Topkoru 1

POSTMODERNISM IN WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME

Postmodernism is set of ideas emerged as an area of academic study since the mid-1980s. It
includes all areas of literature, art, music, film, architecture, sociology, communication,
fashion and technology. Like modernism, postmodernism came to study fields breaking the
ties with the old Victorian standards of how art should be made, consumed and what it should
mean. Modernism tends to present a fragmented view of human subjectivity and history, but
presents that fragmentation as something tragic, something to be lamented and mourned as a
loss. According to modernists, work of art can provide the unity, coherence and meaning
which has been lost in most of modern life; art will do what other human institutions fail to
do. But contrary to modernism, postmodernism does not lament the idea of fragmentation,
provisionality or incoherence, rather celebrates it. While modernism serves as a solution, a
hope; postmodernism just accepts the things as they are, it does not lament. Postmodernism
does not pretend that art can make a meaning if the world is meaningless. As stated,
postmodernism celebrates fragmentation, self-reflexivity and the deconstruction of language.
In postmodernism, the voices of the people on margins like Latinos, Chicanos, black
Americans, Aegean women, Jewish people are heard now. Gay-lesbian literature has become
important in postmodernism. Those people on margins have begun to write for themselves.
Up to now, the male dominated WASPs were writing the stories of those people; but now, in
postmodernist time, those people write for themselves. It can be said that the main interest
turned to the ones that are on the edge of the society. Besides the mainstream, the women
writers as a result of the feminist movement began to show existency in literary fields. So
Marge Piercy, one of the leading figures of the feminist movements in 1970s, as well as with
her postmodern characteristics such as self-reflexivity, self-consciousness, fragmentation and
discontinuity, she portrayed social realism in her novels. In Woman on the Edge of Time,
which could be placed within a genre of feminist-utopian fiction or science fiction, Marge
Piercy illustrates gender and racial problems of today’s society and compares those problems
to a possible – utopic – future. Therefore, a postmodern feminist utopian writer of the Woman
on the Edge of Time, reflecting the nature of the society from a feminist perspective, Marge
Piercy’s style can be analyzed through her feminist discourse, postmodern usage of patterns
and these stylistic features’ general contribution to the message and philosophical nieche that
the novel belongs.
 Topkoru 2

To begin with, in Woman on the Egde of Time, Marge Piercy, as a postmodern feminist
writer, deconstructed the structure of language by emphasizing the importance of sexism in
language and inventing words and expressions. In Radical Imagination: Feminist Conceptions
of the Future in Ursula Le Guin, Marge Piercy and Sally Miller Greart Herart, Margrete
Keulen says that “[t]he increasing interset in language in modern women’s writing is directly
related to the topicalization of sexism in language by contemporary feminist theory and new
field of feminist linguistics “(Keulen, 103). Piercy in Woman on the Edge of Time, breaking
the ties with the traditional style, reshapes the language through the emphasis of sexism. In
this sense, Piercy highlights the elimination of traditional gender roles by her use of non-
specific possessive ‘per’ in the place of the sex-specific ‘her’ and ‘his’, and the noun ‘person’
instead of pronouns like ‘she’ and ‘he’. Along with those examples, Piercy’s postmodern
feminist perspective can be exemplified by her use of words like ‘chairperson’ and ‘people’
instead of sex-specific words like ‘chairman’ and ‘human’ throughout the novel. The
implications of sexism are felt in the novel as well. For instance, on page 259, the
vocabularies used are of great importance: “Soon [Skip] would be taken away to a hospital
near Columbia, where Redding and Morgan would drill a hole in his skull and insert their
electrodes. Skip would return to them violated” (Piercy, 259). Those words describing the
operation brings the situation of sexual harassment to the mind of the reader. The main
character in the novel Connie, watches this attach and she thinks that this operation is nothing
different than the sexual harassment. The language that the author uses emphasizes the
connection between the brain surgery and the sexual attack: “Tomorrow they were going to
stick a machine in [Connie’s] brain. She was the experiment. They would rape her body, her
brain, her self. After this she could not trust her own feelings. She would not be her own. She
would be their experimental monster. Their play thing like Alice. Their tool” (ibid. 279).
“First Dr. Redding drilled on her skull. It did not hurt; it was merely horrifying. She could feel
the pressure, [...] she could hear the drill entering. Then she saw them take up a needle to
insert something” (ibid. 281). Those words used by Piercy significantly lies down the
correlation of them with rape (Kırtunç, 41). The language in the Mattopoisetts reflects the
revolution of women since no gender is ascribed to a person in speech, instead, ‘per’ is used
as a universal personal pronoun, this demonstrating the interconnection of language and
politics. “Mattapoisett’s speech is vivid, racy and economical” says Sarah Lefanu in
Feminism and Science Fiction (Lefanu, 63). Therefore, it is remarkable that one becomes
 Topkoru 3

accustomed to the lack of personal pronouns and begins to enjoy this. Moreover, as for the
words that created by the writer, contributed to the message of the novel. Especially in the
utopic world, “these words could be seen as messages from the unconscious, translated
through the author’s imaginative powers from the language of dreams into language of
materiality” says Lefanu (ibid. 70). Thus Piercy tried to show that without dreams, there
would be no hope to change the world through inventing new words on one’s own. So
Connie, influenced by the utopic future which has no gender classification, decides to fight
for it, and says “I am a dead woman now too. I know it. But I did fight them. I am not
ashamed. I tried. [...]. At least once I fought and won” (Piercy, 375). Along with those all, the
musicality of the novel plays a major role in order to understand the writer’s style. Piercy, as a
poet at the same time, integrates prose and poetry within novel; it adds musicality to the
Woman on the Edge of Time. By the repeated lines throughout the novel, Piercy emphasizes
and tries to give both political and feministic messages to her readers:

“Nobody knows
how it flow
as it goes.

Nobody goes
where it rose

as it flows.”. (ibid. 317).

As a result, it can be understood that Marge Piercy implies her feministic perspective in her
language within the novel Woman on the Edge of Time by the use of sexist language,
invention of new words and by adding musicality to prose by poetic lines.

Secondly, in Woman on the Edge of Time, besides the feminist discourse, Marge Piercy
reflected the 20th century postmodernism in her style through the fragmented, non-linear, self-
reflexive narrative and the use of symbols. First to mention, Woman on the Edge of Time’s
three intersecting narratives – realist, utopian, dystopian – construct a complex text in which
the future and the present are compared. So in the Woman on the Edge of Time, the use of
time as Kestin W. Shandy says “nearly continues shifting of time and place that is close to the
stream of consciousness technique” ( Shandy, 78). Marge Piercy through the main character’s
shifting from present to the future, rather than establishing past, present, and future as a
 Topkoru 4

logical continuum, blends them in Connie’s consciousness. So the time in Connie’s mind
subverts the linear time and world of the hospital, where Connie is “caught in a moment that
had fallen out of time [..]” to the point that it is not clear whether Connie is hallucinating or
not (Piercy, 20). It is evident that the patriarchal concept of time within the hospital is
sabotaged by Connie’s time. As for the self-reflexivity of the Woman on the Edge of Time,
Kestin W. Shandy says that “{t]he intersecting narratives of Woman on the Edge of Time
produce a text which constantly reflects on the mechanism of its own mechanism” (Shandy,
10). So due to self-reflexivity, the Woman on the Edge of Time is considered as a novel of
social realism since it deals with poor, minorities, and female’s position. Secondly, in Woman
on the Edge of Time, which juxtaposes a naturalistic present with a utopian future, the effects
of symbolism is another stylistic feature of Marge Piercy. The Whites’ control over the other
minorities is emphasized by Piercy thanks to the white doctors as the symbol of the authority.
In the novel, white male doctors in the hospital exercise a lethal control over the minority,
poors, females and gays. Similar to the novel of Ken Kesey’s One Flew over the Cuckoo’s
Nest, besides the emphasis of hierarchy, white dominancy over the others is depicted in a
mental hospital setting. Also in Piercy’s novel, the author used the main character as a
medium to show the patriarchal society’s impression and triumph over women. When Connie,
as a female, tries to defend Dolly, she faces the violance of Geraldo and she is found mentally
ill as a consequence of her rebellion. Similar to the situation of the female character in
Carlotte Perkins Gilman’s short story “The Yellow Wall-Paper” in which she is seen as
mentally ill by her husband because of her willingness to write, Connie, as a result of her
rejection to the male dominancy, is labelled as insane in Woman on the Edge of Time.
Needless to mention, almost all the patiences in the hospital that Connie stayed were females,
and the males were homosexuals. Thirdly, the telegraphic language is another stylistic feature
of Piercy in her novel. Most of the sentences in the novel are cut in short as it can be seen in
these three sentences: “Moments were forever. She was mad [...]. She was caught, she was
stalled” (Piercy, 20). It can be said that Piercy, by playing with words not only deconstructs
the language but also portrays a vivid picture of female character’s mental position. As a
result, the postmodern stylistic features are represented through the fragmented, non-linear
narratives, symbols and by the play on words by Marge Piercy.

Lastly, in Woman on the Edge of Time, Piercy, by the interrelated narratives, the use of
language and usage patterns, contributed to the message and the genre of the novel. Firstly,
 Topkoru 5

Piercy, as a feminist writer, in her novel, tries to imply and cultivate self-awareness, tries to
raise the consciousness of women by using a non-linear, fragmented time which juxtoposed
the future and the present. Connie faced the oppression of the patriarchal, racist society in
Woman on the Edge of Time. Piercy, by constructing a utopia set in the year of 2137, gives a
chance to juxtopose that future full of opportunities and equalities, with the unjust, real
present. Therefore, Anne Cranny Francis notes that “[i]n Connie’s real, reinforcing the text’s
activist message, an unjust ‘real’ can and must be changed, transformed, revolutionized”
(Francis, 136). Besides this, Connie’s progress from passivity to action, from weakness to
strenght is clarified in Tradition and the Talents of Women by Florance Howe : “Oppression
is the present; liberation, the future” (Howe, 273). So Connie’s final action at the conclusion
of the novel does not represent a defeat, but rather a victory, her poisoning the symbolic
doctors ensures that the future will be of women, if they, like Connie, fight for it. Marge
Piercy portrays Connie’s first step in the fight for her future by the character’s own words:
“War, she thought, I’m at war. No more fantasies, no more hopes. War “ (Piercy, 338). As
stated above, by the use of fragmented, non-linear time, Marge Piercy gives the readers the
hope and encourages them to fight for their future by juxtaposing future and present.
Secondly, the use of language and invention of new words contribute to the revolution of
women. Marge Piercy, as a postmodern feminist writer, by inventing new words such as
‘catcher’, ‘outknow’, ‘inknow’, reflects her style. When Luciente says that “your vocabulary
is remarkably weak in words for mental state, mental abilities and mental acts – “, Piercy tries
to give reasons for her inventing new words (ibid. 42). Besides this, Piercy’s use of new
words can be explained by her aim to construct a new utopic society set in 2137. Her creating
new words is like a kind of foreseeing. For instance, 20-25 years ago most of us did not know
the word ‘internet’, did not know how to use mobile phones. Piercy tries to imply that a
language is a living thing and it will reshape itself, will experience a kind of mutation during
the course of time. Therefore, she feels herself free to use the words like ‘brooder’ as a place
where children were produced and ‘floaters’ as a means of transportation. As a result, feminist
postmodern utopian writer Marge Piercy contributed to the feminist movements in the sense
of raising consciousness of women by deconstructing the language and constructing an
imaginary world within a severe reality in her novel, Woman on the Edge of Time.

To sum up, in the twentieth century with the emergence of postmodernism, writers began to
challenge the old traditional rules by deconstructing the language. And with the contribution
 Topkoru 6

of women, who were recently defining themselves, to the mainstream, women began to show
resistance to racism and women’s position by using their works as mediums. Marge Piercy as
one of the leading figures of the feminist movements of 1970s, portrayed social realism in her
novels besides her postmodern characteristics such as reflexivity, self-consciousness,
fragmentation, and discontinuity. Marge Piercy, in her novel Woman on the Edge of Time,
which could be placed within the genre of feminist utopian fiction or science fiction,
compares a possible – utopian – future with the present by illustrating gender and racial
problems of today’s society. Therefore, Marge Piercy, besides reflecting a feminist
perspective in her discourse through the use of fragmented non-linear narrative and
symbolism, contributed to the postmodern feminism of the 20th century.
 WORKS CITED

Francis, Anne Cranny. Feminist Fiction. New York : St. Martin’s Press, 1990.

Howe, Florance. Tradition and the Talents of Women. Chicago: University of Illınois Press,

1991.

Keulen, Margeret. Radical Imagination: Feminist Concepts of the Future in Ursula Le Guin,

Marge Piercy and Sally Miller Gearheat . Connecticut: Greenwood Press, 1991.

Kırtunç, Ayşe Lahur. Sözcükler Meleği: Marge Piercy ve İlkörneksel Eleştiri. İzmir: İleri

Kitapevi, 1994.

Lefanu, Sarah. Feminism and Science Fiction. USA: Indiana U.P., 1988.

Piercy, Marge. Woman on the Edge of Time. London: Penguin Books, 1992.

Shandy, Kertsin W. The Repair of the World: The Novels of Marge Piercy. Connecticut:

Greenwood Press, Westport, 1994.

 MARGE PIERCY

WOMAN ON THE EDGE OF TIME

Style

ZEYNEP TOPKORU

AMERICAN NOVEL II

February 2007