qtd. in Shiach 70). Indeed, how horrified are the citizens when they see Linda, John the Savage‟s mother, who spent some years in the Reservation and whose actual age can be seen in “enormous breasts”, “the bulge of the stomach”, and “the blotched and sagging face” (Huxley 107, 131). The same feeling of shame and fear seizes Lenina when she is in the Indian Reservation and sees “the spectacle of two young women giving the breast to their babies” (Huxley 101). Thus, even the biological privilege of being able to give birth to a child - as also in the Reservation the Indians believe that the world was born from “the wombs”- is taken away from women, making the position of a man even more dominant (Huxley 116).
situation when not only men are experiencing a sexual desire for promiscuity, originally forced, this desire becomes natural for women and men.
The idea of the distorted interpretations of sexuality and the concept of the body is so deeply incorporated in the society that even pure and sincere feelings cannot at once change the situation. As Cixous says, “anatomy is destiny”, and the body has the direct connection to the exploration of sexual difference at the level of pleasure which is exactly the case in the novel (qtd. in Shiach 21). John the Savage falls in love with Lenina, but he is not content with associating her body “with merely a „pneumatic‟ object for sexual satisfaction”: he wants to love her “as a human being or not at all” (Firchow 131). John is also scared by his memories of his mother‟s promiscuity when they lived in the Reservation. The fact is that in the Indian community where Linda accidently had to live, the sexual life and the interpretation of the concept of the body are different: promiscuity, in particular, is considered a sin because there “nobody‟s supposed to belong to more than one person” (Huxley 109).
The disastrous effect of this standardized interpretation of the concept of the body influenced the interpretation of the concept of the family. According to Cixous, male and female bodies “communicate”, they “are pressed together” within the third body of collective movement (qtd. in Bray 119). In this case, it is of no importance to identify femininity and masculinity with the certainties of anatomic differences (Shiach 21). In Brave New World, marriage is forbidden, family life is unknown and mentioning of the words “mother” or “father” is shameful, a “dirty joke” (Huxley 62). One of the students is “overwhelmed with confusion” while explaining the past “of gross viviparous reproduction” when “children were always brought up by their parents and not in State Conditioning Centres” (Huxley 35). The citizens do not have the possibility of experiencing the other way of living: they believe that in the bad time before artificial insemination and conditioning, intense private love among individuals kept the world in a chaotic state (Bagschik 117). As a result there appeared the community which lives as a mass body under the influence of the drug soma and sexual pleasure without any chance to develop as individuals, a community directly opposed to Cixous‟s feminine economy.
III. Sexuality/gender differences and religion
sexual satisfaction (Huxley 195, 196). If a person is depressive, there is always the seductive release of soma which is “Christianity without tears” (Huxley 199).
However, the World Controllers themselves and Mustapha Mond are the representatives of religious cult: all the citizens worship “Our Ford” and use “the sign of the T” (Huxley 35, 42, 51). This has a connection to Cixous‟s idea that “the world is divided in half”, and the oppressed people are employed by those in power to create and perpetuate their domain (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 16). John the Savage as an individual wants to stand against the blissful happiness of sexual satisfaction, he says: “I want God, I want poetry, I want real danger, I want freedom, I want goodness. I want sin” (Huxley 200). The novel ends with John hanging himself practicing “a kind of orgy of atonement, Christ-like in the wilderness, mortifying his flesh” and thus claiming the right to suffer, the right to have diseases, the right to have emotions, and the right to be unhappy rather than enjoy “a drug induced love of servitude” (Murray 259). This again demonstrates Huxley‟s choice to give an active position to men in the main oppositional pair male/female. However, it is possible to claim that John the Savage‟s motivations are from Cixous‟s idea of the feminine economy based on such characteristics as love, “receiving the strangeness of the Other”, “a fidelity to the Other, the passion of wonder, an openness to unknown”, feeling pain for “the Other”, and seeking humanity (Bray 51, 75). In such a way Cixous helps to see that this is not anti-men, but anti-totalitarianism.
IV. Sexuality/gender differences and the natural development of a human being
addressing women, states that history is important but refuses to strengthen the past it in order not “to confer upon it” as making it “the equivalent of destiny” (qtd. in Evans 112). However, in the novel, the denying of history has a connection with the refusal of having a past or future for both men and women: they “are taught no history” because his fordship Mustapha Mond states that “History is bunk”; what matters is everlasting present which is able to bring sexual pleasure and satisfaction, and which is the time when Mustapha Mond managed to achieve the most stable artificially balanced “equilibrium” in history (Huxley 42, 43, 100).
The result is that in the community both men and women are “cut off from the past and headless of a future that no longer beckons with the promise of an enlargement of knowledge or a further refinement of consciousness” (Baker 139). Thus, referring to Cixous‟s theories and, in particular, relying on the non-oppositional approach, it is possible to see that men‟s and women‟s development in Brave New World is kept at the same point because of totalitarian system of organization of the society.
V. Sexuality/gender differences and the concept of power
interpretation of the aspect of political power where gender differences are of no importance, it is obvious that women‟s position is far from being equal to men‟s: no leading position is given to a woman.
There are various forms of control in the community of World State, and the most powerful of them is hypnopaedia, “the words without reason” (Huxley 38). The teachings concern various aspects of life, for example “Ending is better than mending”; “Everyone belongs to everyone” (Huxley 52, 54). Cixous also talks about the superficiality and externality of mass-produced cultural forms (Shiach 108). In the community, functioning under the motto “Community, Identity, Stability”, people are exposed to control already from their birth, when they are still in test tubes, and when by means of Bokanovsky‟s Process the government controls the number of population (Huxley 22). Children receive moral instructions by means of machines under their pillows, “which indoctrinate them over and over again with the same moral platitude while they sleep”, and this “hypnopaedia provides a hypnotic effect, which makes people incapable of moral revolt” (Bagschik 118). Further, during the whole of life, apart from regular series of sleep-teaching, both men and women are kept under control with the special drug soma, “delicious soma”, several grams of which give a human being satisfaction and the feeling of happiness (Huxley 59). Thus, relying on Cixous and on the analyzed facts from the book, it is possible to conclude that totalitarian power has a disastrous influence on a person in general, and the factor of sexual difference is not of most importance here.
VI. Sexuality/gender differences and the concept of freedom
then a society functions in a healthy way. In the community of Brave New World, freedom in all its forms is inferior to political control, being in addition dependent on gender differences. According to Hélène Cixous, such a world were “the Other” is always oppressed and “colonized” is the characteristic feature of the patriarchal society; however, in the depicted community, not only women, but also men do not have the right to freedom (qtd. in Bray 73).
Already during the incubation period people are deprived of the right to be free. The embryos are treated in various ways which creates a caste system of “standard men and women” which determines their moral, physical, sexual, political, and social status (Huxley 22). This has a connection to Cixous who believes that such an established pattern of perception and classification is originally determined by patriarchy in “dual, hierarchical oppositions” (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 15). In the caste system, which consists of five castes named by Greek letters, where the Alphas are the higher intellectual and the Epsilons are the lower; there is no possibility to move from one caste to the other. Social stability is achieved in this way, but people have no right to change their social position. By the double process of genetic manipulation and post-natal conditioning the World Controllers have succeeded in producing the race which loves its servitude and which is obedient, “a race of standardized machine-minders for standardized machines who will never challenge their authority” (Bagschik 118). This is opposed to Cixous‟s s feminine economy which challenges the borders of conventions which determine gender differences.
in this “vast membrane” fabricated by the patriarchal society not only social, political and cultural life is influenced, but even knowledge is caught in the system of binary opposition (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 16). In Brave New World, reading is considered a waste of time: “Books are prohibited” because “if young people need distraction, they can get it in at the feelies”, which are kind of movies (Huxley 165,141). Only the leaders, in particular, Mustafa Mond has the access to “the contents of an educated twentieth-century mind” through the books hidden in the safe in his office (Barfoot 105). Thus, in our case, both men and women are deprived of freedom of having access to knowledge.
The citizens are as well “conditioned to hate the country” because nature has nothing to do with machine-made things (Huxley 34). Civilization aiming at keeping the interest of the citizens in constant consumption has sterilized human nature, and the right to a choice is replaced by the rations of soma (Bagschik 130). In such a way the controllers created “out of the realm of mere slavish imitation of nature” “the much more interesting world of human invention” (Huxley 27). Cixous believes in possibility to bring about the change and “threaten the stability of the masculine structure”; in Brave New World, men are performing this function (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 17). John the Savage‟s suicide “complicates the satirical direction of Brave New World, implicating both the irrational freedom of the Reservation and the oppressive regimentation of the World State” (Baker 142). However, taking into account John‟s feminine side of being ready to love, to feel, and to suffer, it is possible to state that neutralization of the male/female opposition is of importance here.
Chapter III
The chapter aims at analyzing Margaret Atwood‟s The Handmaid’s Tale from Cixous‟s gender theories. Both Cixous and Atwood are associated with a feminist approach; however, while Hélène Cixous proposes the abstract theory of patriarchal environment, Margret Atwood in her novel focuses as well on a fictional feminist society which is embedded in the patriarchal world. I explore Atwood‟s feminist dystopia according to Cixous‟s idealistic concept of the feminine economy about the potentiality of the new level of relations in the women‟s world where women will “exceed the contemporary role they have been assigned”, “will channel” their desires and will “honour the laws” (qtd. in Bray 21).
All the categories chosen for the analysis of Huxley‟s Brave New World are applicable. The category of sexual differences is central in the analysis of the novel because The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a society which is based on sexual oppression: it portrays the world “of bondage and pain and confusion”; it is a kind of “hell” because of its “treatment of „gender traitors‟” (Wilson 274). It is necessary to point out that critical literature on Margret Atwood by among others such authors as J.Bouson Bouson, Barbara Hill Rigney, and Colin Nicholson shows the importance of the categories and themes, namely: sexuality, the concepts of the body, identity, politics, freedom, and the aspect of time. The categories sexuality/gender differences and religion is analyzed for the sake of later comparison to Aldous Huxley‟s Brave New World.
the society where government politics affects families – all this has an impact on the way a person‟s identity is formed in the society. Lucy Irigaray states that it is important to “go back from the masculine imaginary” which creates sexual differences and “to rediscover a possible space for the feminine” (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 8). Kristeva in turn claims that the process of exploring a new relationship between sexes based on sexual difference is “a painful laboratory”, entailing “mistakes, failures and victims” (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 104). Cixous explores the everyday life, the extraordinary within the ordinary, and the importance not of the result of possible changes but of the process of changing in the mind of both men and women (Bray 3-5).
I. Sexuality/gender differences and the concept of identity
male perspective where sexual factors determine women‟s position (Atwood 151). In such a way, as Rao writes, Margaret Atwood brings together “the contradictory perceptions of woman in Western Society” where women “are forced to play the virtuous, silent and submissive part of „household nun” “which excluded, of course, the cultivation of intellectual activities”, thus posing “a threat to the unity of the ego” (18, 44).
The Handmaid‟s identity is not only covered by different generalized names which are given to them in every house, the Republic of Gilead “knows no boundaries”: women‟s private and sexual life is organized into the set of rules and ceremonies (Atwood 28). According to Cixous, general norms are contradicting the very fact that there is “no general woman, no one typical woman” (qtd. in Evans 112). One of the striking examples is the scene depicting the Commander and Offred making love while the Commander‟s wife Serena Joy is watching. What is more shocking is that absence of identity leads to absence of desires, in particular, sexual: sex “has nothing to do with sexual desire”, “this is serious business” for all of them (Atwood 117). However, according to Bouson who analyzed Margaret Atwood‟s work, The Handmaid’s Tale “demands some kind of brutality and sadism” as it dramatizes the sexual oppression of women who, “bound in a master-slave relationship, are forced to consent to femininity” (Bouson 137). In such a way the Handmaids‟ identity is caught into the hierarchy of the gender opposition because they are forced to choose against the already conventionalized patriarchal oppression in favour of a hopefully better position in a feminine society.
novel as well (qtd. in Evans 118). Offred‟s friend Moira decides to change her sexual preferences and as a result identity and choose women for partners explaining that women‟s love was different “because the balance of power was equal between women so sex was an even-steven transaction” (Atwood 215). The sad truth is, however, as the novel proves, that women also can cause oppression, the Aunts who oppress the Handmaids are the most vivid example of this; thus, it is a mistake to shut oneself in “a women-only enclave” (Atwood 215).
The Handmaids, the new sexual toys of powerful men, are forced to forget their own cravings for getting their identity back. As Cixous says, women “do not lord it over” their body and their desire (qtd. in Evans 124). Indeed, the Handmaids have to present “a made thing, not something born”; they are “a national resource” and are considered “a worthy vessel”; they are “like a queen ant with eggs”; “two-legged wombs” (Atwood 80, 82, 169, 171). They have been “conscripted into sexual service to the state reduced by its doctrine of biological essentialism” to their female role as a child breeder (Howells 165). The Handmaids have to concentrate themselves on fulfilling the task for the sake of the community, and if the Handmaid fails or disobeys, she could become “an Unwoman” (Atwood 171). This means that they fall victim to the superego of men, this “masculine „economy‟, generated by the law of the father which silences and „decapitates‟ women where as a result a woman “may be denied not only personal identity, but even gender identification” (Wilson 278, 279). Thus, the Handmaid‟s gendered identity is formed without taking into account their own desires.
been “issued a woman, not even one”, some “are not allowed to touch a woman”, and some can be “allotted a Handmaid of their own” (Atwood 22, 27, 28). Thus, the feminist society created by the Aunts within the boundaries of the patriarchal world of the Republic of Gilead in order to oppress the Handmaids determines men‟s identity.
Women use the “procreational strategy” built on weaknesses of a man which they know instinctively, for example, being aware that “nature demands variety for men” and that “men are sex machines” (Atwood 180, 298). Sexuality and the lost of identity influence the attitude of men towards women. They get what they wanted, and because of that they have no interest in sexual life: “the main problem was with the men” because “there was nothing for them anymore”, “nothing to work for, nothing to fight for”, so they are “turning off on sex”; “turning off on marriage” (Atwood 263). Thus The Handmaid’s Tale stresses “the deprivation of personal relationships” imposed by the existing régime based on sexual difference (Rao 77). The conclusion is that both members of the opposition are responsible for the oppressed position of each other where their identity is determined by the category of sexuality.
II. Sexuality/gender differences and the concept of the body
“something could be exchanged, we thought, some deal made, some trade off, we still had our bodies” (Atwood 4). Thus, the Handmaids have no right to determine their individuality, and the body is all what they are left with.
Atwood‟s female bodies are “coded bodies”; they tell the story about the experience of the interpretation of the concept within a political economy “that seeks to consume them, convert them into consumers in turn, shrink them, neutralize them, silence them, and contain them physically or metaphorically” (Howells 60). This society of dolls even with “a voice of a doll” is a handmade society, structured in order to be ruled, to be oppressed (Atwood 19). Even when giving a birth to a child the Handmaid “is like a doll, an old one that‟s been pillaged and discarded”; thus, postulating the purpose of her existence (Atwood 156). The association with dolls can have connection to the concept of the body fragments proposed by Kristeva and Cixous which “underscores the violent and cruel objectification of bodies and people carried out by the régime” (Rao 82). Indeed, the Handmaids remind of the dolls which are constructed for a specific purpose, in particular, to be sexual toys for men. Their feelings and desires are not taken into consideration, only their bodies are important.
now she feels like “a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real” than she is (Atwood 91). Now “treated as subordinate other – as body without mind – Offred is defined and confined by her reproductive role” (Bouson 142). Indeed, as Cixous says, the body has been confiscated from a woman, “has been turned into the uncanny stranger on display – the ailing or dead figure, which so often turns out to be the nasty companion” (qtd. in Evans 116). The Handmaids‟ self is now divided, and their body is kept aside because it serves to the needs of the community.
feel that they are accepted with respect, or at least they get a feeling of that, and referring the idea to Cixous, they cut through “selfish narcissism, in the moving, open, transitional space” to start the history somewhere else (qtd. in Evans 128). Thus, their bodies still keep the memories of the past, and probably this together with the characteristic for women‟s desire to be tolerant gives the Handmaids some hope for the better.
These scary rituals of the feminist society of the Aunts allow arguing against Hélène Cixous‟s idea of the feminine economy which will “blow up” any form of oppression, which is the characteristic of the diseased underside of the patriarchal culture (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 19). The Handmaid is depicted as “the sexual object for male consumption and the marginalized woman who is shunned and despised by other women” (Bouson 140). The feminist society of the Republic of Gilead believes in their future with the women having power and their rights to identity, and for that “many women‟s lives” and “many women‟s bodies” are sacrificed (Atwood 152). However, Rao claims that in any situation of the gender restrictions it is “women that will suffer most” (Rao145). Indeed, in Atwood‟s novel oppression did not disappear; moreover, it is now coming from women themselves.
III. Sexuality/gender differences and religion
of its coordinators „handmaidens‟ (Wilson 275). Religion is used to control the Handmaids: dressed in red, and walking “like a trained pig” they are taught to talk obeying to strictly orthodox rules (Atwood 24). The Aunts from the Red Centre, taking the role of priests, make the Handmaids believe that everything is blessed by God and that “He made” them different (Atwood 56). They pray “for emptiness”, so that they will be “worthy to be filled: with grace, with love, with self-denial, semen and babies” (Atwood 243). This can be seen in the light of Cixous‟s theory who says that women “have wandered around in circles, confined to the narrow room in which they‟ve been given a deadly brainwashing” (qtd. in Evans 114). Indeed, the Handmaids obedience and praying for being pregnant leads to their oppressed position.
In the assigned household, Handmaids are also kept under religious control. The presence of religious influence is shown when Offred examines a hard little cushion with “a petit point cover: FAITH” (Atwood 71). Even in her room she has to remember about religious obedience. The interesting fact is that the cushion is “worn but not enough to throw out” (Atwood 71). This could be connected to Cixous‟s idea that religion turns “its „truth‟ for centuries” mostly for women (qtd. in Evans 115). The symbolic meaning could be that old strict religious beliefs are too old to fit in the new society; yet, religion manages to keep the power and to determine women‟s inferior position.
the most important fact of the connection of sexuality and religion and remind of the possible demolishing of the opposition man/woman: “But if you happen to be a man, sometime in the future, and you‟ve made it this far, please remember: you will never be subject to the temptation or feeling you must forgive, a man, as a woman” because “forgiveness is too is a power” (Atwood 168). Cixous also mentions the importance of forgiveness: women go and make themselves guilty – “so as to be forgiven; or to forget”, “to bury the thoughts” until the next time (qtd. in Evans 113). Thus, the analysis shows that religion is a powerful means of keeping the conventionalized hierarchy in the opposition male/female where woman have passive roles.
IV. Sexuality/gender differences and the natural development of a human being
attention to the oppression of women in the society (Bouson 137). Indeed, although time does not stand still, women‟s inferior position does not change too much.
The Handmaids “yearned for future”; they hope that future will be different, that they are suffering not for nothing (Atwood 4). The Aunts convince them that future is in their hands, but their hands “were empty” (Atwood 58). In this respect Cixous addresses women and says that “future must no longer be determined by the past” (qtd. in Evans 112). However, the novel is not totally pessimistic: the end of the book gives hope. Offred can be saved by Nick with whom she has secret relations and who can be the member of the secret Mayday underground organization rather than one of the Eyes aiming at cheating her. However, what shall happen “we shall never know” (Atwood 388). Thus, according to Rao, with the mentioning of time frames and their gender characteristics Atwood “effectively address the faults of the present world” (18). The important conclusion here is that hierarchy of the oppositional pair is already so fixed in the minds of the citizens of the Republic of Gilead that they bring the idea with them further into future.
V. Sexuality/ gender differences and the concept of power
active role in “the state‟s sexual enslavement of the Handmaids” (Bouson 141). The Aunts promise a happy life to the Handmaids: “the women will live in harmony together, all in one family” helping each other to carry out their daily chores; it would be the society of “women united for a common end” (Atwood 203). The Handmaids will not disappear, only the arrangement of things for them would be different: “the mistress used to be kept in a minor house or apartment of her own, and now they‟ve amalgamated things” (Atwood 204). The purpose of their existence remains the same: they have to add what is “otherwise lacking” (Atwood 204). Thus, The Handmaid’s Tale “depicts women participating in men‟s desires and renouncing their own as they perform the feminine masquerade” (Bouson 141). The idea of women sharing their duties is presented as ideal for women; however, it is obviously an ideal life for men.
The novel The Handmaid’s Tale depicts “the quintessential disciplinary society where power is brought to the most minute and distant elements” (Howells 53). Those under control here are mostly the Handmaids. This can be referred to Hélène Cixous‟s theory who proposes that women have to “become at will of the taker and initiator” for their own rights, “in every, symbolic system, in every political process” (qtd. in Evans 116). In addition, there is an exchange of positions between all the members of the society. Women, even the Handmaids, have sexual control over the low-status Guardians who are not allowed to be with a woman: the Handmaids enjoy “the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there” (Atwood 28). Indeed, even in their subordinate position, the Handmaids rejoiced in the minimal, marginal moments of power they experienced (Rao 17). It seems that women get power in the place where they are deprived of it, and Cixous‟s idea of feminine reluctance to violence does not come true in reality.
minimum. Thus, in the society described by Margaret Atwood, a person is exposed to both mental and physical forms of control, and power is in the hands of both men and women.
VI. Sexuality/gender differences and the concept of freedom
In this novel, only men have the right to freedom. To this Cixous states that women “do not build walls around” themselves: those walls are created by men (qtd. in Evans 117). In our case, women construct the walls of oppression around themselves as well, for example, the Aunts from the Red Centre teach the Handmaids that “there is more than one kind of freedom”, “freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from” (Atwood 31). However, it can hardly be called freedom because it deprives of any right, for example, the freedom of thinking: the Handmaids are encouraged to reflect only on their purpose of living and on religion. The important fact here is that they can “think clearly only with clothes on” (Atwood 179). This shows the connection to the concept of the body: being aware of their position, the Handmaids try to abstract from this feeling protecting themselves with clothes: they cover their bodies through which they are accepted only as sexual objects.
(Atwood 172). Reading is connected to the concept of watching which in turn is compared to a sexual desire: the Commander is watching while Offred is reading, and that “watching is a curiously sexual act” (Atwood 231). It can probably be accounted for the fact that the Handmaids are “losing the taste for freedom”, and sexuality is the only right they have, although it is not in their complete possession either (Atwood 167). It refers us to Cixous‟s idea that writing and speaking “has been governed by the phallus” (qtd. in Evans 117). Thus, the opposition male/female is clearly marked here with women having the inferior position.
The organization of the society in a caste system is closely connected to the concept of freedom which is influenced by the gender aspect because there is a separate hierarchy for men and women. In this respect Cixous believes, and this is the case in the novel, that it can be explained by the “masculine thrift” of power in every form, including sexual (qtd. in Evans 118). Men‟s system is represented by the Guardians, the Angels, the Eyes incognito, and the Commanders; the important fact here is that men with low status are not “issued a woman” (Atwood 22). The Guardians “are used for routine policing and other menial functions”, and “they are either stupid or older or disabled or very young” (Atwood 25). The Guardians can be promoted to the Angels, be allowed to marry, and, if they get enough power, they can become the Commanders and received a Handmaid of their own. The Eyes are dangerous: they are supervising, they can report if they notice disobedience, and one can never know who is an Eye. Thus, the category of sexuality plays an important role in the social organization of the Republic of Gilead.
oppressed because they are aware of their position and of their purpose of existence to fulfill men‟s sexual desires. The Handmaid reminds of “some fairy-tale figure in a red cloak”; “a Sister, dipped in blood” (Atwood 9). Another category is represented by the Marthas who do the duties in the household. The usual Martha‟s dress is dull green, like “a surgeon‟s gown”, and they put veil to go outside, although “nobody much cares who sees the face of a Martha” (Atwood 10).
the caste system is based on the importance of serving to the society where each position can be characterized by absence of freedom.
The novel is “a dystopian nightmare” of totalitarian regime, and the Handmaids are “presenting not only timeless vision of oppression in any form, but exploring sexual politics in a feminist‟s hell” (Wilson 271). Offred‟s words directed to her mother give the answer to Cixous‟s idealistic beliefs of a female society: “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” (Atwood 159). It functions under the same motto as that one in Brave New World : “A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze” (Atwood 206). Offred‟s reflections refer us to Hélène Cixous‟s ideas in the sense that in Offred‟s “interspaced meditations Atwood writes her version of Cixous‟s écriture féminine: „Write yourself. Your body must be heard‟” (Howells 167). So this society, the feminine one, the one the old generation wanted to have, provides no possibility for freedom either, especially for women.
Conclusion
In this part of the thesis, I will reflect on the answers to the main question of the paper and the outcomes of the analysis of the novel by Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale and the novel by Aldous Huxley Brave New World from a gender perspective using Hélène Cixous‟s theory. In the introduction, I listed the additional points for discussion which I hoped would be useful for exploring the subject in a more detailed way. One of my intentions was to argue against Hélène Cixous‟s idea that women are oppressed only in a patriarchal society. Referring to the concept of the feminine economy, Cixous claims that other feminine mode of relations will be founded on love free from “contradictions and ambivalences entailing the murder of the other” (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 17). Another intention was to explore the possible shifts in the key oppositional pair male/female in relation to active or passive roles of its members.
borders of the opposition (Bray 21). Thus, I would suggest that neither of the listed arguments lead us to the conclusion that the theorist describes an utopian feminine world.
The first category I analyzed is sexuality/gender differences and the concept of identity. In the patriarchal dystopian society of Brave New World, both men and women are oppressed by the government. However, the borders of the opposition male/female are not stable because those who stood up against totalitarian power demolishing individuality were men, John the Savage being the most vivid example. The female characters in Huxley‟s novel are treated not as individuals, but only in relation to a male representative, for example Linda is known only as John‟s mother. Thus, I have to conclude that women are portrayed as the passive member of the opposition, and their identity is determined by the patriarchal law, speaking in Cixous‟s terms; so, Cixous‟s theories helped to understand the book better. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the feminist dystopia, the borders of the opposition are clearly marked. Although men‟s identity and status are determined by the factor of sexuality, similar to Huxley‟s novel, the ones who are suffering most are women: women‟s identity is sacrificed to the ideal visions of men‟s world. In this respect, I conclude that the concept of identity is sexually determined in both novels and reveals the passive position of women in both societies.
instability and unhappiness, that is why the citizens have nothing to compare to. So, I conclude that Cixous‟s ideas about the conventionalized patterns of women being oppressed and used by men are represented in both novels.
The analysis of the concept of the body revealed an interesting finding: in Huxley‟s novel, women never think about pregnancy, while in Atwood‟s society it is the only way of being recognized and respected as a woman. In my opinion, this has a connection to Cixous‟s idea that women do not have to be judged according to their desire of having a child or not: “may women be spread the pressure”; “let nobody threaten your desire, let not the fear of becoming the accomplice to a sociality succeed the old-time fear of being taken” (qtd. in Evans 126). In Brave New World community, women are not judged by their desire because they are deprived of the right to decide; and they are not asked for their opinion in The Handmaid’s Tale, because reproduction is their task. The conclusion is that even in the absence of such a right or in the forced presence of such a right women are oppressed basing on the factor of reproduction.
this allows arguing against Cixous‟s idea of the absence of oppression in a female world which, according to her, would be favoring “a love relation”, and where “each one would keep the other alive and different” (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 17). On the other side, Cixous‟s theories helped to reveal an interesting finding, namely John‟s feminine side can have a connection to Cixous‟s concept of the feminine economy which shows that it is not anti-men, but anti-totalitarianism.
The exploration of the category sexuality/gender differences and the natural development of a human being in Brave New World was based on the neutralization of the opposition proposed by Cixous, showing the equally oppressed position of both men and women, people who are lost in the present, deprived of the past, and with no future. In The Handmaid’s Tale, those who have no future, who are forced to forget the past and to live in obedience with the demands and rules of the present are women. Both novels have a similar characteristic, namely that the problems of the present community are presented in the way of contrast to the former organization of the society, and Cixous‟s approach, in particular, the flexibility of the boundaries of the male/female opposition helped to reveal the very core of the problematic matters.
hesitating, and the scene “of a Particicution” of a man is a vivid example; this can be connected to the fact that Cixous‟s idea of the female tolerant and loving nature can be argued. The conclusion is the following: both men and women want and have power; however, in both cases power goes hand in hand with oppression.
The exploration of the category sexuality/gender differences and the concept of freedom in Huxley‟s novel was based on the neutralization of the opposition male/female. However, taking into account the fact that in a patriarchal society, as Cixous believes, women‟s position is originally inferior because “there is no place for the other”, the balance will be shifted to an active position of a man who are ruling the community and are free to do whatever they want (qtd. in Sellers, Language and Sexual Difference 17). In Atwood‟s society, women are also suffering the lack of rights; the difference being that not only men but also women, in particular, the Aunts with their constant brainwashing are responsible for the fact that the Handmaids lost freedom. One more difference from Huxley‟s community is that men and women are grouped in a separate caste system in the Republic of Gilead, thus making even more accent on the importance of gender differences. I conclude, pointing out that Cixous‟s theories helped to understand the novels better and showed that women‟s freedom in a patriarchal society is limited. At the same time Atwood‟s novel demonstrated that Cixous‟s concept of the feminine economy functioning under the motto of equality and tolerance does not seem to be real because, although the Republic of Gilead is a patriarchal world where women are suffering, inside it there exists a separate world ruled by the Aunts who oppress the Handmaids and in such a way determine their inferior position.
