©All the material in this website is copyrighted to Kathleen L. Fowler unless explicitly indicated otherwise.  Permission is granted to use and distribute this material freely so long as you attribute properly by retaining the full header information.  11/16/99

1. Ursula Leguin writes in the preface to Left Hand of Darkness: Extrapolation "is far too rationalist, and simplistic to satisfy the imaginative mind, whether the writer's or the reader's. Variables are the spice of life. ... Science fiction is not predictive; it is descriptive. ... Prediction is the business of prophets, clairvoyants, and futurologists. It is not the business of novelists. A novelist's business is lying."

To what extent is Piercy following LeGuin's dictum in He, She, and It. Are we to take as prediction or as "thought experiment" the chronology worked out below along with the numerous other hints at future technology or developments (the destruction of the maples due to acid rain and rising temperatures [p. 55]; the melting of the ice cap [p. 34]; robot cleaners [p. 35] ; solar power floaters; sec skins; birth control implants; development of 23 multinational corporations controlling most of the world etc.)? If prediction -- how credible are these predictions -- pick 2 or 3 to focus upon -- not all! If "lies" how useful are these lies? How are they "descriptive" of the here and now?

Rough chronology drawn from clues scattered throughout He She and It.

1543 Jews of Prague exiled
1599/1600 Time at the opening of the Joseph (Golem story)
1946 77,3987 Jews died in camps. Malkahís mother born in Cleveland, Ohio.
1987 Malkah born
2008 Malkah (age 22) in Prague; Visits Altneushul; love affair with professor; Riva conceived
2009 Riva born, daughter of Malkah and professor.
2011 First direct linking/interface to cyberspace
2013 Death of Yosef Golinken, physicist, grandfather of Nili, and posthumous father of Shira.
2022 Kisrami plague
2017 Two Week War (Nuclear/chemical/biological device destorys Jerusalem and surrounding region. Followed by "The Troubles." Anti-semitic persecution following the Two Week War which many have blamed on the Jews
2020s-2030s famine; ocean rising; desertification. 2 billion die from famine and plagues.
2029 Great Hurricane
2031 Assassination of Mohatela the Lion (Malkahís lover) from Johannesburg who has been trying to free Africa for European and Asian domination
2031 Shira born daughter of Riva and preserved sperm of Yosef Golinken
2040 Opposition to humanoid robots mounts. Cyberriots. No robots in human form thereafter (until Avramís illegal experiments)
2044 Gadi and Shira Lovers; Avram creates Cyborg Alef who kills David, Avramís assistant. Alef is destroyed.
2048 Shira breaks off with Gadi; goes to school in Europa.
2059 Time at the opening of the novel. Custody hearing re: Ari Shipman/Rogovin. Malkah 72; Shira 28; Yod (tenth of Avramís cyborgs) is 3.

2. As in Philip K. Dick's Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, (film version: Blade Runner) Piercy's world also has lost most of its real animals and only the very wealthy or privileged in most of the remaining world can enjoy real animals. The rest like Ari must rely on electronic koala bears and the like. Why do both these writers make a point of the substitution of electronic pets? You might want to connect this with the current craze for "Virtual Pets."

3. Piercy reports (in an almost throwaway line) that the whales had been almost extinct when we finally began to translate their epic and lyric poetry [p. 77]. In her earlier novel, Woman on the Edge of Time, (1976) Piercy has her Utopian future reflect on the past and report the same phenomenon regarding the whales. In fact in this future community the citizens of the Mouth-of-Mattapoisett have developed communication (mostly by signing) with a number of animals and have named one village after Washoe the chimp who learned sign language in our own time. What do we know currently about communication among animals and between animals and humans. How do Piercy's assumptions square with our present understanding?

4. Piercy's world in He, She, and It, is relatively uncrowded (although the Glop is certainly teeming with life). How has this come about and what attitude does Piercy project toward the issue of population control? What stance do you believe is appropriate?

5. The Glop and similar quadrants are now under the control of the Eco-police, a heritage of the old UN. Viable farm land which still remains is strictly regulated and even tourists are discouraged from spending time in these protected regions. What should be the role of governmental or international bodies in regulating environmental issues? How "protected" should protected regions be? Think about the debates on closing some national park areas to tourist traffic in order to ensure that they do not disintegrate under the pressure of an endless stream of visitors wishing to enjoy the "solitude" and the beauty of the parks.

6. In the 16th century, Joseph, the Golem, seeks the answers to certain difficult questions:

"Why do parents love their children? How does a man pick a wife? Why do people laugh? How does someone know what work to do in the world? What do the blind see? Why do men [110] get drunk? Why do men play with cards and dice when they lose more than they win? Why do people call each other momser -- bastard -- when they are angry and then again when they are loving? You little momser. Why do people say one thing and do another? Why do people make promises and then break them? What does it mean to mourn?"

How do the questions that Yod must face differ from these? What remains constant? What new questions have arisen?

7. As in Margaret Atwoodís The Handmaid's Tale, Piercyís He, She, and It describes a rising infertility rate due to toxic waste. Every pregnancy that does manage to occur is "monitored genetically and developmentally. Thus the ability to conceive and bear healthy children was both prized and viewed as somewhat primitive." [p. 116] Consider the current debates over (and shifting fashions on) natural childbirth vs. Caesareans, fertility drug induced pregnancies, breast feeding vs. Bottlefeeding; organic farming vs. Growth hormones; organ transplants vs. Synthetic organs, etc. Which are already a significant part of our immediate world. Discuss the concept of "primitive" as Piercy uses it and as it might be used in some of these other debates. What value judgments are implicit in such a term? Is Piercy speaking ironically here or seriously?

8. Malkah asks Shira: "Have you never changed your sex, not even for an evening, Shira?" What kind of sexual mores emerge in this novel. How does Piercy portray differing sexual attitudes, choices, behaviors, drives? Consider Gadi, Malkah, Yod, Shira, Riva, Nili in this context. Write in detail about at least one of these quoting directly from the text to illustrate your analysis.

9. Piercy's choices of names are very rich and symbolic. We are told that Shira means song. Yod's non-human status is emphasized by his being named the tenth letter in the Hebrew alphabet following the sequence of earlier robots that Avram has created. Referring to the Old Testament stories what are the significance of names like Itzak (Isaac), Yakov (Jacob), Judah, David, Joseph in the Golem strand of the novel? In the 21st century tale, if Avram (who has married Sarah) recalls the story of Abraham and Sarah is Piercy alluding to Malkah as Hagar and Yod as Ishmael? Do an analysis of your interpretation of why Piercy is using one or more of these names. Quote directly from the text and from the Bible or other appropriate sources etc. to strengthen your argument.

10. Continuing in the vein of names, Malkah tells Yod:

"I remember that I spoke to her [Shira] about the power of naming. What we cannot name, I said, we cannot talk about. When we give a name to something in our lives, we may empower that something, as when we call an itch love, or when we call our envy righteousness; or we may empower ourselves because now we can think about and talk about what is hurting us, we may come together with others who have felt this same pain, and thus we can begin to try to do something about it." What is your reaction to this analysis. How does Piercy illustrate it within the text itself. How have you seen this power at work in your own experience or observations?

11. In an earlier novel (1976) entitled Woman on the Edge of Time, Piercy has her 1976 character, Connie object to her 21st century host (Luciente)'s concept of science:

"...I mean in our time, science was kept ... Pure maybe. Only scientists could judge other scientists. All kinds of stories about how scientists got persecuted by the church or governments and all that because they were doing their science."

Luciente responds: "But Connie, in your day only huge corporations and the Pentagon had money enough to pay for big science. Donít you think that had an effect on what people worked on? Sweet petunias! And what we do comes down on everybody. We use up a confounded lot of resources. Scare materials. Energy. We have to account. There's only one pool of air to breathe. You grasp neurologists made the aplysia extinct by using it up in experiments? Almost did the same to chimpanzees! What arrogance!" [Piercy, Woman, 278]

How does the attitude toward science in our day -- and its consequences show up in Piercyís He, She and It? Give specific examples. Lucienteís world has minimal technological support (much to Connieís surprise). Shiraís world is heavily dependent on technology. What values do you think Piercy attaches to technology and the ways in which it is used? Is its presence or absence automatically a good thing?

12. Malkah muses to Yod: "Every word is constantly speaking itself for the first time: birth, love, pain, want, loss. Every mother shapes clay into Caesar or Madame Curie or Jack the Ripper, unknowing, in blind hope. But every artist creates with open eyes what she sees in her dream. ... Creation is always perilous, for it gives true life to what has been inchoate and voice to what has been dumb. It makes known what has been unknown, that perhaps we were more comfortable not knowing. The new is necessarily dangerous. You, too, must come to accept that of your nature, Yod, for you are truly new under the sun." [67] In the novel two figures -- Joseph, the Golem, and Yod, the Cyborg (as well as his elder "brothers") are created by "art" (or religion or science or however you want to describe it) rather than by "nature." What moral valuation does Piercy seem to place on such creation? Compare this to the attitude in Shelleyís Frankenstein to which Piercy alludes.

13. Do research on the legend of the Golem and the Jewish mystical tradition. How is Piercy using or reworking this material in the story of Joseph? Consider, particularly, her introduction to the legend of the figure of Chava of whom the Maharal thinks: "Why does he suspect that Chava will see the creation of the golem, supposing he really were to risk it, as usurping not only the power of the Eternal but the power of women, to give birth, to give life. No to discuss something this holy with a woman, he cannot do it." [60]

14. "When you read, Joseph, you can place yourself in history and share in all the thoughts of those who are now dead as well as those now living." [232} Comment on the implications of this quotation -- and its significance for a text that retells a historical period through a fictional lens -- and imagines a future period ...

15. Among the historical figures we meet in this text are the two scientists Johannes Kepler and Tyco Brahe. Do some research on what is known/believed about either of these two men and compare that information with the way that Piercy makes use of their characters.

16. In addition to her use of the Golem material and the Frankenstein story, Piercy alludes to the myth of Pygmalion to comment on the perverse nature of the relationship between creator and created being: "In the myth of Pygmalion, we assume that she will love her sculptor, but Shaw knew better. Each one of us wants to possess ourself; only fools willingly give themselves away. Slavery produces the slave revolt." Look up the Pygmalion myth (and if you are really ambitious George Bernard Shaw's play Pygmalion (sweetened and weakened in the musical form My Fair Lady) and comment on how this allusion adds insight and new information to the text of He, She, and It.

17. Consider the workings of the free town of Tikva. Is this meant to be a Utopian society? What are the special characteristics of this town. Use direct quotations from the text where relevant. What does Piercy seems to endorse/criticize?

18. We are given a glimpse into two other substantially different social/cultural constructs in He, She, and It besides that of the multis and that of Tikva. The first is the glop and the second is the group mysteriously surviving in the Black Hole region. Choose one of these and describe as fully as possible (with direct quotations from the text where relevant) the nature and features of this society. How does our understanding/appreciation of either the glop or the Black Hole region change over the course of the novel?

19. Speaking of another Piercy novel, The High Cost of Living, Susan Kress notes: "Yet these, perhaps, are the condition of our times, and it is unfair to Piercy to blame her for reproducing them too faithfully. ... No wonder feminists like Marge Piercy and Joanna Russ opt for science fiction forms: only in some carefully imagined future or on some other planet does it seem possible to create "positive" images of women. As Ellen Morgan say, "the social reality in which the realistic novel is grounded is still sufficiently patriachal to make a realistic novel about a truly liberated woman very nearly a contradiction in terms." Consequently, those fiction writers who are committed to social and political change must revise old forms or invent new ones." [Susan Kress, "In and Out of Time: The Form of Marge Piercyís Novels," in Future Females: A Critical Anthology, ed. Marleen S. Bar, Bowling Green State University Popular Press, 1981, 122] Marleen Barr in discussing "Feminist Fabulation" "modifies the tradition of speculative fiction with an awareness that patriarchy is a contrived system, a meaning-making machine which constructs and defines patriarchal fictions -- myths of female inferiority -- as integral aspects of human culture" which accepts as "fictional points of departure" "the insights of this centuryís wave of feminism." [taken from Utopian Science Fiction by Women: Worlds of Difference, ed. Jane L. Donawerth and Carol A. Kolmerton. Syracuse University Press, 1994]. React to one or both of these quotations and consider the feminism of He, She, and It in light of your reaction.

20. Felicia Mitchell in her Dictionary of Literary Biography article on Piercy reports: "In response to critical remarks about her politics, Piercy commented in an interview with Richard Jackson, ëArt which contains ideas which threaten the position of the ruling class is silenced by critics; it is political, they say, and not art." [DLB 120, 250] Piercy (as well as other feminist science fiction writers) has been criticized for being "ideological" "polemical" "political." Is this charge defensible? Do Piercyís "ideas" or "politics" damage or diminish her art? Is Piercy right in charging that it is only ideas which are threatening to the ruling class which are perceived as political -- implying that ideas which sustain or maintain the status quo are not considered political? Consider the current controversy over "political correctness" (a bizarre and loaded term in its own right!)

21. Donna Haraway describes SF (which can include science fiction, speculative futures, speculative fiction, etc.) as "complex emerging narrative field in which boundaries between science fiction and fantasy become highly permeable in confusing ways, commercially and linguistically." Natalie M. Rosinsky says that Speculative Fiction: combines fantasy and science fiction "because women studies research and the new physics indicate that such conventional concepts of impossibility [as that marking the boundary between fantasy and since fiction are limited and value laden." Marleen Barr in discussing "Feminist Fabulation" "modifies the tradition of speculative fiction with an awareness that patriarchy is a contrived system, a meaning-making machine which constructs and defines patriarchal fictions -- myths of female inferiority -- as integral aspects of human culture" which accepts as "fictional points of departure" "the insights of this centuryís wave of feminism. [taken from Utopian Science Fiction by Women: Worlds of Difference, ed. Jane L. Donawerth and Carol A. Kolmerton. Syracuse University Press, 1994]. Consider how Piercy intermingles "science fiction and fantasy" in He , She, and It and how that intermingling contributes to her portrayal of her vision of the world.

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