Submission?
Freshly out of my PhD, I find myself in a post-state
where fatigue of extensive writing still lingers but the desire of a new
project is becoming more prominent with each day. However disillusioned I felt
after the first feat (which defending my neo gothic project was), the need to
research, to work or simply be engaged in the literary field was overwhelming.
As a means of winding down I have always preferred reading and that is how I
stumbled upon Michel Houellebecq’s Submission.
I intend not to review the novel but to comment the
possibilities it draws for the near future. If you are not acquainted with the
plot, I will outline the basics. In some 10 years from now the political map of
Europe is reshaped by the inclusion of Muslim parties that actively take part
in every area of life. After the last election in France the Muslim party
candidate is named the next president and his governing policies include great
changes in education and society. Patriarchy is the ‘new’ old system that
insists on returning women at home where they can cook and bear children. Years
of feminism are just swept away when men are allowed to have wives so they can
strengthen the family unit and ensure natural selection.
How believable this utopian version of the future is?
I kept asking myself while my reading progressed. Surely, such a drastic change
cannot happen overnight. Women are bound to fight back and resist even if they
face ostracism. Or are they, are we?
Strikingly, the described events happen almost
smoothly, with little if none attempt to fight back. It seems change is
welcomed and intellectual elite is not taking any action against the new
regime, what is more, they are giving themselves in, seduced by the idea. This
readiness to serve the new moral shocked me. It implies the notion that good
old Europe with its extensive cultural background is inevitably decaying.
Centuries of proclaiming the beauty of freedom appears rotten from within. The
Western world as we know it is dead and the alternative is not by far bright
for women.
Other utopian novels see the future as a regress to
patriarchy and religious cult as well. For instance, The Handmaid’s Tale reality is chilling to the bone but it did not
affect me as much as Submission did. A
possible explanation is the degree to which both books change our perception of
society. The former stretches our imaginations to radical limits, whereas the
latter depicts a future that is neither that far, nor that unbelievable. It was
precisely the easiness with which change was evoked that struck me and made me
think of my future as a woman scholar.
I have grown a dedicated feminist. Among my strong
beliefs is the idea that a woman cannot be simply reduced to the role of a wife
and/or a mother. Stereotypes ruin the psychic of people trying to fulfill
impossible roles. We should be allowed happiness for the choices we make. Yet, the
eagerness with which society submits to the cult of the family where
reproduction is the main course of sustaining humanity, is indicatory of
something faulty. Have we ‘ruined’ family by choosing career over motherhood?
Literature is a lonely business, if I am allowed to
rephrase Ray Bradbury. I have been aware of the dedication it requires. A
colleague of mine even separated with her husband because of an opportunity she
was offered abroad. At the same time men in the faculty have two or more
children and sacrifice less for advancement in the field. It is probably
subjective and strictly individual. However, the protagonist in Submission also decides to accept the
new religion and the benefits it offers. According to the author, the swift
point comes after the renowned professor lost everything he considered
valuable: girlfriend, family, his job. Afraid of loneliness and obscurity, he
is lured by the possibility to have several wives among his thinning number of
female students.
Not once does he consider the other point of view –
the one shared by his female colleagues. The only time a fellow professor is
mentioned after the changes, is when she serves meals to the protagonist and
her husband, an ex-spy, and the first person narrative admires the exquisite
taste of the food. This episode implies that female creativity is shrunk to the
art of cookery and no further. This woman is thoroughly stripped of her
personality by not even uttering a word during the conversation. It is nowhere
implied in the book, but it is just likely that if she does not reproduce, she
would be required to step back and allow a younger and more fertile woman to
give the man offspring.
I am simply appalled by that possibility and I come to
the realization that this is exactly what I dislike in countries where women
are considered lesser to a man. What future do we expect if we hope a housewife
to be silent and teach her daughters to fear and hide and her sons to violence
and arrogance? A fair, peaceful, altruistic one? I don’t believe so. I am not a
behaviorist, nevertheless, I am aware that our self is shaped by imitation. Religions
utilize this to exercise power and create fear. Fright is the most powerful
human emotion and it is feed by our primal survival instinct. As a result, our
first impulse is to dominate the source of intimidation.
Women have been feared for centuries and to this day
they are hidden and kept at home as a futile attempt to diminish their
personality. How else could covering them from head to toe be explained? Long
ago shaking hands turned into a symbol of peaceful approach. The day when women
walk with bare faces all over the world would mean that finally mankind evolved
to understand that dominance is not always the key to power.
A poet from my country, Updike’s favourite – Blaga
Dimitrova, once wrote a poem, which roughly translated says: because women were
so long left voiceless, today they speak in poetry. I don’t believe there is
future where women can be speechless and faceless. Do you?
Коментари
Публикуване на коментар