LITR 4632: Literature of the Future

Sample Student Final Exams 2011 Essay 2

Ashley Rhodes

The Science of Feminine Fiction 2

        Every reading and discussion in this course has been very insightful on the future perspective. One element I found intriguing was the gender styling that embodies our texts. I found some instances in our text that were very female dominant and others lacking women all together. The lack of women in science fiction novels didn’t seem to be intentional but rather socially accepted because of the audience that the genre attracted. Men were thought to read more into this genre than women because of the age old stereotype of women being mentally incapable of keeping up with such literature. It is difficult now to imagine a time when women were uneducated and confined to the household. Luckily female writers like Mary Shelley were able to prove women were perfectly able to read and write this style of literature. Her most famous work Frankenstein is understood today as the first science fiction novel of all time. Women are able to read and write science fiction now, but still gender roles and standards arise in some of our texts. Is this because male dominance is the key to survival? Or does the absence of women in science fiction make for a dark future? By analyzing gender styles in Parable, “Stone Lives”, The Time Machine, “Chocco”, “House of Bones”, “The Onion and I”, and “Drapes and Folds”, I will ultimately unveil the significance and portrayal of women in science fiction literature.

        The objective of narrative and symbols seem to work well with this topic because gender attributes usually progress the story. For example, if the hero were weak in the beginning, he must find ways to strengthen himself to complete the journey. Women mainly appear in the romance narrative and usually are in some sort of distress and in need of saving. In Parable, Laurens character is psychologically strong but physically weak because of her condition. She eventually realizes that she must dress like a man to survive in the outside world. In many post-apocalyptic futures women are raped and enslaved because women have a more difficult time surviving in comparison to the men. So Lauren’s decision is not a choice but necessary for her survival.

        The portrayal of women in “Stone Lives” is very significant because it places women in powerful positions but sacrifices them in the end. Alice Citrine’s character is a warrior woman whose intelligence helps her build a legacy that is passed down to Stone. She has male characteristics that elude power and competiveness. I found it ironic that the female character asks a male character to study because not so long ago in our time period the tables would have been turned.

Yes, study. You know the meaning of the word, don’t you? Or have I made a mistake? Study, learn, investigate, and whenever you feel you understand something, draft me a report.

As for June’s character, there are indications of power and weakness. She is powerful because she is intelligent but weak because she only exists in the story for Stone’s likeness. June progressively becomes a sexual object to Stone which forces him to steer clear from her. Her suicide is surprising and takes the reader off guard. I feel the only reason for her sacrificial death was because of Stone’s upcoming advancement in power. If June were alive in the end of the story there would be reason to assume they would run the company together. In this “guy fantasy” the men prevail and the women are terminated.

        Parable and “Stone Lives” are similar because they both have female protagonist that have a powerful voice in the narrative. The Time Machine on the other hand, dehumanizes women by making them seem irrational and frail. Weena is the only female character throughout the novel, and although she is significant in the action of the story, her portrayal was less than impressive.

Yet her distress when I left her was very great, her expostulations at the parting were sometimes frantic, and I think, altogether, I had as much trouble as comfort from her devotion.

The time traveler becomes Weena’s infatuation. Her presence is comforting and annoying at the same time which tells me H.G. Wells was giving her a stereotypical persona of a woman. Given Wells’ time period there are indications that he probably was degrading women, but incorporating a feminine perspective through Weena was brave enough for critics. I believe Wells did not have human women in the text because at the time when he was writing The Time Machine, women were not in the social standing as they are today so there was little to no need to do so. I disagree with his feminine characteristics that Weena possesses but alternatively I feel Wells did not mean to portray women negatively it was just the influence of his social surroundings.

In the short story “Chocco” women are prevalent in the tribal community. Although there aren’t any female characters their existence is apparent when Mikal describes the machine people.

What records have survived mention almost no women, and the graves of women were usually smaller and poorer than those of men. 

The tribe also places women in a higher authority just like Alice in “Stone Lives”. The women in the tribe choose their leader and their destiny which indicates the equality that must have been established in this futuristic time period. When the two contestants speak of women in the past, there seems to be definite prejudice that they want to prove has changed in their time period.

Men also enslaved and sexually exploited the women of other cultures when they could capture them through war or dominate them economically. We who live in equality find it hard to believe that male violence was not kept in regular and creative channels.

This quote in particular strikes me as odd to find in a short story because it deals with a low tech society in the future. Usually women are dehumanized because of their paralyzed physical strength. I felt “Chocco” portrayed women in a positive light, giving women reading the short story a happier insight into the future illustrated in the text.

On the contrary, “House of Bones” portrayed women differently by placing them on a sexual pedestal. The past narrative focuses mainly on masculinity and the physical attributes of women. Sally is illustrated in a sexualized manner to show the tribes primal instincts.

Because she needed a change of luck they gave Sally to me, or me to her, figuring a holy fool like me must carry the charm of the gods.

        “Drapes and Folds” is by far the most feminine text we have read. It focuses on the feminine perspective by relating feminine interest, diseases, and conversations. The women in the story are slowly but surely losing their femininity because it is being taken from them from a higher power. Women are physically described in a different light compared to the previous texts. The author illustrates them specifically down to their clothes, I found this intriguing because in previous texts there would be little to no description of feminine style or fashion. “Drapes and Folds” embodies feminine science fiction because it proves a high tech society doesn’t always attract women.

Women developed the shoulder hike greeting during the Epidemic to emphasize our chests and our unity.

 In the “Onion and I”, the mother is excited about change and leaping into a virtual reality. I found this to be a little discouraging because it seemed to suggest women do not think about their actions and despise a simple life. The mother also seems to be the head of the household in a negative light. She changes the father’s lifestyle making him miserable and constrains him to her authority.

In the computer she found all the rest of the world.

On the other hand one could look at “The Onion and I” and see it as a gender reversal story. The mother is dominating over the decisions and heads the virtual household. This raises the question; Is that the only place a woman can dominate? Many would agree this interpretation is a little far fetched but one can only wonder if it suggests women cannot actually achieve this status in reality but only in a virtual world. 

        The feminine perspective in science fiction has changed drastically over the past century. Women are entering this genre in literature to prove their significance that is sometimes forgotten. Thinking of the future without either sex is difficult to imagine, and it seems to me that women are thought of as sexual instruments in most post-apocalyptic narratives. I would like to see this change because as a woman I feel it curtains our social potential in the literature of ideas. I enjoy reading material that is unprejudiced towards gender, but identifying these biases will ultimately lead to a better understanding in our course's narratives and objectives.