Altered States: Feminist Utopian Literature

315 Pages·2012·9.71 MB·English

Altered States:
Feminist Utopian Literature
Thesis Submitted for the Degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
at
The University of Leicester
by
Donna Fancourt
2004
f
Altered States: Feminist Utopian Literature
Donna Fancourt
Abstract
This thesis interrogates the interaction between feminist utopianism and altered states of
consciousness in fiction from 1970 onwards. The thesis develops further both Lyman Tower Sargent's
definition of utopianism as "social dreaming" and Tom Moylan's understanding of critical utopia. It
also develops and expands Lucy Sargisson's definition of feminist utopianism as subversive, fluid,
ambiguous and committed to ongoing personal and social transfonnation. Utopianism must challenge
society's nonns and values, offering both social critique and social vision. I argue throughout this work
that transfonning individual consciousness is a vital step towards social change.
The thesis focuses on four altered states of consciousness: madness, dreaming, spirituality and
telepathy. These states are situated within a theoretical context, and are then explicated further through
close literary analysis of feminist utopian literature. Altered states offer a metaphor for the need to
think differently, and highlight the importance of looking at society in new and alternative ways. In a
significant number of feminist utopian texts, utopia is accessed through a dream or a vision, through
spiritual meditation, telepathy, or a state of "madness". Within these texts, altered states are not only
used as a means of accessing utopia but are also represented within the narrative as a means of
maintaining or sustaining the utopian vision. Additionally, I show that altered states refers to the place
of utopia, which is altered, or different to, contemporary society. The reader may also enter into an
altered state through the process of reading the text, as their beliefs and assumptions about "the way
things are" are challenged, denaturalised and subverted.
Word Count: 92,082
Acknowledgements
My thanks are due to all those who have supported me, both academically and personally, over the past
three years. Firstly, to Sonya Andermahr, Nicole PoW and Peter Brooker at UCN, who gave me so
much guidance and support. Secondly, I am vety grateful to The Society for Utopian Studies (SUS)
and the Utopian Studies Society (Europe) for giving me the opportunity to share my work within a
friendly and encouraging community. And finally, to my friends and family - I couldn't have done it
without you.
Contents
l\bstract 2
l\cknowledgements 3
Chapter One: Utopianism and Feminist Interventions 5
Chapter Two: l\ccessing Utopia Through Altered States 55
Chapter Three: Madness 104
Chapter Four: Dreaming 145
Chapter Five: Spirituality 191
Chapter Six: Telepathy 239
Conclusion: The Altered State of Utopia 284
Bibliography 287
Chapter One
Utopianism and Feminist Interventions
There is little consensus within utopian studies over what the tenns 'utopia' or
'utopianism' mean, which has led to widespread confusion and disagreement. This dissension,
which appears to be rife across the disciplines in which utopian thought promulgates itself, has
simply become an aspect of the utopian wallpaper, and to be a utopian scholar, one must simply
immure oneself, or perhaps revel, in theoretical dispute. As Kenneth Roemer comments, '[o]ne of
the most exciting and ludicrous characteristics of students of utopian literature is that they often
don't know what they're talking about; or, to put it more gently, they find it difficult to define their
topic' (319-20). Peter Stillman adds, '[d]efming utopias is difficult in the best of circwnstances.
The field is politically charged and contested: liberals, conservatives, socialists, and utopians of all
stripes propound defInitions to fit their agenda' (9-10). Clearly, one of the dangers of definitions is
their exclusive nature, and as many, including myself, see the study of utopia to be an exploration
and subversion of social and literary boundaries, to start any project by erecting barriers is clearly
problematic. Consequently, as no one definition can be acceptable to all, I will discuss the
strengths and weaknesses of various definitions, and will develop within my discussion the idea of
utopia as fluid, ambiguous, always in process and always progressing towards further change and
transformation. I will also utilise Lyman Tower Sargent's definition of utopia as 'social dreaming'
because it foregrounds two key aspects of utopianism that are crucial to my discussion of
-5-
utopianism and altered states: the ongoing relationship between the individual and the social and
between the private dream and the public expression of that dream.
Thomas More's Utopia, published in 1516, arguably represents the utopian novel's debut,
and it was More who gave us the tenn \ttopia' with its pun on the words eutopia (good place) and
outopia (no place). However, utopias existed long before More's text, principally in mythology,
including 'golden ages, arcadias, earthly paradises, fortunate isles, isles of the blest', and festivals
such as 'Saturnalia, the Feast of Fools, and Carnival where the world is turned upside down for a
few days' (Sargent, The Three Faces' 10). An example of an 'isle of the blest' might be the island
of HyBrasil which appeared on maps from 1325 onwards off the south west coast of Ireland:
'[ s] hrouded in mist, it was reputed only to be visible every seven years, when the fog would lift and
a land of enchantment could be seen where fairy queens, healers and magicians lived in gleaming
cities' (Coates 9). In myths such as these one will fmd 'simplicity, unity, security, immortality or an
easy death, unity with God or the gods, abundance without labour, and no enmity between homo
sapiens and the other animals' (Sargent The Three Faces,' 10). Thus these 'body utopias' to use
Sargent's phrase, centre on abundance and sensual pleasure, and are reflected in literary fonus in
texts such as the Land of Cockaigne, in which food flies into the mouth and every desire is
gratified. Early utopian dreams were also expressed in politics and philosophy, in the creation of
ideal cities and architecture, as well as in the arts; Plato's Reptblic is usually deemed to be one of the
ftrst utopian designs, with its vision and detailed description of the ideal state. It would seem that
utopian dreaming is a universal phenomenon, and as Sargent comments, it seems likely that \he
overwhelming majority of people - probably it is even possible to say all - are, at some time
-6-
dissatisfied and consider how their lives might be improved' ('The 1bree Faces 3).1 Thus More did
not invent the idea of utopia, or utopian desire, only the literary genre of utopia.2
Since the sixteenth centwy, the tenn 'utopia' has been used in a wide variety of contexts
not restricted to the literary novel, so that the tenn 'utopianism' refers not only to the utopian
genre and utopian literature, but also to utopian theory and utopian thought. Lucian Holscher
traces the history of the tenn 'Utopie', (m its Gennan usage) from the literary genre to its use
linguistically, theoretically and lexicographically. As Holscher notes, the tenn Utopia has always
been ambiguous, referring variously to More's book, to literature, social refonn and social refonn
movements. Sargent further distinguishes between utopian literature, communitarianism and
utopian social theoty, dividing utopian literature between "body utopias", or utopias where desire is
gratified by non-human effort, such as God, or the gods, nature or supernatural means, and "city
utopias", in which humans contrive a utopian design. Canying both positive and negative
connotations, the tenn utopia developed as an abstract tenn across a number of languages between
the sixteenth and nineteenth centuries. During this period the tenn referred principally to those
who indulged in fantasy, who believed in the possibility of a perfect world or who sought to create
an ideal society that had no basis in reality (Hi:ilscher). Thus utopianism became associated with
impracticality and irrationality; as Fourier notes, 1i]t is the dream of good without the means of
I Kumar and Levitas would disagree, see Utopi4 am Anti-Utopia in Modern TImeS, and The Onzpt 0/ Utopia respectively for
discussion of this issue.
2 More's Utopia also derives from the traditional genre of satire. Utopia and satire are linked because both focus on what
is and what might be. However, they differ in their emphases, as satires emphasise the perceived wrongs of society,
concentrating on its follies and vices, whereas utopias stress a positive alternative ideal to the contemporaty present.
More mixes both utopianism and satire in his book, so that it is often difficult to see where he is reco=ending the
lifestyles of his Utopians, and where he is satirising his own society's problems. Gu/lir:er~ Trauis is generally deemed to
fall into the category of satire rather than utopianism, because even though Swift describes various utopian societies he
emphasises the negative rather than the positive.
-7-
implementation' (quoted in Holscher 23). To call someone utopian or a utopist has therefore
historically been an act of dismissal, if not abuse; Marx, for example, tended to reject utopian
schemes for they were not, in his view, based on historical analysis, because they ignored class and
economic issues.'
The tenn utopia has always been rooted in an idea or dream of an alternative society, or of
better ways of being; beginning with a thought that becomes an idea, utopia therefore concerns our
ability to conceive and meditate on alternative realities. Historically, utopia has been linked with the
'ideal' in the sense of being that which is perfect and does not yet exist. HOlscher notes that this
usage of the ideal is of 'a mental image of that which is not to be found anywhere in the world of
external appearance while its realisation seems worth moving towards' (37). Raymond Williams
identifies two main modem senses of the tenn idealism:
(i) its original philosophical sense, in which, though with many variations of
definition, ideas are held to underlie or to fonn all reality; (11) its wider modem
sense of a way of thinking in which some higher or better state is projected as
a way of judging conduct or of indicating action. (152)
Utopian thinking clearly links with both these defmitions of idealism, and historically the terms
"utopian" and the "ideal" frequently overlapped in their usage." If utopianism is based on abstract
thought and ideas, then it is also, as Mannheim recognised in the twentieth century, linked with
ideology, which has been defined as 'abstract and false thought' (Williams 155). Ideology, which
originally referred to \he science of ideas' or the 'philosophy of the mind' is another ambiguous
3 However, in the late eighteenth century the spatial element of utopia was accompanied by a temporal one, which added
an historical criterion to the term; for if utopia is located in the future, then the process of moving from the present to
the future utopia must be documented, as HOlscher notes, 'while the utopia in space is subject to the logic of the critical
mirror, the utopia in time is subject to the criterion of historical continuity it is forced to make the transition from the
present to the future plausible' (32).
4 See below for further discussion of the links between utopianism and philosophical idealism.
-8-
tenn that has generated a number of different meanings (quoted in Williams 154). Tom Mo}hn
defines ideology as:
a more general set of practices that shape the self-understanding of
individuals. It is a representational system of values, opinions, knowledge,
and images which articulates the individual's lived relationship to the
transpersonal realities of the social structure as experienced by a particular
social class. (Denand 17-18)
While dominant ideologies can be opposed by oppositional ideologies such as feminism, whatever
their content, they still structure our perceptions and beliefs. In the light of Louis Althusser's
work, ideologies are now not simply seen as false consciousness, but rather as lived experience, as
all knowledge and experience is understood to be tied up in different ideologies. Ahhusser argued
that ideology represents 'the imaginary relationship of individuals to their real conditions of
existence' (123). Subjects cannot exist outside ideology, indeed they are produced through it: there
IS no escape. Clearly this view of ideology has implications for utopianism, for if ideology is
"
.. everywhere" then utopia cannot be free from ideology either. However, Karl Mannheim
differentiated between utopia and ideology, arguing that ideology represents negative beliefs, and
utopia positive beliefs. He therefore thought that utopian thinking could transcend ideology.
However, this opposition between ideology and utopia is an over-simplification, if Ahhusser's
theory is taken into account. As Moylan notes, utopia and ideology are not dialectically opposed,
rather lw]e must see the utopian impulse as operating Wthin the ideological, both helping it along
and pulling against it' (Denard 19, original emphasis).5 Clearly, feminist utopias work within the
ideological, as they utilise feminist ideologies in their creation of utopian spaces. At the same time,
5 HOlscher notes that 'Mannheim's distinction between 'Ideologie' and 'Utopie' was of course not free of ideological
prejudice itself, given its orientation to a historical-philosophical model of progress. He admitted it was practically
impossible for the contemporary observer to differentiate between the two. This was because it was only in retrospect
that the objective function of states of consciousness in society, i.e. that which had persistently questioned the existing
social order, became dear' (47).
-9-
however, they work to counter both dominant ideologies of sexism (and often racism, classism,
capitalism etc.) and also feminism, in order to create a new space that is, perhaps, free from
ideology. Whether such freedom is possible will be discussed further in relation to the texts.
In the twentieth centwy, Ernst Bloch has probably written the most on utopian thought,
including three volumes of text on the subject, which he defined as \he principle of hope'•
•
Originally published in 1959, The Principle o/Hope was not translated into English until 1986, so its
impact in Britain has been rather belated. Bloch identifies utopianism with universal hope, and his
project is a philosophical one, intended to recuperate utopianism for humanity as a whole,
believing it to have been lost in twentieth-centwy doom and gloom. Thus he explores the utopian
spirit among a wide variety of media, including the fairy tale, film, theatre, travel conswnerism,
madness,' literature, medicine, politics, technology and architecture. His definition of utopia as
hope is necessarily inclusive - any cultural fonn can be recuperated through utopian daydreaming.
Bloch believes that 'forward dreaming,' that which is 'Not-Yet Conscious' or 'Not-Yet-Become'
needs to be examined in order to understand what it is to be h1.UI1aI1; that this field has been
neglected, he finds curious (The Principle 6). He therefore collapses divisions between past, present
and future, with his claim that the future can become visible in the past and the present, because
the past is only viewed and interpreted in the present, and because the present always contains that
which is Not-Yet of the future. Opening up awareness of the Not-Yet will therefore open up
humanity to the possibilities of utopia.
6 To be discussed funher below.
- 10-