Chapter Page

Abstract 3
Introduction 3
The Dice Man 5
Method 6
Theory 11
Results 16
Gender 16
Postmodernism 21
Analysis 23
Conclusion 28
Bibliography 29

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Abstract
In this dissertation I try to analyse discourses in the Dice Man with the aid of Hoey's
discourse analysis, then applying the theories of post-modernism influenced by
Baudrillard, Featherstone and Lyotard and the feminist theories of Chodorow, Butler
and Irigaray to try to find the power discourses expressed by the seemingly dissolved
individual of the post-modern text.

Introduction
After writing my B-level dissertation on the subject of postmodern theory and where
and how it can be combined with qualitative methods (Rde, 2004), I wanted to test
the conclusions and see if it indeed was possible to do qualitative research based on
post-modern theory. As I started to make a research plan however, I soon realised that
what I was aiming at was not so much to make a postmodern work, but rather to pitch
a post-modern text against the rivalling analyses of post-modernism and classical
sociological theory. This was then crystallised into my decision to use a linguistical
method to create a data set of discourse examples, that I then would analyse with both
feminist and post-modern theories so as to pitch them against each other. Below I will
explain my line of thought for this projects evolution, giving the reader a chance to
understand the process of this work and give a cleare picture of what I am trying to do.

To explain my interest in the particular text I have used (the Dice Man by Luke
Rhinehart), I have included my final comment from my B-level dissertation. Ever
since I wrote it I have been interested in just what lies behind the discourses of the
postmodern Dice-Man;
This selfbiographic portrait (the Dice Man-my comment) shows the strongest sides
of postmodernity when it comes to explain the desintigration of the subject and the
power of discourses. However, it also shows its problem, that in a completely
schizofrenic subject the discourses are still in power, the only difference is that there
is no master discourse. This shows postmodernitys perhaps biggest and most classic

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problem; it can deconstruct and falsify our perceptions of reality in a brilliant way,
but it cannot point us towards any alternatives. (Rde, 2004, p. 20, my transl.)

The text I have worked with; The Dice Man, is Luke Rhineharts self-biographical
inversion of psychoanalysis where he claims mans inhibitions are let free when life is
governed by chance and desire rather than the assimilation of bourgeois values and the
theories of Freud. What interest can a sociologist find in the work of a fallen
psychotherapist, trying to invert the teachings of Freud by, literally, the fall of the die?
What questions about society can be answered by looking at the discourses of a text,
albeit a nominal one, that is written under the laws of chance and tries to invert
Freudian psychotherapy on its own terms?

The answer lies in the discourses of post-modernism and the questions of social
identity and change put forth by theorists such as Lyotard, Baudrillard and
Featherstone. Especially Baudrillard focuses the sociological lens towards the creation
of simulacra and simulations, the iron-rule of hyperreality in a world were the real has
been done away with. This discourse fits surprisingly well with the view that is put
forth by Rhinehart, and it is by putting the Dice Man under the lens of post-
modernism and discourse analysis that I will try to find the meaning of the die.

In my work with the book I have been interested in two main questions; firstly, how
can post-modern theory, especially Baudrillards, explain the impact of the dice man?
Secondly, in what respect can we see the discourses of gender and power at play in the
supposedly free discourses of post-modern life in the Dice Man? When I started out I
worked with a broad categorisation of classical sociological theory classified into
three subcategories - gender, class and ethnicity. Quickly, however, I realised that
gender alone was enough to give a satisfying number of examples and working with a
single theory would make it easier both in my comparison with post-modernity and in
chosing the theoretical framwork I would work with. These are the questions that I
will pitch against each other in the analysis of my data.

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As I began, I was aiming at deconstructing the text, with the help of the theories of
Derrida, and finding the traces, the logocentrism of logic and the holes in the blinds of
langue, I hoped to be able to trace the discourse of the Dice Man to its source,
compare it to and evaluate it using Baudrillards theories of post-modernism, thus
closing the circle and opening up the discourse of the die. Then I would be able to
compare it and measure it against an analysis based on Chodorows and Irigarays
theories. As I started my work I soon realised that Derridas theories was not only
hard to use but not what I really needed. What I needed was a reliable method for
analysing discourse segments, which the could be used in analyses based on feminist
and post-modern theories. This led me to the theories of Hoey, and especially his
Problem-Solution pattern.

So instead of doing a discourse analysis with the help of Derrida I instead worked
with discourse segments, applying Hoeys Problem-Solution pattern, and then applied
my theories to the raw data I had thus created. This made the work both easier to
present with clear lines drawn between both theory and method as well as between
data and analysis.

The Dice Man

Written by American psychotherapist Luke Rhinehart in 1971, the Dice Man portrays
the authors discovery of dice-living from his first awareness of chance impact on life
to his imprisonment by American authorities. The book itself is written in a style
fitting to the author and subject, the roll of the die has literally been responsible for
the themes and content of the book. Just as with all other statements on dice living it
really does not matter whether this statement is true or false in any way. What matters
is that it is a text bound by the discourse of chance and the die, as well as
incorporating all the discourses of its author and narrator, and this makes it perfect for
examining the work of discourses in what I would call a post-modern setting.

4
I will presume that readers of this dissertation are familiar with the book, and will not
delve into it further here, except to establish my take on it in this dissertation and why
it makes for an excellent object of study.

In trying to escape the boredom of upper middle-class, white, middle-aged and

heterosexual life, Luke Rhinehart captures the essence of being in post-modern
theories, especially Baudrillards world of simulacra and Lyotards language games, as
well as giving ample examples for the feminist theories of Chodorow and Irigaray. By
letting the dice make more and more of his decisions, Rhinehart finally comes to live
a life where every choice and whim is made by the roll of the dice. What I will try to
examine through my analysis is what the narrative of the post-modern man hides
behind the simulacra of the die. Perhaps all discourses and narratives of power that are
said to have been deconstructed and played with by the eroding power of post-
modernism are not so easy to eradicate and perhaps they still have an influence that
seems to point to them containing something of reality still?

Method
I have chosen to use discourse analysis to study the Dice Man. Why? This extract
from Lyotard will help me:

Most people have lost the nostalgia for the lost narrative. It in no way follows that
they are reduced to barbarity. What saves them from it is their knowledge that
legitimation can only spring from their own linguistic practice and communicational
interaction.
(Lyotard, 1998, in Elliott, p. 323)

This is important for my object here; to study the discourses of power and gender
within the Dice Man. What we must turn to when applying postmodernism to the
study of a text is the language games that the text builds up. Since human interaction
creates discourses, we can study these language games by studying discourses. With
the help of discourse analysis we can study the smallest common denominator of

5
language games - the building stones of discourse patterns. This is why I have chosen
to use discourse analysis as my method in this dissertation.

However, I use two distinct formulations of discourses in this work, one is linguistical
and taken from Hoey (1983) and the other is sociological. The linguistic definition
from Hoey concerns how words are used to build sentences, and sentences in turn are
used to give meaningfull accounts; discourses. This does not mean that a discourse
have to be built up by individual sentences, a discourse can consist of only a single
sentence, as long as it gives us a meaningfull account. This is what lingustically is
defined as discourse; how sequences of words are given a meaning above and
beyond the meaning of its parts. This can also be summed up in the phrase sense-
making-practice which sometimes is used instead of discourse (Allen, 1992)

As an example; I met him so I said hi is a discourse consisting of two parts; I met

him and so I said hi. Read without the context of the first statement, we do not
know why I said hi. When put together this two short statements create a linguistical
discourse that makes the statements more understandable than when they are read
apart. Texts cannot be analysed as individual sentences that are analyzable on their
own, rather these sentences form discourses that make the text as a whole
understandable (Hoey 1983).

The sociological definitions (since there is not a single definition) of discourses do not
concern the linguistical workings of language as much as the social system of
language games. Here discourse decides what can be said, and therefore what can be
known, within a social context. There are of course number of ways to discuss
discourse and its workings from a sociological viewpoint, which is something that I
will go more into in the theory section about postmodern theories. Here I just want to
make clear that the sociological definition of discourse is something entirely different
from the linguistical one, and the main reason for doing so here is that my method is
concerned with the linguistic definition of discourse, while the theories I will work
with and my analysis is concerned with the sociological one.

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My specific method of discourse analysis here will be based on the method of textual
discourse-analysis which has been described by Georgakopoulou (1997), Hoey (1983)
and Salkie(1985). The first issue I came across was the mostly linguistic focus of
these books; ie they were focused on linguistic studies of how language builds
meaning, not sociological applications where the social nature of language games is
studied. This was good for me however, since I was working with a book as my
textual-data, and not a TV-show or movie. If I had been looking at popular medias
like television there is a huge amount of other, mainly ethnographic, literature which
focus on how recipients of the media use it and make their own interpretation of it by
applying different discourses, or sense-making practices as it is sometimes called
(Allen, 1992). What I wanted however was a method for studying the discourses of a
popular text (as in a written text, popular here meaning it is a novel and not an
academic text) where speculation about how different readers use the text become
extremely hard, not to say impossible.

What I was trying to uncover, was not how the Dice Man was used by its audience, or
what discourses people reading it drew on in their interpretation of it. Rather I was
trying to see what discourses the author created in his writing, consciously or
unconsciously. The textual analysis method invented by linguists such as Hoey gave
me a method to map the discourse production within the authors textual production -
through analysis of how discourses are constructed from sentences put together to
create meaning (Salkie, 1995).

My first task when sitting down with the text was to determine how I was going to
work my way through it and create data from the raw material of the text. As I was
trying to find discourses of power I would need some easy codes for finding classical
expressions of power as well as a few examples to that exemplified the postmodern
characteristics of the text. The classical ones to work with would be "gender",
"race/ethnicity", "class" and postmodern discussion. This would allow me a basis
for coding the text and finding important excerpts to analyse using discourse analysis.

7
Using these four broad categories as a guide for working through the text I managed
to find one category that I found interesting, gender, as well as a number of excerpts
that brought to light postmodern discussions such as the multiplicity of meaning in
any given statement. Gender was the pre-dominant topic in discussions of power in
the book, and would thus make a good choice for putting into contrast against the
multiplicity of power in the postmodern notes.

The basis for my coding was to make the text more accessible to my attempts to
analyse the discourses in it, by pointing out which discourses were re-accuring and
which were not. This made it easier to find the parts that should be put under the
scrutinizing eye of discourse analysis, i.e. be in the data set, and also gave a basis for
mapping the context into which the discourse analysis must be put. It also made it
possible to find out which categories was drawn on the most in the text which is
how I after a first coding of the whole text came to work with gender and
postmodernity.

When it comes down to the nuts and bolts of discourse analysis both Hoey (1983) and
Georgakopoulou (1987) have been the basis for my work. There is a number of basic
literary discourses that Georgakopoulou (1997) points out, one of which is the
Problem-Solution pattern were she actually draws on Hoey (1983), who's book is
concerned solely with this subject. Though I will mostly concern myself with the
method championed by Hoey (1983), having found it an often occurring discourse
organisation in the text (Rhinehart, 1971), I have also had help from Georgakopoulou
to sharpen my view of the discourse organisations multiple possibilities.

So what are these nuts and bolts exactly? Saying that I used Hoey's Problem-Solution
pattern is all nice and fine, but what does it actually entail and why is it a good method
for what I have tried to do here? Here I will lay out the basics of discourse analysis as
explained by Hoey (1983) and also give an example of the version of discourse
analysis that I used in my work.

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First of all let me reconnect to my definition of linguistic discourses above, and
especially the shorter discourses I have used here. When I am talking about my data
set I refer to discourses as the building stones of language that takes words and forms
them into comprehensible sentences. A discourse can also be formed from sentences
and even other discourses, working on a larger and larger scale within a text. Working
with these smaller segments of text allowed me to work with a very specific method
for creating examples - i.e. my data, that also was small enough to be easily analysed
(Georgakopoulou, 1997).

According to Hoey discourse organisation can be perceived by readers, and the

discourse itself contains elements that helps the reader perceive its organisation. This
function is sequence, which can be paraphrased or highlighted by projection into
question-answer dialogues. The full pattern for Problem-Solution would be situation-
problem-response-result-evaluation, to which there are multiple variations possible
(Hoey, 1983, ch.3).

This is in fact a very common way of building up discourses, especially in everyday

conversations and writing. It is of course applicable to other situations as well, most
scientific texts are built up in a similar way. I am going to work with a text that mainly
handles everyday discussions and situations narrated and analysed by its author, so
this pattern of discourse building is very fitting for creating data out of my text
material.

Discourses are often multi-layered and it may often contain overlapping patterns of
problem-solution where, for example a negative response causes the discourse to
spiral on. So what might first appear to be a very easy way of looking at discourse
formation can actually contain very advanced discourse formations. What I aim to do
with this method is to unravel the discourse-building that always goes into writing,
create examples, and then to apply my theories outlined above to interpret my
findings.

9
Now, for a simple example of the discourse analysis method of Hoey (1983) I have
chosen a short statement from the Dice Man that I will put the method to use on to
give the reader a clear example of just how I am going to work with the text itself.

Life is an island of ecstacy in an ocean of ennui (situation), and after the age of thirty
land is seldom seen (problem), At best we wander from one much-worn sandbar to the
next(response), soon familiar with each grain of sand we see (result).

Here we can see clearly that even a simple statement such as the one above can
include almost the full number of building stones that make up Hoeys pattern, only
the evaluation part is missing here, which often is the case in shorter discourses. This
is the level of discourse analysis I will work with the most in this dissertation. Even
though there are higher levels of discourses built up from smaller blocks like this one,
and there is also a multitude of discourses possible from one block of text if longer
fragments are chosen. I will try to work with smaller fragments like this one however,
since I am not trying to make a full linguistical analysis, and with shorter fragments
the possibility of multiple discourses in one block of text is more controllable.

I have also used a system of denoting the clauses that I will use in the rest of my work.
The words in paragraph are placed after the passage they refer to. This system I have
used for all the examples in this dissertation.

With this in mind I set about to collect a sample of short discourses from the text as
the basis of my discourse analysis. My method for doing this was first to code the
whole of the book after my two codes. When doing this I wasnt really looking for
specific discourses, I just went through the book several times highlighting passages
that fitted into one of my categories - described the build-up to a rape scene for
example.

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When choosing samples to work with I severely reduced the number of segments in
the text by testing them against Hoeys Problem-Solution pattern. Most of the
examples were of such a nature that they did not readily fit into Hoeys method for
discourse analysis - the foremost reasons being that the segments were either long
discussions (in general shorter discussions often fit into the pattern, but many long (3-
4 pages) conversations do not so easily. I found it especially hard to find discussions
of sufficient length that handled my chosen subjects gender and postmodernity), or
the discourse segment that interested me (i.e. handled one of my two chosen subjects)
was to short to build a decent Problem-Solution pattern.

This means that even though this work is qualitative in nature and I have not used
specific statistical methods to measure quantities in my work, there is still a good deal
of security in having a lone researcher picking out the segments to work with. The
number of segments long enough to work with and handling the specific areas of
interest was hard enough to come by that selectivity never became an issue.

I also had to make a choice as to how large text segments I would use in my data; if I
used too big segments it would reduce the numbers of example possible to analyse, if
I used too small it would be harder to get good data since many of the discourses
would not contain all the parts of the Problem-Solution pattern, and those that did
would be harder to analyse. I chose to work with segments about 40 to 120 words in
length since they gave good data with my method, but still contained enough mass of
text as to contain all the parts the Problem-Solution pattern. Let us do a little exercise
to see the possibility of shorter discourses by taking out a part of Example 9 (p. 24,
below) and analysing it on its own.We are looking at only the result sentence of the
original example using the Problem-Solution pattern;

However, breaking my established patterns (situation) was threatening to my deeply

ingrained selves (problem) and pricked me (response)to a level of consciousness
which is unusual(result), unusual since the whole instinct of human behavior is to find
enviroments congenial to the relaxation of consciousness (evaluation).

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Here we can see that within what seems to be a simple discourse there can be multiple
discourses underlying the discourse that we are analysing. My reasons for not putting
the analysis at this level is above,. This shows the reader that the discourse examples I
give is not the only ones that can be found in the text. It is entirely possible, for
example, to instead analyse only two-sentence discourses and still find the Problem-
Solution pattern.

Theory
The two theories in this dissertation are post-modernism and gender theories. Here I
will introduce both of them, starting with post-modern theory.

Post-modernity is not an easy term to adequately describe or capture. I will mainly use
the writings of Baudrillard to capture the essence of what he perceives as the post-
modern society and individual. In my analysis I will also try to critique the discourses
of post-modernism in the dice-man, which will be covered by feminist theories.

Post-modernity basically sees the grand narratives of modernity (progressiveness, etc.)

are dead, and that the new post-modern age has brought a fracturing of the narrative of
social life. This view was brought on by the deconstruction of texts to show their
logico-centrism; all texts and their arguments rely on self-proving central logics (such
as progressiveness) that can no longer uphold their own legitimation. Their is also a
wide consensus on the decentering of the subject, moving it from the grand narrative
of rational evolution to the field of discourses vying for power. We are as fractured as
the social world around us, tugged along by an ever-changing stream of discourses
vying for our attention. (Butler, 2002)

Post-modernism, even focusing on only one main theory; Baudrillards, is not

advisable to present as an authoritative meta-narrative. There are certainly other
perceptions than Baudrillards on post-modernism, other ways of perceiving for
example the change from modernism to post-modernism and what this change entails.

12
I have decided to include Baudrillards theory mainly because it deals heavily with the
concept of simulations and simulacra, and perceives post-modern society as having
moved from more basic simulations of reality to the level of simulacra, which instead
hides the fact that there is nothing underneath the illusion provided by the simulation.
This is a theme that fits well with the concept of the Dice-Man and my attempt at
deconstructing it.

For Baudrillard (1999), in the post-modern world the old truths and reality itself have
given way to the hyperreal and simulacra. Presentations of the world are no longer
representations of an underlying real. Instead the presentations create their own
reality, the hyperreal, thus the precession of simulacra (simulations without origin in
reality) is the new order of the social world. A world were, according to Baudrillard,
Disneyland just serves to hide the fact that the childishness it portrays is more real (for
Baudrillard this would simply mean to have more power of the social creation of what
is important, what matters) than the America you will meet in its parking lot
(Baudrillard, 1999).

Perhaps the best way to show the usefulness of Baudrillard to my analysis is in his
own words:

Everything is metamorphosed into its inverse in order to be perpetuated in its purged

form. Every form of power, every situation speaks of itself by denial , in order to
attempt to escape, by simulation of death, its real agony. Power can stage its own
murder to rediscover a glimmer of existence and legitimacy."
(Baudrillard,1999,p. 333)

Indeed, is the dice-man just a reformulation of the old power in a new, schizophrenic,
guise? Have Luke Rhinehart escaped from all his inhibitions by giving up everything
to chance, or has the white, middle-class, academic just inadvertently staged his own
death to be able to rebirth himself with a new glimmer of hope, a new goal?

13
The other perspectives on post-modernism that I will make use of in my formulation
of a post-modern method for interpreting the text is Lyotard and Featherstone.
Lyotards definition of the post-modern condition ie the loss of the grand narratives
hold over culture and truth - is helpful for defining the initial doubts and qualms
plaguing Rhinehart, as well as the reason for his rebellion against societal norms and
psychoanalysis.

Lyotard puts the decline of the narrative as an effect of the evolution of technologies
and the liberal individualisation after decline of Keynesianism and the finishing of
reconstruction in Europe after WW II. Just as Lyotard refers to Nietzsches statement
that European nihilism resulted from the truth requirement of science being turned
back against itself. (Lyotard, 1998 p. 321), so does Rhinehart turn the focus on the
human ego in Freudian psychoanalysis back on itself - resulting in the nihilistic
disintegration of the ego exemplified by the Dice Man. Lyotard points out that science
- and therefore psychoanalysis, is just a language game among others, and can not
claim supervision of the language games of human need and impulse.

The erosion of ego through dice living originates within the steady erosion of
knowledge within psychoanalysis itself if we are to follow this thread. Thus
Rhineharts attempts at dissolving his own ego is not a revolt against psychoanalysis, it
is rather the postmodern dissolving of psychoanalysis claims to priority of the
language games of human need. This becomes important when we try to put the Dice
Man into context with the analytical positions between feminism and postmodernity.

Featherstone has worked on many different aspects of post-modernism, but the ones
that I will make use of in this work is his theories on cultural
exploitation/globalisation and discourses. What makes Featherstone interesting is that
instead of seeing post-modernism as something akin to a grand narrative like the
grand narratives of the past that it supposedly killed off (funny that, the king is dead,
all hail the king.), he instead perceives post-modernism as the recognition that
discourses are always at war with each other, trying to claim the right to define the

14
social world. Post-modernism for Featherstone, then, is recognizing that these
conflicting discourses exist, and that social reality is not made up of ordered existence
and the continous evolution of grand narratives (dialectics, the path of western
civilisation, etc.) but rather by conflicting discourses on how society is formed and
should be perceived. This is highly useful in this work becauses it allows us to look at
the discourses on sex, gender, race, ethnicity, class and power in general without
subverting them to the iron-rule of another discourse. In this case the post-modern
discourse, but of course the same goes for discussing problems within a dialectical or
functionalist discourse of sociology.

For feminist theories I have used articles by Butler (1999), Chodorow (1999) and
Irigaray (1999), to find a theoretical base for the gender-based discourse analysis.
What I wanted for my gender theories was to capture a number of broad discussions
about key points in feminism; the origin of womens roles in family and society and
the way gender relations reproduce themselves. I will specify more clearly the
reasoning behind chosing each single theory as I discuss it below.

Both Chodorow and Irigaray formulates critiques against, and draws on, Freudian
psycho-analysis in their formulations of feminist theory. The big difference is that
Chodorow in her article analyses the reproduction of Mothering from a Freudian
perspective on the importance of the oedipal stage, while Irigaray formulates a critique
of the Freudian and Classical take on "Woman", her sexuality and her whole being, by
formulating a feminine auto-eroticism that always touches itself and always is
avoided/un-understable/missing from the phallocentric view.

My reason for choosing Chodorow as a basis for part of my analysis is in her focusing
on Mothering and its social reproduction. Her analysis is straightforward and easily
adaptable to the method of discourse analysis. It gives me, as a young, male
researcher, a way to analyse the texts1discourse on the mothering role of women and

1
which, lets not forget, is written by a man

15
the formation of all societal formations connected with this; heterosexual relations,
the family, parent-child relations, etc.

In short, Chodorows analysis of the formation of heterosexual gender roles in the

oedipal stages is based on the different object-relational experiences of this stage.
While men learns to relate to their Mother, the primary caretaker, as Other, women
instead relate to her as Same. The oedipal stage means that men is treated as an
opposite by their mother and their further attachment to her is repressed. Women on
the other hand retains more concern with this stage all their life, and according to
Chodorow their inner object world is more complex than mens as a result. Womens
heterosexual relations also require a third part as a part of this mothering process; a
child, while mens attachment to their mother means that their needs are fullfilled
through the heterosexual relationship alone.

Chodorow also analyses the impacts of these conclusions in a male-dominated

society. The mothering of women furthers the sexual and family divisions of the
genders. As a social process that produces gendered divisions, the reproduction of
mothering is important to upholding male domination. One interesting aspect of
Chodorows article is that she sees gendered divisions as reproductive, akin to Marx
class conditions, and thus kept alive by their own process, which gives her argument a
very strong basis both for further analysis and for arguments.

Irigaray's article might not fit the bill as easily as the others, but it actually contributes
quite a lot to the analysis of the texts discourse on women. The article is a critique
(albeit a very negative one with no clear solution) on the Freudian and Classical
definition of Woman. Since the text I am analysing (Rhinehart, 1971) is written by a
well-educated psychoanalyst, it fits the bill of feminist critique of the male-centered
onthology very well.

Irigaray also works with the theme of Other, but in her article it is Woman who is
Other, in being different from the always central Man. Woman is always described in

16
terms of what she is lacking compared to Man, always seen to be trying to appropriate
a penis through marriage and children. Within this masculine world-view woman can
never truly be herself, always existing through Otherness she is completely alien,
creating the mystery of women.

According to Irigaray, just as a womans sexual organ is not one, so she herself is not
one. Within the masculine world-view dominating our civilisation her true self is
always escaping scrutiny, even for her herself. In fact she can never be one, she is
always several.

Butler's (1998) article, finally, fits into the general theme of post-modernist in that it
draws on Foucault's work with social genealogy (Foucault, 1977). She also ties in very
well to Baudrillards (1998) theory on simulacra., in that she sees the reproduction of
heterosexual roles in gay and lesbian relation ('butch' and 'femme'roles for example),
not as reproductions of an original, but rather as a copy of a copy, what Baudrillard
(ibid.) would call the precession of simulacra.

Gender is the repeated stylization of the body, a set of repeated acts within a highly
rigid regulatory frame that congeal over time to produce the appearance of
substance, of a natural sort of being. (Butler, 1998 p. 275)

This example binds together a postmodern view of the importance of style in the
creation of postmodern persons, and a feminist view of the highly rigid regulatory
frame that binds these, at first glance free, stylizations into patterns. This discussion
could be held on any number of subjects, but within the feminist framework that
Butler puts it in, it shows us that the stylization that creates gendered bodies is still
regulated by a masculine framework superimposing itself on the supposedly free-
floating discourses of postmodern life.

Results

17
In this part I will only present my examples and how I have coded them using Hoeys
method. Before each example I will put the segment into the context it is lifted from
by describing the larger segment of text which it fits into. Since the Dice Man is
written in a very chaotic fashion and often jumps from one subject to another between
chapters I will only try to explain the larger narrative of the specific chapter from
which each example is taken rather than putting it into a context incorporating the
whole of the text, for a full description of the texts narrative see the chapter the Dice
Man above. After each example I will try to discuss the difficult points that occurred
to me and explain my interpretation of Hoeys method and how I have implemented it.
The narrator, when referred to, is always the writer; Luke Rhinehart.

Gender
Example 1, p. 54 (Rhinehart, 1971)
In this example the narrator introduces one of the supporting characters of the novel;
Arlene Ecstein, the wife of Luke Rhineharts colleauge Jake Ecstein. It is lifted from a
larger context where the whole of both Arlenes and Jakes lifes are introduced and
analysed from the viewpoint of the narrator; Luke Rhinhart.

Although there were unconfirmed rumours that on her otherwise slender body she
owned two marvelously full breasts (situation), the baggy sweaters, mens shirts, losse
bluses and over-sized smocks she always wore (problem) resulted in no ones noticing
her breasts (response) until theyd known her for several months (result) - by which
time theyd forgotten all about her (evaluation).

In this first example we can see all of the five points clearly used in what can be
described as a straightforward argument. Even though an argument might be raised
about the positioning of the problem part - in that it might be argued that the problem
is in fact that her breasts are not noticed. I argue for this interpretation because of the
placement of the word resulted which of course refers to the following being the
result of what came before, and on the basis of the ability of my interpretation to be
paraphrased into a dialogue (Hoey, 1983) such as this:

18
Q: What was the result?
A: No one noticed her breasts.

Here there is a clear dialogue within the text, where it refers to itself both backwards
in time and at this very segment. This is a strong statement for it being its own part of
the local discourse.

Example 2, p. 74 (ibid.)
This discourse segment is lifted from the infamous rape scene at the beginning of the
text. The larger discourse incorporates the narrators need to break out of his boredom
and his sudden decision to go downstairs and rape his friend and colleagues wife;
Arlene Ecstein, if a dice hidden under a playing card left at the poker table apartment
is a one. This decision is also the first time the narrator lets the dice decide a course of
action, and is quite extensive, especially if you include Luke Rhinharts descent into
more and more desperate boredom as an introduction.

Rape had been possible for years, decades even (situation), but was realized only
when I stopped looking at whether it were possible, or prudent, or even desirable
(problem), but without premeditation did it, feeling myself a puppet to a force outside
me, a creature of the gods - the die - rather than a responsible agent (response). The
cause was chance or fate, not me. The probability of that die being a one was only
one in six. The chance of the dies being there under the card, maybe one in a million
(result). My rape was obviously dictated by fate. Not guilty (evaluation).

In this segment the internal dialogue is even clearer, due to the nature of the segment
being self-referential (as to the author) rather than describing a person outside the
author. Here one simple technique can be used to see the work of discourse formation
- the removal of certain words that binds the segment to a context. In this case this is
the word but. When every part of the discourse is looked at in its own right, it is
easier to see the discourse formation when you are not distracted by context that is not

19
referring to the text itself - it here refers to a choice of the author unconnected to the
text, which means it can safely be ignored when looking at the discourse.

Example 3, p. 118 (ibid.)

Here the narrator has started to try to dissolve his own integrity by letting the dice
make his decisions. As a part of this dissolution he also starts to see people close to
him as objects; so as to more easily follow the dictates of the die.

Love I saw as an irrational, arbitrary binding relationship to another object

(situation). It was compulsive. It was an important part of the historical self
(problem). It must be destroyed (response). Lillian must become an object (result): an
object of as little intrinsic effect upon the or interest for me as...Nora Hammerhill
(name picked at random from Manhattan phone book) (evaluation).

Here we see that the result of a discourse can be affected by the context, the referral to
one of the characters becoming an object here is what the author in person sees as the
result of this particular train of thought. This might seem like jumping to conclusions
and drawing on knowledge about the authors intentions which no-one reading the
book can be presumed to possess. However, by using the Hoeys problem-solution
pattern, these assumptions are sprung from a methodological standpoint with a sound
theoretical basis, and not my own imagination. What I am analysing is the discourse
and its elements, not the mind of the author.

Example 4, p 81 (ibid.)
This example, just as example 3 above, is from a chapter at the beginning of the book
where two supporting characters are introduced and analysed. Here the narrator
analyses Arlene Ecsteins education. The background is that she and Jake Ecstein
married while in college, and she dropped out of school to work and so support him
financially while he finished his medical studies. No deeper explanation of what kind
of studies Arlene dropped out of is given, except that the narrator explains that she

20
was happy to miss her finals - which presumably were to take place the same year she
dropped out.

Arlenes education had thus come from life (situation), and since her life had been
spent clerking at Gimbels, girl-Fridaying at Bache and Company, typing at
Woolsworths and controlling a switchboard at the Fashion Institute of Technology,
her education was a limited one (problem).

This example only makes use of the first two parts of Hoeys method. The reason for
this is simple - as a discourse it is just a discourse within a bigger one, and since it is
used only to make a statement (in this case a presentation of a character), it does not
pose direct problems, resolve or complicate them and present results and evaluations.
The reason I have used it is that it is still a good example of the discourses of class
that appear in the book, and I have still found it usable in my analysis.

Example 5, p. 474-5 (ibid.)

This segment is taken from a chapter where the narrator follows a dice decision to
perform a sexual act with another man. This particular discourse example is from the
end of the chapter where the narrator explains the needs underlying his response and
need of this experience, and also gives insights into the Luke Rhineharts view of
sexual domination.

There is something basic in wanting to be dominated by a superior creature - whether

man or Die(situation). Responding to men respectfully and passively has never been
my majority nature (problem), but the times the Die has ordered me to play a woman
(response) have uncovered the latent slave in me (result).

This was perhaps the most straightforward of my examples to analyse. The only
problem was the distinction between the response and the result, since it was no clear
demarcation between them by punctuation of any kind. By paraphrase we can
reformulate the response sentence into; (Some) times the Die has ordered me to play a

21
woman. The result can also be paraphrased into; (This) have uncovered the latent
slave in me.
The first sentence is altered so it is clearly a paraphrase and even though the second
sentence is strictly not a paraphrase since I only add one word that is not in the actual
text but which makes the discourse pattern clearer; it still goes under this heading
since the sentence have been changed to show how the discourse is built up.

Example 6, p. 244 (ibid.)

This example is from a chapter where the narrator explains the Luke Rhinehart
Power Pattern for Men, which tries to explain the nature of mens daydreaming
through different stages of life; in short going from conquering the world to
conquering women and finally back to conquering the world again, with stages of
saving the world in between. This particular segment is the stage which comes after
the stage in his 20s when a man thinks he has the world at his feet and dreams about
big Wallstreet incomes. Here the descent into adolescent dreams about saving the
world once again is the topic.

But in the next few years he is earning a modest salary as second clerk at Pierce,
Perkins and Poof and is upset at the injustice and hypocrisy that exist in the world
(situation): a world in which some men are athletic stars, James Bonds and
millionaires and he is not; he is morally appalled (problem). In his dreams he
recreates the world, righting all wrongs, eliminating suffering, redistributing wealth,
redistributing women, ending all wars. He becomes a reincarnation of Gautam
Buddha, Jesus Christ and Hugh Hefner (response). Evil governments topple, corrupt
churches collapse, laws are revised, and Truth, written in Xeroxed tablets of stone by
our hero, is presented to the world (result). Everyone is happy (evaluation)

Here the big problem in the discourse analysis is to fit the place of the ending of one
part of the discourse and the beginning of another. There is certainly grey areas
betweeen where the situation ends and the problem begins for one. This is not as big a
problem as it might seem at first glance, as we can yet again fall back on Hoeys

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(1983) tests of discourse patterns. Here I used the method of paraphrasing, i.e.
reformulating sentences to see if a statement can be made that fits into the description
of the part of discourse we are looking at or answers a question from an earlier
segment.

Example: The problem part here can be paraphrased into: he is upset at world in
which some men are athletic stars, James Bonds and millionaires and he is not; he is
morally appalled.

This refers back to an earlier statement made in another segment of discourse, which
in the case of a problem segment almost always is the situation. So even though the
last part of the situation which reads; and is upset at the injustice and hypocrisy that
exist in the world, looks much like the problem statement, it is here referred to in the
problem statement. This means that it is in fact a prerequisite part of the problem, here
the state of mind of the first-person-author, and not a problem-formulation in itself.

Postmodernism
Example 7, p. 454 (ibid.)
This example is from the last part of the book, were Luke Rhinehart is given one of
his more extreme dice-dictates; to kill another human. When rolling his die to
determine his long-term goals he has constantly given it a slim (one in thirtysix)
chance of rolling the kill another human decision. This particular discourse is from
the beginning of the chapter where he explains his reason for including this choice
among his long-term plans, and also why it is not very disturbing to him at first
glance.

The great advantage of being brought up in a culture of violence is that it doesnt

really matter who you kill: Negroes, Vietnamese or your mother - as long as you can
make a reason for it, the killing will feel good (situation). As the Dice Man, however, I
felt obligated to let the Die choose the victim (problem). I flipped a die saying odd I

23
would murder someone I knew, even it would be a stranger (response). I assumed
for some reason that the Die would prefer a stranger (evaluation), but the die showed
a one; odd - someone I knew (result).

Here the evaluation actually comes before the result, something which is not implied
in Hoeys Problem-Solution pattern, but as Hoey (1983) himself argues, there are
multiple ways of building discourses, and even if the Problem-Solution pattern covers
the most, there are still many instances were it is modified. Here the author, who is
also the character of the episode, makes a statement before the die-roll about what he
thought it would be, since his response in the discourse is actually throwing the die, it
is rather a pre-emptive evaluation of what the die will be. The actual roll of die
however, which comes later, is of course the result.

Example 8, p. 65 (ibid.)
This example is from an after-poker-conversation between Luke Rhinehart and his
senior colleague Dr Mann, retold at the beginning of the text, just after Luke has
started to experiment with letting the dice make his decisions. The conversation is
about Lukes errattic behavior, something which Dr Mann blames on his earlier
attempts at eastern mysticism, and which he thinks is still the reason for Rhineharts
strange behavior. The first speaker in the example below is Dr Mann, while the
closing comment is Rhineharts.

Youre dreaming, You expect too much. A human being, a human personality is the
total pattern of the accumulated limitations and potentials of an individual (situation).
You take away all his habits, compulsions and channeled drives (problem), and you
take away him (response).
Then perhaps, perhaps, we ought to do away with him (evaluation).

First of all the finishing of Dr Manns discourse by Dr Rhinehart shows that the
Problem-Solution pattern can be used to analyse conversations as well as
straightforward presentations. It is of course quite natural for people to finish each

24
others sentences; and discourses, and the best place to intersect something in anothers
discourse is as an evaluation; which is the case in the example above.
This, just as my other examples of postmodernity was chosen because it deals with the
theme of post-modern destructions of paradigms regarding closed discourses about
society and human rationality.

Example 9, p. 113 (ibid.)

This example is from a chapter which describes the general nature, success and
problems of Luke Rhineharts first months of dice-living. i.e. letting the dice control
more and more aspects of his life by making decisions via dice rolls. In this segment
the narrator describes the experience of being forced into new roles and situations by
dice decisions and analyses the experience.

New places and new roles forced me into acute awareness of how others were
responding to me (situation). When a human is being himself, flowing with his inner
nature, wearing his natural appropriate masks, integrated with his enviroment, he is
normally unaware of subtleties in anothers behavior (problem). Only if the other
person breaks a conventional pattern is awareness stimulated (response). However,
breaking my established patterns was threatening to my deeply ingrained selves and
pricked me to a level of consciousness which is unusual, unusual since the whole
instinct of human behavior is to find enviroments congenial to the relaxation of
consciousness (result). By creating problems for myself I created thought (evaluation).

This is one of the more straightforward examples in my data samples. Of course this
does not mean that it cannot be broken up into smaller discourses and so create further
discourses within it, as in my example in Method above (p. 11). Discourses are by
nature not easily defined and always have the possibility to contain multiple
discourses.

Analysis

25
Here I will use my theories to analyse the data I have created above. I will first present
a specific analysis of the Prolem-Solution pattern and then go on to a more general
analysis of the whole data set after this.

In the gender examples there is a clear pattern of reference to women in the

problem part of the discourses, with the exception of example 5. All of the
examples refers to women as objects or tries to objectify women. The situation is
always described from the position of a man, be it the narrator in the first example or
men in general in the second:
Example 1: The problem of Arlenes clothing results in no-one noticing her breasts
Example 2: Rape is not prudent, which is solved by legitmization of an outside force
Example 3: The historical self of the narrator must be destroyed by treating the
woman as an object
Example 4: Wanting to be dominated by a superior creature - a man, is natural, a
situation that is inherent to being a woman
Example 6: Women should be redistributed between men to set wrongs right

When we look at just these paraphrased problem formulations we can clearly see the
patterns drawn out by the feminist theorists. We can clearly see the patterns laid out
by Irigaray (1981) defining Woman as Other, here as a tool to satisfy Man (example 1
and 2), who needs to appropriate a male sexual organ through being dominated by a
man (example 4). Women are trade-objects that can be redistributed to create a better
world (example 6). All of these views originate from a male centered view of the
world where woman is obviously Other and an item to trade and use.

When looking at resolutions and applying Irigarays theory we can see in example two
the overriding structure of a gendered society superimposed on the whimfull
experience-seeking of Rhinehart. The fact that it is another person that he must rape, a
woman, does not factor into his evaluation of the deed. He is simply satisfied after
having put the blame outside of himself, concern for the Other is not part of his

26
evaluation. Women is other and all that is required to satisfy the legalising of Mans
actions is the satisfaction of Mans need.
Example 4: When ordered to play a woman, the author has found a latent slave inside
of him. This resolution of example 4s discourse also shows the Otherness of woman
and her need to appropriate a male organ, something which in the authors discourse
is inherent in not only being a woman, but also playing one. Without Otherness and
prostitution of the body, one can not play or be a woman.

Butlers theory can help us to uncover the reproduction of gender roles and how
stylization of bodies has an important part to play in creating sexualised bodies. Here I
will first focus my analysis on how the problems in the discourses are solved.
Example 1: People do not notice Arlenes breast until after several months, and then
they have forgotten all about her.
Here the object of a womans body (object because that is what it is created as through
this discourse, and what it is treated as in the same) is created as something which has
its inherent value only in its breasts. The stylization of woman creates an objectified
body that exists to please men. Reproduction of gendered bodies through the
stylization of gender roles.
Example 6: Dreaming of becoming a new Buddha or Hugh Hefner, he sets the world
right and makes everyone happy.
The stylization of the man into a masculine hero-figure is how utopia is percieved to
come true in the mans dreams. While men are constructed as hero figures righting the
wrongs done to other men, women are goods to be redistributed more fairly between
men. The very hero concept is part of the masculine superstructure of worldly
importance, nowhere is the normativity of masculinity seen more clearly than in the
figureheads of authority. The style of the saving hero; the strong leader, the
enlightened tutor etc., is captured in the body of a man, that the saviour could be a
woman is unthinkable.

Chodorows theory on the reproduction of gender roles leads us to seek the basis for
gendered action within the examples. In example 3 the problem is that the narrator

27
must destroy his bond to his wife by treating her as an object. This tells us two things,
first it provides support for Chodorows theory that the male heterosexual bonding
requires no more than a woman. (Chodorow, 1998). The children of the family are not
included in this argument for this reason, they are not a part of the historical self that
must be destroyed. Secondly it tells us the masculine formulation of what a woman is
to a man. When Rhinehart must get rid of his bond to his wife it is not an option to
leave her, to forget about her. Rather he must treat her as an object with no personal
attachments, he must reduce her to an object in his eyes. The masculine ownership of
women in a male-dominated society becomes clear.

When we start painting the analysis with bigger brushstrokes we can begin to see
larger patterns emerging. In all the examples of gender discourses I have chosen,
Woman is the problem, not always the problem-part of the discourse, but rather that
she always has a negative role to play in the story. She is not seen because she does
not show her breasts in example 1, she is an obstacle to overcome in example 2 (the
very fact of her being a person, a fact that must be overcome if she is to be raped), she
must be reduced to an object in example 3, the very nature of being a woman is to be a
slave in example 4, her education comes from life, and thus she is limited in example
5 and finally in example 6 she is goods to be traded and redistributed for the
betterment of mankind.

Just as Irigaray describes Woman as Other, Chodorow points to the reproduction of

gender roles that limits women (and men), and Butler points out the superstructures
that gendered society imposes on women, the narrator of the Dice Man himself
defines women as a problem for the male-dominated world. She is an obstacle to be
crossed, an object to be rationally dominated and a lesser being whos very nature is to
be enslaved. The discourse in my examples are not explicitly built to come to a point
in a discussion about gender, but nonetheless there is a definitive structure to the
positioning of women within the text. They are in short reduced to less than men, and
sometimes below that, to the level of objects.

28
What analysis can Baudrillards, Lyotards and Featherstones bring to bear on the
data? To begin with I will work on the same micro-level as with the feminist theories
above, and then go on to draw a larger picture.

Baudrillards (1999) theory of simulacra and simulations is the closest to Luke

Rhineharts own worldview; the world is an inescapable reproduction of simulations
encroaching on reality. Just as Baudrillard sees the postmodern society as a precession
of simulacra, Rhinehart sees humans as simulations of themselves. Illusionary
personalities created by the governing rules of society, unable to express themselves
when confined to a strict societal rule called personality.

Let us take a closer look at example 8. Here the discussion pinpoints the fact that by
removing the drives, goals and compulsions of a person when you remove him. This
can be interpreted as two oppossing discourses: Dr Manns interpretation (the first
speaker, thus the comment at the end is removed): Yourre dreaming (situation). You
expect too much (problem). A human being, a human personality is the total pattern
of the accumulated limitations and potentials of an individual (response). You take
away all his habits, compulsions and channeled drives (result) and you take away him
(evaluation).

Although this follows closely to the discourse of the narrator which is the one I
followed in my example. The difference is that Dr Manns discourse here follows the
line that Rhinehart is dreaming when he thinks a man can be changed by dissolving
his personality. The narrators discourse (which is the other person in the dialogue as
well) instead follows the discourse in my example and therefore includes the last
comment to involve the evaluation form the second speaker - Rhinehart.

I will look closer at example 7 using Featherstones (1995) theory of postmodern

culture. According to Featherstone, seeing the conflicting discourses that vye for
dominance within all aspects of human society is what postmodernity is about, and
this example shows us how different meanings can be applied to a single discourse-

29
segment. It both incorporates discourses of race - it is negroes and Vietnamese that are
mentioned as examples for people to kill, gender - killing your own mother, politics -
the mentioning of Vietnames and Negroes carries definitive overtones of the historical
slavery in america and the Vietnam War. This means that what is in one way a straight
discourse with a situation, a problem and a response to the problem, can at the same
time carry a number of conflicting discourses struggling for supremacy over what we
read into a text, and what is seen as important.

I will analyse example 9 with the help of Lyotard (1999). The discourse is focused on
the entropical nature of integrated behavior here. Just as Lyotard describes the
entropical nature of scientific knowledge, so Rhinehart maps out the entropical nature
of human personality.

The only way to get outside of the pattern of human behavior is to break the patterns
of expected patterns. This follows the same lines as for the creation of European
Nihilism and Postmodernity in Lyotards article (1981). The basis for Rhineharts
choice to break down the very fabric of psychoanalysis is a factor of psychoanalysis
itself just as european nihilism sprung from enlightment.

In the discourse itself we can see this in the formulation of the problem nd how this is
responded to. The problem is here responded to by breaking the very patterns that are
defined as convention in the problem formulation. So the response is a rebellion at the
conditions of the problem but which still has its basis in the problem and its inability
to remain in control of the language game. By turning this language game on its head
and using the normality of the problem against it - turning the language game on its
head, the entropical pattern of self replication and failed truth claims is broken.

On a larger scale the theories of postmodernity gives us a more fragmented view of

the text, as can also be seen in the examples above. It is not possible to put the finger
on a master discourse in a certain example from the text. Whos discourse has
precedence in the discussion between Dr Mann and Rhinehart? If we are to follow

30
Featherstone there is always a fight for precedence, in which Rhinhart as the narrator
of the text has the upper hand. However, having initiated the discourse segment, Dr
Mann also has a trumph on his hand.

When it comes to the motivations of the narrator and the discourses implications on
other persons than the narrattor, this analysis makes it harder to pin down what is at
work. Being occuppied with the nature of clashing discourses and the simulations that
make up social reality makes it much harder to evaluate the implications of the
discourse examples beyond their narrator. The one thing which can be said however,
is that the postmodern analysis does not only leave room for one interpretation of
what is being said in any given discourse.

Conclusions
In this last part of the dissertation I will test the two theoretical standpoints against
each other to try to see if the main standpoint of either side - masculine domination on
the one hand and the lack of grand narratives on the other, can stand up to the critique
of the other side.

The feminist analysis brings out three sides of the masculine domination of the
discourses among the data. The critique of the postmodern theories would be that the
grand narrative of masculine domination is instead just one of many discourses that
can be found in the text. As we can see in the feminist analysis of the examples
however the three theories do not build on a grand narrative that dominates the
discourse. The theory of Chodorow builds on the grand narrative of psychoanalysis,
but takes into its analysis the whole of society and the function of mothering on a
social plane instead of fully anchoring it in the framework of psychoanalytic truth-
claims. The same goes for Irigarays and Butlers theories, with the difference that
they are leaning less on any grand narrative to build their argument. So even if the
post-modernist critique of grand narratives can show that none of the examples
exemplify a grand narrative it cannot falsify that there is in fact several different
discourses of male domination embedded in the text.

31
When you turn the argument around it is instead post-modernism that must defend the
point that there is no grand narrative against the facts brought on by the feminist
analysis. This shows even clearer the strengths of postmodern theory; it cannot make
any grand truth claims, but it can always escape the truth claims of others by labelling
them as grand narratives. Any critique brought against the position that there is no
grand narrative is certain to be labelled as a grand narrative in its attempt to impose a
specific discourse on a text.

Final Comments
As for myself I must say that the side climbing out of the ring of analysis as the
winner is certainly feminism. The only claim that really can be made by
postmodernism against the proof of male-domination brought forth by feminism is to
partly shoot down its claim to dominance as just what the text is really about.
Postmodernism cannot completely deny the claims of feminism, while feminism on
the other hand readily can admit that there are other discourses of domination at work,
which surely does not make the male-domination it shows with its analysis any less
real. Even without grand narratives; oppression is certainly real, and showing that
there are other facets to the dominator does not make the oppression go away.

32
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