In The Oxford Companion to African American Literature under the entry for "Neo-Slave Narrative," Ashraf H. A. Rushdy maintains that despite variations within the genre, what unifies these works is that "they represent slavery as a historical phenomenon that has lasting cultural meaning and enduring social consequences" (533). Slavery in these texts is not seen
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solely as a historical event but as a living present, influencing the con- sciousness of every individual within the community, often in a destruc- tive manner. In the category Kindred belongs to, "the palimpsest narrative," slavery is depicted as having an ongoing effect in the present for current re- lations between the descendants of masters and their slaves (Rushdy 535). In this narrative, set in the California of the 1970s, Dana realizes that "the comfort and security" she has experienced all her life is dependent on her ignorance of the effect of slavery on the present (9). The judgments this ignorance leads to are challenged when she is forced to relive, literally, the experience of slavery firsthand in order to understand its ongoing legacy. Dana discovers she is being transported from 1976 Los Angeles to an early-nineteenth-century Maryland plantation every time her white an- cestor Rufus (her great-grandmother's father as well as son of the planta- tion owner) finds himself in life-threatening danger. In her efforts to save him, and herself, she discovers firsthand the constraints that determined the choices slave women were forced to make in order to survive, and, as a result, she reaches an understanding of her own responsibility in the legacy of this past and a new understanding of her identity in the present. As a neo-slave narrative then, and a critical dystopia, Kindred is making a case for an interdependent relationship between history and present and its ef- fect on women's sense of selfhood. As with the original slave narratives, the personal and political are linked in Dana's loss of sexual and reproductive freedom and her realization that she is in greater danger of a physical/sex- ual assault as a slave than as a free woman in contemporary Los Angeles.
But where do neo-slave narrative conventions stand in relation to the Utopian literary tradition? Like the narrator in Handmaid, Dana comes to a realization of slavery as a system of domination where one group exists in almost total powerlessness sustained under the constant threat of violence (92, 142, 183). The ensuing result of psychic alienation is due to constant compromise which inevitably distorts all relations (97,145,178). As a sys- tem characterized by inequality, violence, and the domination of one com- munity by another, slavery cultivates self-alienation, and a "slow process of dulling" (183). As such, Kindred names slavery as another example of con- crete dystopia that constrains women's control over their bodies, either in their sexual expression or reproductive choices. As in Atwood's text, slave women's choices are limited to forced reproduction with their master—as Alice, one of Dana's ancestors, must accept—or failing that, separation from the mates of their choice. It is within the common themes of bondage and the desire for freedom from oppression that these two genres share the most narrative similarities.
Dana becomes an unwilling accomplice in Alice's oppression and forced mating with Rufus when she realizes that this is the only way to ensure her
Concrete Dystopia: Slavery and Its Others • 219
own eventual birth. Despite her efforts to console Alice and to educate Rufus when he misleads Alice, as a method of intimidation, into believing that he has sold her children away, Alice hangs herself (178). Since Alice had already been separated from the man of her choice, her only meaning- ful point of reference was her children; and her "choice" of death consti- tutes a tragic non-choice. As a result of this suicide, rather than making absolute judgments on the past and her ancestors' choices—as in the case of the household's "mammy"—Dana realizes that individual agency must be judged in the context within which it must function (145). She thus be- comes more understanding of the choices slave women have had to make with regard to their children and the consequences they have had to suffer as a result. The influence of the original slave narratives is clear here, be- cause of the emphasis on survival, as the message conveyed is one often re- peated in both: that a corrupt system can only foster corrupt relations. As a neo-slave narrative, then, Kindred brings together the concerns of the dystopia and the classic slave narrative with its emphasis on sexual vio- lence and enforced reproduction.
Most important, Kindred exemplifies the flexibility of slavery as a sys- tem of domination to manifest itself in many forms, irrespective of time or place. When Dana is forced to destroy a history book, her thoughts lead her to compare this act to Nazi book burning not only because of the physical violence but also because "[repressive societies always seemed to under- stand the danger of'wrong ideas'" (141). She also realizes the importance of the effect of psychic as well as physical violence on agency when she draws parallels between the oppression of slavery and that of twentieth- century racism in South Africa: "South African whites had always struck me as people who would have been happier living in the nineteenth cen- tury, or the eighteenth. In fact, they were living in the past as far as their race relations went. They lived in ease and comfort supported by huge numbers of blacks whom they kept in poverty and held in contempt" (196). As a form of racial oppression, then, slavery lives on in the present, perpetuated by a minority "white supremacist government" (196). Having experienced the effect of institutionalized slavery, Dana discovers that she is safer not because of her temporal distance from oppression but because of a spatial distance while others, at the same moment in time, are less for- tunate. It is this persistence of slavery, albeit in a different form, to which Butler, through the convention of time travel, draws attention in her fic- tion, in order to warn the reader against any complacency in the present. By comparing aspects of slavery with Nazi Germany and the South African regime, Dana realizes the omnipresence of oppression and the na- ture of her own freedom. As a consequence of her time travel she comes to an understanding of the means, the consequences, and the physical and
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psychic effects of a system of domination and violent hierarchy as unlim- ited by time or space but merely different in terms of degree of severity. They are part of the history and the present time of humanity and as such, run the real danger of recurring in the future.
Within these parameters, it is possible to conceive of the real world as existing in a "dystopian continuum" in which not only do extreme forms of oppression and alienation co-exist with lesser forms, but also one's place on the continuum is subject to unpredictable change. It is thus possible to include phenomena from the past as concrete dystopias, since the connec- tions Kindred makes betray how easily one can move from one point in the continuum to another across the time-space axis. A dystopian continuum brings together the history of the world on a space-time axis where both diachronically and synchronically extreme forms of alienation take over to form concrete dystopias. Not only slavery but also genocide, dictatorship, and any configuration that uses institutionalized fear evoked by physical and/or psychological violence to establish a "new reality" characterized by hierarchy and stasis, censorship, and terror for those who resist can be de- fined as concrete dystopias.21
My purpose here has not been to provide a detailed comparison of all the thematic and structural similarities among Atwood's, Jacob's, and But- ler's novels but to draw attention to those features that reveal how all three express a dystopian worldview and trace its effects on women's conscious- ness and agency. In neo-slave narratives, the formal innovations shed new light on the thematic concerns of the classic slave narratives while adding an extra dimension to traditional dystopian novels that emphasize resis- tance and hope for a better future. The first-person narrative voice that emphasizes personal experience illuminates the plight inherent to enslaved motherhood at which history books on slavery could at best only hint at (Beaulieu 129). At the end of Kindred, Dana, despite having lost an arm and her old sense of security, is reborn through her understanding of the past with a sense of hope and "political renewal" (Donawerth 62); if some of her ancestors survived the horrors of slavery, then she too can struggle for a better world. For Baccolini, this privileging of personal narrative over official history constitutes a revolutionary strategy that reveals how "our present—and our future—depend on our past" ("Gender and Genre" 30).
VI. Conclusion
These novelists are not alone in their expositions of slavery as a continuing form of sexual oppression and exploitation. For Kevin Bales, author of Disposable People: New Slavery in the New Economy, the economic condi- tions created by global capital support the "new slavery" while at the same
Concrete Dystopia: Slavery and Its Others • 221
time masking it from view. From the trafficking of children for sexual purposes to the kidnapping of young girls for prostitution, the "new slav- ery" may not be a legally condoned institution, but it continues to exist in many forms in both developed and developing countries. For Bales, the new slavery, like the old slavery, is based on exploitation, violence, and in- justice (262); but unlike the old slavery it focuses on "big profits and cheap lives" (4), and its selection criteria are based on the "weakness, gullibility and deprivation" (11) of its victims. Recent television documentaries (Woods and Blewett) and groups such as Anti-Slavery International are examples of a growing effort to inform the public and bring an end to modern slavery.
As with other examples of concrete dystopia, slavery's effect on its victims is to constitute them as powerless as possible in a system that functions by physical and psychological intimidation. For women it means an ever pres- ent danger to their reproductive choices and physical integrity. But although the potential for the emergence of a concrete dystopia appears to be a latent reality, the narrators' endeavors at resistance reveal what Moylan calls "traces, scraps, and sometimes horizons of Utopian possibility" (Scraps276). Despite, then, or because of, Italo Calvino's conclusion at the end of Invisible Cities that all is "inferno," the capability and responsibility lie within every- one not only to counteract oppression, violence, and alienation but also to do so by making connections, forming ties, and fostering hope in their promise (165). In this context, it is necessary to reassert the relevance of Bloch's concrete Utopia as those moments that rupture the dystopian con- tinuum to reveal glimpses of what the world may still become.
Notes
1. Sargent argues that "the traditional notion that utopianism is the peculiar invention of Christian culture is simply wrong" ("Utopian Traditions" 8). He then differentiates be- tween Utopias brought about by human effort and those brought about without human effort, and says, "Every culture that has ever been studied has had Utopias brought about without human effort" ("Utopian Traditions" 8).
2. For the historical development and literary influences of the African-American novel, see Rushdy.
3. One notable example is Rhodes. See also Baccolini, "Gender and Genre" (13-24). I will re- turn to Baccolini's work when I discuss Kindred. For a comprehensive listing of slave narra- tives, see Andrews.
4. An exception is the case of the "flawed Utopia," where the "good" society appears to suffer from a fatal flaw that compromises its status as eutopia; see Sargent, in this volume. 5. Another strategy is the juxtaposition between memory of the past and desire for a better fu-
ture; see Baccolini,"lourneying" (343-57).
6. Suvin prefers to translate ostranenie into "estrangement" rather than "defamiliarization" (6, n.2). For Suvin, it is "cognition" that performs this critical stance toward reality (10). 7. I am indebted to Nick Varsamopoulos for this point. In The Republic, Plato's main worry is
over the possible pernicious effects of representation. In any case, fiction for Plato distorts reality and conveys "untruths" (363-64).
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8. Compare the argument in Basic Works of Aristotle, esp. 1483-85, where Aristotle allows for a broader definition of representation to include things "as they have been, or ought to be" (1483). '
9. See also Cavalcanti on the relevance of Bloch's utopianism in the context of the feminist utopia/dystopia.
10. Levitas makes this point in the context of arguing against the, ultimately untenable, distinc- tion between abstract and concrete Utopia (65-79).
11. On the relationship between dystopian fiction and modern history, see Booker. For a useful review, see Fitting.
12. For a comparative analysis of gender relations in these two novels, see Patai.
13. For a positive reaction to Atwood's use of slave narrative conventions see Macpherson (179-91). For a negative response, see Lauret (176-83). Lauret's accusation of Atwood's "disingenuousness" is misguided in my opinion as there cannot be a patent on generic con- ventions. For genre "blurring" as oppositional, see Baccolini, "Gender and Genre." Among borrowed elements from slave narratives, the practice of renaming and other rituals of in- doctrination, especially for new "slaves," are standard in dystopia. In Handmaid, for exam- ple, Offred is so named after the master of the household. On rituals of indoctrination, see Patterson, Slavery, ch. 2.
14. In Slavery, Patterson argues for a third crucial difference between slaves and non-slaves who are nonetheless salable against their will: alienation from all ties of natality (26). For his argument against slavery as property, see ch. 1. For other definitions of slavery, see Gar- nsey, who focuses on the notion of property (1); D. B. Davis, who compares various soci- eties' definitions (47-49); Finley, for his distinctions (67-68); and Bales, for definitions by international conventions (275-78).
15. For discussions on other aspects of the generic conventions as well as innovations of the slave narrative, see Cobb, Hedin, lugurtha, and Niemtzow.
16. Taylor lists five distinct functions of the slave narrative: to "impart religious inspiration; to affirm the narrator's personhood; to redefine what it means to be black; to earn money; and . . . to delight or fascinate the reader" (xvii).
17. For a comprehensive list of slave narrative conventions, see Olney (152-53).
18. This is not to say that male-authored texts ignore the condition of women, merely that the focus of their text is more "male neutral" and less preoccupied with choices concerning sex- uality and reproduction. See Douglass. For "solutions" to the "problem" of motherhood in Utopias, see Lees.
19. White further argues for the ideological importance of the Jezebel/Mammy figures: "The black woman's position at the nexus of America's sex and race mythology has made it most difficult for her to escape the mythology" (27-29).
20. For the particular constraints on women slaves in North America and an attempt to sepa- rate myth from reality, see White. For more on the "ethic of compromise," see Baccolini, "Gender and Genre."
21. For contemporary comparative discussions of slavery and the Holocaust, see Lawrence. For an older (and controversial) view, see Elkins; and for a critique, see Du Press (150-77). On the Holocaust, see Bettelheim; concerning literary representations of the Holocaust, see Vice.
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