very core of the outrageous violence toward womengives Carl the illusion that he will be able to control them.
|
To be sure, Weldon can see through Carl May's and Dr. Holly's actions, and can see clearly where their machinations will end. She has her heroines plot a punishment for Carl and Dr. Holly which is far more appropriate (and funnier) than the one that they had planned for them. The downhill slide begins to Carl May and Dr. Holly when Joanna's clonesJulie, Jane, Gina, and Aliceset out to find each other and eventually unite. The results are disastrous for the men. At one point, Dr. Holly, who "suffers from gigantitism of the head" (p. 243) wonders: "Supposing they felt as entitled to end him as he has to begin them? What would happen to his research? Has he remembered to put away his own dehydrated DNA?" (p. 235) And by the end of the novel, nuclear-devotee Carl May abandons his own nefarious scheme as he slides inexorably toward his own extinction. He ridiculously ''jumped into the cooling pond [of a nuclear reactor] to prove low-level waste was no threat to anyone, and the future of nuclear power, clean, efficient, safe, would be assured" (p. 258). "Fate was unkind," writes Weldon, "but just" (p. 262).
|
Carl and Dr. Hollywith the physician's arrogance that historically comes from knowing that patients will hang on his every word and then accept unquestioningly what he tells themare not prepared for the reaction of the clones. Using Carl's idea, Weldon transforms the masculinity of his fantasized omnipotence into a subversive critique of patriarchy: "You should carry on," Joanna tells Carl, "you might end up doing more good than harm" (p. 109). Weldon inaugurates a counterstrategy as she subverts Carl's notion of cloning as a loss of individuality. Joanna offers the cloning of women as a creed against the prevailing ideology which manhandles and regulates women's bodies. She tells Carl: "I see a different world.... I see one which is perfectible without tampering" (p. 109).
|
Nevertheless, Weldon's heroines forge a pact and fight back, and the collective sisterhood of Joanna and her clones, Julie, Gina, Jane, and Alice, provides Joanna with an emotional network in which her power is quadrupled rather than divided: "When I acknowledged my sisters, my twins, my clones, my children, I stood out against Carl May.... Joanna May is now Alice, Julie, Gina and Jane" (p. 247). In Weldon's matrilineal line of descent, only the malignant guilt is divided: "They felt the inherent guilt of the female, but not all powerfully; being four that guilt was quartered. The soul was multiplied, the guilt divided. That was a great advance" (p. 236). Weldon's works configure into a tradition of novels by women writers in her illustration of the ways that society psychologically and sexually ravages women: "We've had so many oughts and shoulds, all of us,
|
|
