Literature can be political

Three stories I read recently may – or may not - have fulfilled the requirements of ‘feminist’ and ‘politics’. Perhaps, as one writer said, they should be “chart[ing] the story as one of progress beyond falsely boundaried categories and identities.” (Hemmings 2005, p. 116). All of these three used literary perspective as ‘third person omniscient’, which were the predominance of short stories.

Exotic Pleasures, written by Peter Carey in 1979, was futuristic, yet contained many recognisable props. His literary device used all of the first page describing Lilly Danko, telling about her as we should know her. The principals of this tale were the pregnant Lilly and her husband, Mort, looking for work. That similar possibility was “now complimented by a range of alternate entities, including intergovernmental organisations, public and private corporations, universities and scientists, and even individual space entrepreneurs.” (Freeland 2013, p. 10). Domesticity wasn’t predominantly included – “culturally imposed patterns of male power and female powerlessness” (Donovan 1991, pp. 451-452) - yet Lilly knitted as she waited for her husband. They had an old car (how old was the Chevrolet?), yet they visited a space employer at the Kennecott Interstellar Space Terminal (how futuristic?). The story seemed to follow the very old genre – woman married to man who is in charge.

The space story seemed to push story-politics about how space is sold as ‘personal growth’, yet it doesn’t invest in this. Pasco said that many short story writers “hedge on definitions major traits, on just about everything having to do with story as a genre” (Pasco 1991, p. 407), and that’s what Carey did in his tale. However, a reader may not have accepted this as a futuristic tale if they had taken into account all the props without looking at the Interstellar Space Terminal. In fact, even motels, schools and shopping centres were old genre – from current time dying politics.

Torr, who wrote about the “multiplicity of general social, political and economic factors that exist and could be examined as part of an investigation of the texts’ broader contexts”, claimed that feminist authors should be “aspiring to find out what actually has been going on in academic feminism.” (Torr 2007, p. 65). Exotic Pleasure, written by a man, was still very difficult to read if one wanted to examine which gender controlled it, and even difficult when the bird, one of the principals in the tale, was an alien.

Serpents was historical. Initially, Eleanor Dark, writing in 1959, used her literary device as talk about snakes: where they came from; comparison to Eva and Adam’s serpent in the bible; known by scientists as ‘squamata’. When first reading the tale one could get frustrated that it appeared to be a scientific essay and not a tale. Males were referred to by Dark as the “further decree of perpetual enmity between men and snakes”, and yet “sons of Adam are inclined to be tolerant of carpet snakes” whilst “daughters of Eve, on their own ground, are less forbearing...” By the second page of the tale, Dark acknowledged the women’s “gentle sex” became “savage” when snakes were around (Dark, p. 193).

Dark used italics in her writing, to express the detail of the women’s language: “I just don't like snakes, and I will not have them in the house...” (passionately), and “I can never... get used to the way they climb!'” (distastefully), and “I might have put my hand on it!” (indignantly). She wrote far too many ‘first’ pages about snakes-men-women and what could be said-done-happened. Until page 196, the tale wasn’t even really told: three pages for the actual tale! It possibly became amusing then, if the reader had been a male. But if a reader was female, even feminist, what happened in this tale would have made her anxious-upset-angry as the husband spread the time out whilst he was looking for a ‘weapon’. Feminists would have thought that he was a ridiculous male: he had ignored his wife’s fear of snakes!

Brayshaw said “...[Dark] created works which both perfectly reflect their own time and remain equally readable eighty years later.” (Brayshaw 2017, online). This tale wasn’t political, yet the tale of Sue fighting physically with the snake was certainly timely when it was written, and still timely now.

‘Brusque’ on Bondi is ‘normal’ these days as the area around this beach is filling with immigrants and tourists who, maybe, still think of the Cronulla riots even at the other end of Sydney. But Hospital wrote this in 1990, and maybe Cronulla had followed this Bondi tale full of the brusque behaviour and drug needles. As children, Leigh and Cass were brought up in religious families surrounded with biblical stories, so where they were in the tale is far away from that. Cass is married, but Leigh isn’t. Their behaviour was not ‘feminist’, but was very different than with their parents. Leigh lived her own life using men, while Cass sometimes wondered about her (male) partner. Feminism seems to accord many young women now.

Men on the beach saw themselves as Tarzan – “superlative athletic physiques” – and (could have) thought that “[b]lacks are basically stupid and superstitious, foreigners are evil, but the human race is saved through the power of a strong white man... striding powerfully around to save (white?) civilisation from evil.” (West 2000, p.3). West also wondered “Do men living an area such as Bondi in which there is much attention to men’s bodies behave differently from men in other locations?” (West 2000, p. 9). Yet fighting on the beach is similar to fighting outside bars, in a mall, or in any place where discrimination, prejudice and intolerance is seen but is not understood.

A “literary work offers the reader only an experience of reading that literary work.”, if we wanted to – or needed to – believe a writer. (Donnelly 2019, p. 12). This was reiterated by Samuels: “Modern short stories are characterized by their fragmentation and lack of resolution.” (Samuels 1996, p. 87). Many short stories do very well within their literal perspective, but those which miss out will not maintain their readers.

Short stories

Carey, P. 1979, “Exotic Pleasures”, War Crimes, pp. 211-240, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane.

Dark, E. 1959, “Serpents”, The Penguin century of Australian stories (2000), pp. 192-199, Viking, Ringwood Victoria.

Hospital, J.T. 1990, “Bondi”, Isobars, pp. 68-81, University of Queensland Press, Brisbane.

 

References

 

Brayshaw, M. 2017, “The Quiet Brilliance of Eleanor Dark”, accessed 16/05/2019, http://australianwomenwriters.com/2017/08/the-quiet-brilliance-of-eleanor-dark/

Donnelly, M. 2019, “The Cognitive Value of Literary Perspectives”, The Journal of Aesthestics and Art Criticism, Vol. 77, Iss. 1, University at Buffalo, N.Y.

Donovan, J. 1991, “Women and the Rise of the Novel: A Feminist-Marxist Theory”, Signs, Vol. 16, No. 3, pp. 441-46, The University of Chicago Press.

Freeland, S. 2013, “Outer space technology and warfare: Pandora’s Box”, Aviation and Space Journal, Vol. 21, Bologna, Italy.

Hemmings, C. 2005, “Telling Feminist Stories”, Feminist Theory, Vol. 6, Iss. 2, pp. 115–139, Sage Publications, London.

Pasco, A.H. 1991, “On Defining Short Stories”, New Literary History, Vol. 22, No. 2, pp. 407-422, The Johns Hopkins University Press, Baltimore, Maryland.

Samuels, S. 1996, “Dislocation and Memory in the Short Stories of Janette Turner Hospital”, Journal of Modern Literature, Vol. 20, No. 1, pp. 85-95, Indiana University Press.

Torr, R. 2007, “What’s wrong with aspiring to find out what has really happened in academic feminism’s recent past?”, Feminist Theory, Vol. 8, Iss. 1, pp. 59-67, Sage Publications, London.

West, P. 2000, From Tarzan to the Terminator: Boys, men and body image, A work-in-progress paper, University of Western Sydney.