Modern Society and Pessimism

“For what is a world without pods but a world committed resolutely to macho principles – dangerously narrow, only half-human, a world devoid of rest, receptivity, growth, and an empathetic acceptance of otherness?”

So Nancy Steffen-Fluhr states in the pessimistic conclusion of her article. In this post, I’d like to show how the Invasion of the Body Snatchers suggests an outlook not quite as bleak as the one she indicates.

Steffen-Fluhr suggests that a world without pods is “devoid of rest”, implying that this restlessness is somehow intrinsically bad. Certainly, it seems that Becky's succumbing to sleep after struggling to stay awake for nearly two days suggests that such a condition is inherently unsustainable. But it is only because of the threat of being assimilated by the pod people in their sleep that Becky and Miles are forced to stay awake for an unsustainably long period of time, so the condition of being devoid of rest is not one naturally present in our world. Moreover, even if such a condition were present, is it necessarily undesirable in and of itself? Miles certainly would not have escaped from the pod people if he had chosen to rest instead of flee, and more generally, progress and change have only ever occurred in dynamic, restless societies such as ours, not the restful, stagnating one of the pod people.

Next, the suggestion that a world without pods lacks “acceptance of otherness” conversely implies that the pod people do exhibit such an acceptance. But is this really the case? If the pod people were indeed empathetically accepting of otherness, then they would not want to assimilate Becky and Miles, or for that matter the rest of Earth's population, for they would empathize with their fears about the loss of personality and individuality. Yet Kaufman and Jack continually urge to Becky and Miles to give in and join the pod people, and the pods are intent on spreading their influence across America and presumably the rest of the world as well. Such colonialist ambitions certainly do not reflect acceptance or even tolerance of otherness. Granted, Steffen-Fluhr’s claim that a "world without pods" can be xenophobic and unaccepting is borne out by the initial reactions of horror, fear and revulsion which Miles, Becky, Jack and Teddy display when discovering the truth about the bodies growing from the pods, but given that the pod people are hardly any more accepting than we are, it seems somewhat unfair to level such a criticism at our society.

In relation to the acceptance of otherness, the article also suggests that our society is an unreceptive one, unsympathetic and unresponsive to views unlike our own. However, the ending of the film provides us with some evidence otherwise, as although Miles’ account of what has happened in Santa Mira is initially met with skepticism, his interviewers are quickly convinced once another policeman corroborates Miles’ story, and they agree with Miles that the pod people do pose a threat to national security. Thus their initial lack of receptiveness is overcome once presented with appropriate evidence and convinced of the urgency of the matter, suggesting that even if we aren’t quite as accepting of unusual, different opinions as the ideally receptive society might be, we aren’t entirely unreceptive and unresponsive either. For this and the other reasons I’ve outlined above, I find that Invasion of the Body Snatchers suggests a worldview not quite as pessimistic Steffen-Fluhr makes it out to be.

Ai and Estraven

The relationship between Ai and Estraven takes long to develop because of Ai’s distrust and Estraven’s failure to communicate. But the biological division is still greater than the social ones, and the journey across the ice parallels the slow process of empathy. Genly Ai describes Estraven in physical, somer-kemmer or woman-man dualized terms, especially by sight: “I saw [Estraven] now defenseless and half-naked in a colder light … and saw him as he was” (201), “I saw then again … what I had always been afraid to see, and had pretended not to see in [Estraven]: that he was a woman as well as a man” (248). For Ai, their defining moment of friendship came from accepting the difference between the two, and yet the power in the scene (248–249) derives from the great potential of their mutual love during Estraven’s kemmer.

Ai’s valuation of physical sexuality and love contrast Estraven’s use of intuition and psychological understanding, as mysterious as the nature through which they travel: “There is a frailty about [Ai] … he has a spirit easy to despair and quick to defiance: a fierce impatient courage” (227), “[Ai’s] name is a cry of pain” (229), “I am infected by Ai’s pure pleasure” (230). Even Estraven’s curiosity of Ai’s kemmer-perversion is framed in terms of what Estraven believes is Ai’s “low-grade sort of desire” (232) and not primarily a physical description.

Ai and Estraven also differ in their narrative styles. Whereas Ai frequently writes as “I” and recalls dialogue, Estraven instead observes, describes, and conjectures. Again one sees the dualism between seeing, through one’s own eye, and intuiting as facets of getting to the truth, which for each is appreciation for the other. The physical love, seeing-is-believing methodology of Ai then is a rather Western perspective next to the Estraven’s Eastern intuition: emotional, patient, trust-valuing, believing-is-seeing. But their apparent equality in the fairness of a harsh environment covers, with a layer of snow, the dominance each school exerts on either Ai or Estraven, who only when stripped bare of the social and normative values of Karhide or Terra—shifgrethor and masculinity—contemplate a substantial friendship aided by the tension of kemmer between aliens. The periodic changes in narrative voice provides a better “blending process” than, say, “A Rose for Ecclesiastes,” which as Rhiannon pointed out is characterized by a marked imbalance.

On the other hand, such an imbalance is present but not at the detailed, personal level which suggests a gradual acceptance of otherness. Instead, the ultimate arrival of Ai’s ship, the prophecy of Gethen’s alliance, and Estraven’s death are each conquests, however empathetic or nonviolent, which in this case are of the Western ideas over the Eastern. More important than the exactly posed conflict is Ai’s final isolation following his transformation across the ice. In a position to understand and appreciate both worlds, Ai instead sees in his own kind as “great apes with intelligent eyes” while finding “familiar” the ungendered face of a Gethenian (296). Had Estraven survived, they may have experienced a similar alienation among his Karhidians, who in fact betrayed him to punish his own attempt for understanding. Is this the cost of acknowledging the other? The story ends before we see the Ekumen and Gethen’s progress, so Ai and Estraven are tragic characters. Or, perhaps the way to reaching out to the other may be attained, as Ai did, at the level of personal touch, and its prevalence increased by diffusion rather than swept away by some clash of cultures.

Allusion and Identity in "A Rose for Ecclesiastes"

Forgot to mention: the keywords are the tags. So, allusion, identity, otherness, reference, translation

I'd like to address a topic that both Rhiannon and Alexandra brought up: the referential language in "A Rose for Ecclesiastes". Under the heading of "referential language" I'd like to lump in metaphor, allusion, and non-English words. Each of these has a superficial reason for working within the text, but taken together they reveal a somewhat disconcerting theme about identity and otherness.

The text functions as a sort of hard-boiled sci-fi (as pointed out by Conor), taking on the stylistic trappings of 1940s detective fiction. The two most conspicuous elements of hard-boiled fiction in "A Rose for Ecclesiastes" are heavy use of metaphor (currently distinct from "referential language") the detached narrative voice that at once describes and experiences. These two elements are actually quite closely related, as the heavy use of metaphor aids in establishing a witty, detached narrator. This narrator has time to think even when things are happening all around them, time to reminisce and explain.


This detached narrator, however, seems sometimes too detached. In the moment above (95), the action pauses for half a page while Gallinger narrates a memory. Gallinger's aloofness does not exist only between the text and the reader, but between him and the other characters: Morton says, "I think he's spoken two dozen words to me since I met him" (73). Because he speaks through metaphor when he does speak at all, it is incredibly difficult to pin down Gallinger's identity.

Additionally, he expresses himself through the words of others, even as he is known as a great poet. The story is full of allusions, direct and indirect, to a canon of literature and religious texts. I could try to list all of them, but Alexandra pointed out most of them. (The biggies: Hamlet, the Odyssey/Iliad, the Bible, the Modernist poets, Sartre.) Instead of an attempt to show off his knowledge, these allusions rather emphasize the lack of a distinct voice. Gallinger is a poet, sure, but the only direct view of his poetry yields a disappointing poem (not disappointing because it's particularly bad, but it's not particularly good either). Aside from this single view, Gallinger always defines himself through association. (If I were particularly playful, and I might just be, I'd say that Gallinger's identity is as fragmented as the narrator of "The Waste Land", with all "these fragments I have shored against my ruins".)

The non-English languages offer a key to the puzzle of identity. Gallinger opens the story, "I was busy translating" (58). Gallinger's function throughout the plot is to translate High Martian lore into English, to translate Martian culture into American (Earth) culture. When he can translate no more, he requests to "copy" (75), and introduces technology to assist him. But this technology merely puts off the task of translation, merely makes it easier to do so at a more convenient time. Gallinger is the translator, never the thing to be translated, even though the story sets him up as such (a great modern poet). In line with this, Gallinger's allusions encompass languages from German to Ancient Greek, from Hindi to Hebrew. The fragmented, refracted voice that defines through association is not unique to one culture, but takes its pick from all the cultures out there. It appropriates at will. It, however, always returns to its foundations: Gallinger, as much as he ties together the Koran and Japanese martial arts, always takes them as alien to his Word, his Bible, his Iliad, his Odyssey.

And here, we have the puzzle in its entirety. The identity, formed through appropriating the Other's, always appropriates but never assimilates. It defines itself through "not-being", and requires an Other to know itself. Gallinger, detached from his surroundings, coalesces fragments of other people's words and languages, and only really exists in translation. It doesn't matter that this story is set on Mars, only that it is somewhere totally alien and acceptably so. Martian culture appears composed of all the non-Western Terran cultures, amalgamated into this huge, yet non-threatening Other that requires saving. In saving it, Gallinger finds his identity (that is actually just another huge allusion; I guess there's nothing new under the sun after all).