Two novels that best exemplify the arbitrary nature of the science fictional label are Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Sheri S. Tepper’s The Gate To Women’s Country. Published contemporaneously in the late 1980s, both novels arise out of the second wave feminist politics of the 1970s. Each centers around themes of women’s power and influence in society and how their power is linked to their fertility. Each implicitly condemns patriarchal privilege by depicting how both men and women are harmed and restricted by extremism in defining gender roles. Most tellingly, each is equally deserving of the science fictional labels “near-future” and “post-apocalyptic”. Yet The Gate To Women’s Country was published as science fiction as a matter of course, whereas The Handmaid’s Tale was published as literary fiction. At what point, therefore, might we say that The Handmaid’s Tale ‘becomes’ science fiction, given its striking similarity to The Gate To Women’s Country? What plot elements, details of characterization, or aspects of setting mark the difference between the two? Or, alternatively, is there an explanation beyond the texts that gives them their distinct classifications? I argue that the label ’science fiction’ implies a continuum, upon which these two novels are adjacent but not identical. However, marketing strategies and the authors’ own publishing histories also plays a part in the creation of the science fictional label, if not the science fictional content of a particular work.
This is the introduction to my first assessed essay for my Master’s course. The module is Genre Definitions. So far we’ve mainly agreed with Paul Kincaid ["On the Origins of Genre", Extrapolation. Kent: Winter 2003.Vol. 44, Iss. 4; 409-420] that “The label ’science fiction’ suggests a hybrid form, not quite ordinary fiction, not quite science, yet partaking of both.” Which…is great, but doesn’t actually get you anywhere. Kincaid’s argument is that there are many overlapping areas that can or might occur in a work designated as science fiction; that, in fact, science fiction is the center of a great big Venn diagram. He cites Darko Suvin’s concept of cognitive estrangement, Brian Adiss’ insistence on the Gothic in order that Shelley’s Frankenstein might be included as an ür-text, and Damon Knight’s homily that science fiction is “what we mean when we point to it”. Still no dice as to saying why Tepper’s Gate should be SF while Atwood’s Tale isn’t. So I argued that it was all the publisher’s fault!
However, I think it was a weak essay. I spent too long detailing the novels’ plots (they really are strikingly similar) and not enough time on the politics of publishing (if that indeed was going to be my primary argument). The problem was I had no secondary sources to back up my publishing argument. I think I’d have more if I’d focused more on Atwood and Tepper as individual authors. The problem there being that Atwood has scads of scholarly articles written about her and Tepper has very few.
Still, in 1500 words (I took the liberty of writing 1800), it’s very difficult to get down to brass tacks, as they say. I’m beginning to think I could really write something telling about these two if I was given the proper scope. So this is one idea for my dissertation: to compare and contrast Tepper’s and Atwood’s careers and oeuvres, with the goal of proving that their feminist themes link them far more than their treatment of the fantastic separates them. Indeed, that it doesn’t separate them at all–because Atwood is far more fantastic than even her PR plebes would have you believe.
I think I’ll spend December on those thoughts, after I’ve failed at Nanowrimo.