IGNORE LAST POST new secondary source

Sorry for the mix up but I found a source I like even better than the last one.  It's called "Alien Bodies and a Queer Future: Sexual Revision in Octavia Butler’s “Bloodchild” and James Tiptree, Jr.’s “With Delicate Mad Hands” by Amanda Thibodeau.  This is a really great source for me personally because it first elaborates on the idea of sci-fi as having parallels to queer theory and illustrating new Dystopian or Utopian societies that provoke questions on sexual norms. Many of these ideas are almost identical to one of our earlier readings, "Queer Universes," which is no surprise since said article is referenced numerous times by Thibodeah.  Then, the article moves to Bloodchild, first claiming that it challenges "the idea that the future (and thus utopia) relies on heteroproductivity; rather, utopia can demonstrate a rejection of present constructions for a future vision."  It later moves onto the issues of gender roles, power, and social pressures, all of which are very crucial to my argument.  Thibodeau goes over the multiple ways in which Gan and T'Gatoi's relationship is a reversal of sexes and how Bloodchild as a whole undermines heteronormativity in more than just the gender swap.  The article continues to dissect the different themes and claims of significance present in the story, mainly in the portrayal of the Tlics and the scene in which Gan threatens to kill himself in front of T'Gatoi, most of which are all related to my thesis fortunately.  The one variation between my thesis and this article is that Thibodeau focuses on what Bloochild says about heteronormativity, which is similar to what I'm discussing, but it does suggest that Butler is necessarily critiquing society in her story.  That said, I think one could interpret this article in that way, which is good because that helps me a lot.

Secondary Source

My main secondary source as of now seems to be "The Afterlife of Slavery and the Problem of Reproductive Freedom"  While I plan on reading and hopefully incorporating "Conversations with Octavia Butler," "Alien Construction: Science Fiction and Feminist Thought," and "Strange matings : science fiction, feminism, African American voices, and Octavia E. Butler," and maybe others, Weinbaum's article is very pertinent to my argument.  It first makes the claim that although others suggest there is a growing need to reevaluate cultural norms due to changing situations, Octavia Butler's works bring about serious discussion on contemporary reproductive issues and ideas.  Furthermore, Weinbaums states,

"Through contextualization of Butler’s fiction within a discussion of reproductive politics, it becomes possible to recognize in Butler’s work not only a prescient assessment of the reproductive landscape that was beginning to emerge as Butler wrote in the 1970s and 1980s, but also, and as importantly, a proleptic critique of what has now become a well- established cultural dominant in the new millennium. For Butler’s fiction addresses our time as much as its own"

This is very much a crucial aspect of my entire thesis as well as a key idea in studying science fiction: while these dystopian societies are purely imagination and bear no outward resemblance to today's world, they can stay raise questions about what we take to be fact.
Also, this article takes the same stance as I do regarding the view of the method Tlic reproduction as surrogacy and slavery, despite both the supposed "symbiotic" nature of the relationship between the Tlics and the Terrans and Butler's own claim that Bloodchild is a love story, not about slavery.  The source says that slavery is simply harder to decipher as the lines become blurred since now there is no race or group but the entire human race.  Surrogacy is the norm.  Another very important aspect to my own thesis surfaces when Weibaum says, "The upshot is that even though Tlic ideology prevents humans from recognizing themselves as racialized and feminized slaves, readers readily perceive the human surrogates’ real  relationship to the imaginary conditions under which they labor."  This is big time because I'm arguing that Butler forces the reader to see another society where man has been made into simply a machine, a means to creating more Tlics, and thus she raises questions about whether or not certain groups in today's time are similarly valued.
Overall, this article is very good in terms of showing how the relationship between the Tlics and Terrans is not symbiotic and thus questions how symbiotic relationships in our own society, namely between man and woman, but from what I can see it does not say much on today's time period but rather compares the world of Bloodchild to surrogacy and slavery in general, which is, as the article does make clear, a more historical issue, not a present one.  Still, it is very helpful to my argument.

Thesis for 2nd Paper

For my next paper, I will be writing about Bloodchild.  My thesis will be:

In this science-fictitious world, the presence of the Glicks as a dominant species and the societal pressures faced by Gan illustrate Octavia Butler's critique on accepted present day gender roles.

I have no set number of body paragraphs, but my argument will go as follows.  First, I'll make comparisons to the stable but unbalanced relationship between the terrans and their alien oppressors and today's relationship between man and woman.  This will have two parts: one, that the Glicks do not have to deal with any setbacks from being with the terrans, while the terrans face extreme pain and even death, and two, that the Glicks are far stronger and have control of the entire household,  Next, I'll show how even though Gan is not coerced into taking T'Gatoi's young, he essentially has to because of pressure from society, much like the way women feel pressure to bear young as well.  The last part I'm not totally sure on, but I think the "love story" between Gan and T'Gatoi could be a factor in my argument.  This is all very liable to change, and in fact, I'm ready to scrap this entirely, so in case this fails.  I'd write about identity in Angels in America and how Kushner demonstrates the poetically disastrous results of denying identity.

Angels in America: first thoughts

Hey everyone, I'm just gonna get right into it here: this book is HEAD AND SHOULDERS above The Price of Salt.  There is no contest.  Open and shut case.  I understand one's a play and one's pulp fiction and everything so it's hard to compare but come on!  The characterization!  The depth and dimensions! The language!  Night and day compared to Price of Salt.  Every character has so much going on here.  They're so pronounced yet at the same time so multifaceted.  I'm excited.  This is big time.

Getting into the text, we have a lot that's been given to us in a short amount of time.  There's Joe and Harper, Louis and Prior, and my favorite Roy Cohn.  Joe is a mild mannered Morman nice guy in the law world with a valium addicted wife Harper.  We learn soon that the reason for Harper's drug addiction and mental health problems comes from the complete lack of sexual interaction and intimacy in their marriage, which we also discover stems from the fact that Joe, unknowingly, is a homosexual.  Louis and Prior are passionate gay lovers but Prior is revealed to have a terminal disease, soon to be known as the AIDS virus.  Roy is very much his own person, having no long term, monogamous relationship and instead a hugely successful career.  He is confident and thriving in his cut-throat job.  However, he has found out that he, too, has contracted AIDS.

Now we have an interesting setup.  What will come from Joe and Harper's marriage?  All Joe wants is to be normal, to fight what he feels is an disgusting flaw in his soul.  Harper is just falling apart at the seams, so nothing good can come out of this; furthermore, there may be an interesting future for Joe and Louis.  Next, other than a seemingly inevitable death, what will happen to Prior and his relationship with Louis?  No answers there, but something is bound to change soon.  Lastly, what about Roy?  The business man big shot, living the dream.  Yet now, he has a disease known to the public as "gay cancer."  I really liked his speech to the doctor.  It was so characterizing, so visceral.  It has Roy Cohn written all over.  The man's got "clout" dammit!  But besides how much I like that scene, it really speaks to a very modern day concept of labeling and grouping.  Roy will not accept being labeled as a homosexual.  Why?  Because at this time, homosexuals are weak.  Unimportant.  Soft.  Bottom of the society's barrel.  And what is Roy?  The epitome of strength, connections, crude, and top of the top.  He may have sex with men, but he sure as hell isn't in that group.

Overall, very interested.  I want to pay special attention to Joe and Roy because I think they say the most and have the most significant implications of the characters in this book in regards to homosexuality.

Bloodchild and Aye, and Gomorrah

Sorry for the late post everyone, but I thought I should share some of my thoughts on the last two readings.

To start, wow.  Just like holy crap.  I have never read anything like these two stories here, especially not Bloodchild.  But moving on, I want to look at the implications of these works starting with Aye, and Gomorroah.  The premise here is that in this society, set in Houston, Texas, certain children determined to be permanently retarded sexually are set aside and neutered to avoid the harmful effects of radiation in order to work as "spacers."  Another group that develops are the "frelks" who are sexually attracted to the spacers.  This gives way to a very interesting dynamic to the sexual class system.  There are varying levels of acceptance in the different groups in this society, as clearly it is very common for spacers to prostitute themselves to frelks, but it is somewhat frowned upon, at least by other spacers.  Furthermore, one of the spacers, Bo, tells a story how he saw a man and a woman pretending to be spacers to pick up frelks, so he and his friends beat the crap out of them.  The spacers are overall very well received by the rest of society, as the frelks are intensely drawn to them out of both sexual desire and almost a form of awe and the other heterosexual individuals generally just admire them or feel indifference.  The frelks are considered to be perverted, and even the frelks themselves feel that way, but they are apparently so common it is accepted in the society.  That doesn't stop the spacers from taking advantage of whom they see as bizarre and deviant.

I can't help but wonder whether this story is making a statement regarding prostitution, homosexuality, neither, or both.  In some ways, the frelks are like our time's homosexuals.  They're deviations from the norm, and tend to be seen as deviants, even sometimes by themselves, but also common enough to be accepted as a group in its own right.  But what is this story saying by making this parallel in a futuristic society?  I can't really find an answer, partly because I don't really see them as much like our homosexuals.  Their sexual desire is much more complicated than simple attraction to a particular sex; it is rooted in the inexplicable want for something that doesn't reciprocate, and never will.  The frelks do not want the spacers or anyone else to be sexually attracted to them.  Maybe this is due to an attraction by the frelks to what they see as pure or untainted, but to be honest I can't explain it.  

The next story is Bloodchild where things only get a whole lot weirder.  Here, in addition to the normal humans, there is another species that has taken the people of Earth essentially as slaves, although they live together fairly peacefully.  This new species requires a human host for the maturation of fertilized eggs until they reach an age where they can live on their own; in case you missed it, THEY LIVE IN YOUR SKIN UNTIL THEY GET BIG ENOUGH TO EAT THEIR WAY OUT.  However, the new species, for both the sake of their hosts and the benefit of the people, have devised a system to save the lives of the hosts where the larva/wormy baby things are taken out right as they would begin to eat the host from the inside and placed into a dead animal of some kind.  But when I say taken out, I mean the person is cut open, without anesthesia, and they are forcefully removed.  Clearly, this is less than pleasant, and the new species do not grow to be as strong, but ultimately, the people of Earth are safe and the species can continue to reproduce.  The tricky part comes in the fact that the host is normally a male child, meaning one well under what we would consider the age of consent.  The only reason the male agrees to this is pretty much under the pressure of society.  It's unclear what would happen if a person did refuse, but considering that humans are no longer allowed to drive cars, it can't be good.  Furthermore, these new species don't all care about their hosts the way T'Gatoi cares for Gan.  By far their bigger concern is the survival of their young, and sometimes they kill their host during the removal of grubs without much thought.  Even T'Gatoi is shown as less than compassionate with Lomas.

So, what the hell is going on here?  For one thing, I'm suddenly very uncomfortable.  But more importantly, what is this saying about love in regards to the relationship between T'Gatoi and Gan?  Is this truly a love story?  I can see it by the caring and affectionate way Gan describes T'Gatoi throughout the story, and although he initially agrees to carry the young for the sake of Hoa, I think the final scene shows he has some more connection to T'Gatoi than just concern for his sister.  Overall, truly bizarre but a cool glimpse into sci-fi.  Makes me intrigued but also nervous as to what will come next.  Peace out

body paragraph(s)

Ok so I was writing my first paragraph, still unsure about the state of my thesis, when I realized it was simply too long to only be one paragraph in a 3 page paper, so I decided to split it into two.  I don't like it quite as much since I feel like they're less developed no that they're so short, so that's why I'm going to post both so that we can combine them later if possible.

                While Therese shows her capacity for affection and friendliness with Carol, her inability to connect or socialize amiably with the other people in her life demonstrates a lack of maturity stemming from her lesbianism.  Even during short interactions with less important characters, such as Mrs. Robichek, she shows little compassion; once Therese sees “the terrible, shocking ugliness of the short, heavy body with the bulging abdomen…she could not make herself listen” to anything this hospitable woman says (20).  Her disgust with Mrs. Robichek shows a shallowness and lack of understanding that becomes very much a part of her character.  For instance, as soon as Therese falls in love, she becomes more and more distant from Richard, and eventually she starts to detest him with little reason.  Though she never has felt anything more than a platonic friendship for him, she does say, “I like his attitude-more than most men’s.  He does treat me like a person instead of a just a girl he can go so far with or what not” (81).  In the year she has known him, he has treated her very well, but that does nothing to stop her from very quickly changing the way she treats him.  When Therese spends time with Richard after seeing Carol, she first suggests that Richard “cancel the reservation [to Europe] in case she can’t go,” (54) and then denies his offer to see his family on a Sunday because she’d rather “work.”  When Richard points out the oddity in her reasoning, she again brings up the idea of cancelling the trip to Europe.  In this scene, Therese knows she no longer wants to date Richard, and in her defense, she does make clear she still cannot love him, but instead of seeing him as a friend who’s loved her for a year now, she views and treats Richard as a nuisance. 

In addition to the attempts to avoid future encounters with him, Therese’s love for Carol further impacts her friendship with Richard negatively as she starts to become enraged over nonsensical issues.  In a later scene, Richard presented Therese with a kite as a thoughtful gesture, much to her enjoyment, and ironically this causes her to immediately think of Carol.  She begins flying the kite successfully, but once it runs out of line, Richard excitedly suggested he cut it.  Since she clearly equates the state of bliss she feels flying the kite with the bubbly sensation she gets from her new love, Therese experiences so much anger that she “couldn’t believe she had heard it” (99).  In a frenzy, “Therese jerked the stick sideways, out of his reach, speechless with anger and amazement. There was an instant of fear, when she felt Richard might really have lost his mind” (99).  She then proceeds to scream in more fury than she releases throughout the rest of the novel combined, which proves her irrationality since Richard literally just cut the kite that he himself made.  From this point, their relationship only deteriorates as Therese brushes off Richard more and more, until finally he realizes she no longer wishes to see him because of her feelings for another woman.  In the argument which proceeds, Therese lets her all her inhibitions go and attacks Richard in every aspect of his life, saying, “You’ll drop painting some day and me with it.  Just as you’ve dropped everything else you ever started” (156).  She continues with, “You’re like a little boy playing truant as long as you can” (156).  Therese, before having undergone her transformation, never would have belittled Richard’s aspirations, and furthermore her comments have little to do with their fight.

This is what I have so far. A lot of work to be done, but I'll know more on where to go once I finish my thesis.

Thesis and Project Narrative

So far, the one thing I've written most frequently about, the one thing I've felt most strongly about, is my beef with Therese.  I talked a lot about Richard, but mainly I wrote about Therese; I always tend to focus on character flaws in the main character, since sometimes they can harder to pick up on, so it's no surprise that's what interested me.  That said, I should probably focus my thesis on the subject of Therese's character and the significance of such. Therefore, I have come up with

The immaturity displayed by Therese both in her relationship with Carol and her interactions with other people illustrates Patricia Highsmith's view of lesbianism as frequently a childish mentality.

I phrased it in this way because I don't think Patricia Highsmith actually thinks lesbianism in general is childish, but I think she may be arguing that girls sometimes pursue queer lifestyles mainly because they aren't mature enough to know where they are emotionally and psychologically.  She also may just be showing the way in which society at the time saw lesbianism, as young girls who become overwhelmed and proceed to act irrationally and selfishly.  Either way, Therese ends up changing a lot in the last chapter or so, and still remains in love with Carol, so clearly Highsmith has no real qualm with lesbianism in general.  I intend to include some of this dialogue in a brief intro/conclusion

 In order to make this argument, I'm going to first show all the flaws in Therese's persona once she becomes enamored with Carol in regards to Richard as well as some other minor characters like Mrs. Robchiek.  In the next paragraph, I would talk mainly about the problems with her relationship with Carol, and believe me, they're there.  In both of these paragraphs I'd try to show after all of my evidence how these things depict lesbianism in a childish light.  In my conclusion (in as much space as I have left) I'll be most likely pointing out that although these things suggest Highsmith sees lesbianism as childish, she certainly doesn't believe it's always that way or can't change into something more grown up, using the final pages as evidence.

I'm definitely very open to suggestions on this since to me it's very hard to pinpoint Highsmith's motive in making Therese the way she is.  I know there is a significance and I have a lot of evidence for it, but I can't be sure that my interpretation is 100% correct.  Therefore, I'm looking for any kind of constructive criticism, mainly towards that aspect of my thesis.  Thanks in advance, see you next time.