Mediating Moore: Uncertain Origins And Indeterminate Identities In The Work Of C. L. Moore - Jennifer Lynn Jodell

2010·1 MB·English

Washington University in St. Louis
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All Theses and Dissertations (ETDs)
1-1-2010
Mediating Moore: Uncertain Origins and
Indeterminate Identities in the Work of C. L.
Moore
Jennifer Jodell
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WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY
University College
Liberal Arts

MEDIATING MOORE: UNCERTAIN ORIGINS AND
INDETERMINATE IDENTITIES IN THE WORK OF C. L. MOORE
by
Jennifer Lynn Jodell

A thesis presented to the
Graduate School of Arts and Sciences
of Washington University in
partial fulfillment of the
requirements for the
degree of Master of Liberal Arts

December 2010
St. Louis, Missouri
Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my adviser, J. Andrew Brown, and my committee members for their
valuable input and guidance. I am also indebted to Stephen Haffner, Richard Bleiler, and the
REH society for their referrals to primary source materials, as well as to Carole Ann Rodriguez for
her patience in the face of my many questions. Additionally, I am grateful to Judith Hack and
Kenneth Polonsky for their moral support and many years of academic inspiration.

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Table of Contents
Acknowledgments.........................................................................................................................................ii
Introduction..................................................................................................................................................4
Chapter One: Contested Origins, Contested Terrain: Re-visioning the Work of C. L. Moore.....................19
1.1 Significance to the Genre............................................................................................................19
1.2 Innovator Versus Imitator...........................................................................................................22
1.2.1 Sex, Style, and “Shambleau”...............................................................................................22
1.2.2 Generic Experimentation and Characterization.................................................................28
1.2.3 Allusion and the Restoration of Complexity.......................................................................34
1.3 A Parenthetical Presence............................................................................................................36
1.4 “Origins” in Masquerade............................................................................................................41
1.5 Weird Sisters: Female Participation in “Contested Territory”....................................................43
1.6 The Erasure of Female Authorship and Agency..........................................................................49
Chapter Two: Partial Perceptions and Liminal Identities: “Indeterminacy” in the Work of C. L.
Moore.........................................................................................................................................................62
2.1 C. L. Moore as Cyborg Author.....................................................................................................62
2.2. “The Bright Illusion” (1934) and Earth’s Last Citadel (1943)......................................................67
2.3 The Mask of Circe (1948) and “The Children’s Hour” (1944).....................................................86
Chapter Three: Mediating the Gendered Subject: “Blank Beings” and Constructed Identities...............108
3.1 “Readability” and Mediated “Being”........................................................................................108
3.2 “The Prisoner in the Skull” (1949).............................................................................................113
3.3 Doomsday Morning (1957).......................................................................................................127
Conclusion.................................................................................................................................................151
Bibliography..............................................................................................................................................180

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Introduction

C. (Catherine) L. (Lucille) Moore, one of the earliest female science fiction writers, is
widely regarded by SF writers, editors, and fans as one of the field’s most influential founding
mothers. And yet, while one might expect several general studies of Moore’s work, most Moore
criticism consists of two very disparate feminist SF analyses, with one thread grounded firmly in
her earliest work in the pulps and the other focusing solely on her mid-career short story, “No
Woman Born” (1944). Interestingly, while the latter and more recent analytical thread seems to
regard Moore as an insightful commentator on themes such as gender and identity, the former--
which deals mainly with Moore’s work in the 30’s—suggests that Moore’s “voice” as a female
author was compromised early on by the decade and medium in which she made her debut.
Such criticism presumes that Moore began her career as an intimidated and imitative “female
pulp writer,” a presumption which is then used to challenge the authenticity of Moore’s
authorial (and female) “voice.” Not only is it believed that female pulp writers such as Moore
“learned” early on to “pass” as men (i.e., through the use of “male” pseudonyms and a male
“point of view,” content, and writing style), critics have also asserted that successful female SF
writers unconsciously mimicked (or even internalized) the conventional expressions of misogyny
that “marked their historical moment”1 in order to please their presumably all-male pulp
audiences. Moore, in particular, is often used to open discussions of both types of mimicry. For
such critics Moore is emblematic of the “few female writers” who “dar[ed]” to write SF during a
period “almost exclusively dominated by men” (Gamble 30); in fact, even among general SF
historians, Moore’s use of initials rather than an identifiably female byline is possibly the most
widely cited example2 of the “need” for female pulp SF authors to pass as men due to
“commercial necessity.” 3 When reviewing such criticism, teasing apart the two forms of alleged
4
mimicry (intentional and internalized) can be problematic, as the two are often conflated.
Regardless, if at least one of these two forms of mimicry is taken as a given, one expects to find
an “inauthentic” female “voice” in female-authored SF pulp fiction, one that presumably served
patriarchal ends and one perhaps of no more value to feminist critics than that of a cautionary
tale.
It is apparently with the goal of establishing such a cautionary tale that Moore’s early
fiction was first examined by feminist critics such as Natalie Rosinsky in the late 70s. Although
by this time Moore had been praised by feminist critics for her female warrior, Jirel of Joiry, a
“strong heroine” she created in the 30’s (Rosinsky, “Alienated,” 68), Rosinsky argued that the
rest of Moore’s early fiction was sexist and that it could no longer be “excused” simply because
it was written during a period when the “male point of view…was a necessity for anyone who
wished to publish” (68).4 In order to explain Jirel’s existence as well as explore the origins and
manifestations of Moore’s sexism, Rosinsky closely examined Moore’s first text, “Shambleau”
(1933), a story involving a macho male hero and a Medusa-like villain (Shambleau). Rosinsky
implied that since Moore had, in The Best of C. L. Moore, commented that both Jirel and
Shambleau were “versions of the self” she would have liked to have been (Moore, “Best,” 308),
an attempt to resolve the two disparate characters might provide insights into Moore’s
psychology and, presumably, her sexism.
Finding that “Shambleau” presented gender-related “dilemmas” which are never
“resolved” and a Medusa who is never embraced “completely,” Rosinsky argued that Moore’s
writing betrayed an “uncertainty” that was evidence of “self-alienation” (Rosinsky, “Alienated,”
70, 72). A self-alienated woman, Rosinsky argued, has no positive image of Woman upon which
to draw and is left to view herself through the models provided by misogyny; in Moore’s case,
Rosinsky argued, Moore seemed to be drawn to the figures of the “good” and “bad” woman.
5
Rosinsky then “resolved” Jirel by suggesting that Jirel’s positive characteristics were a side effect
of Moore’s internalization of these stereotypes, while Shambleau’s depiction supported equally
“conventionally misogynist views” (72). Indeed, Shambleau—sexually aggressive, uncontained,
unknowable—seemed to Rosinsky to embody the misogynistic stereotype of the “bad woman,”
the terrifying and irresistible woman that patriarchal ideology can only interpret as monster--or,
in this case, monster, alien, animal, and Medusa in one.
Although “Shambleau” did not fall “neatly” into the category of a text produced from
the “male point of view” (68), as it betrayed an alienated woman’s uncertainty and hesitation
(71), Rosinsky believed that it was a sexist text and one that embodied Moore’s inner conflict
regarding the nature of Woman.5 Thus, rather than use the “Jirel” series as a means to
understand Moore’s early fiction, Rosinsky set the tone for future Moore criticism by implying
that this role belonged to “Shambleau” (Rosinsky, “Alienated,” 70). The following year, Susan
Gubar made this implication explicit when she suggested that “Shambleau” should serve as the
“key” to all of Moore’s early fiction (Gubar, “Conventions,” 17). Since the 80s, then, Moore’s
early work has been viewed by feminist critics as reflective of a number of frustrations and fears
associated with the producers of early women’s science fiction, including resentful
“gynocentric” fantasies (Gamble 37), fears of “defeat,” and fears of “lack of male acceptance”
from fans, colleagues, and editors (Gamble 30).6 Indeed, criticism from the 70s and 80s paints a
rather unpleasant picture of Moore and her contemporaries. One is left with the impression of
passive, imitative writers without agency, artistry, or self-knowledge--women unfairly denied
commercial and artistic control over their work, and yet “female men” so inured to male rules
that, for them, playing along with the boys was the equivalent of speaking in their own voices.7
Had Moore stopped writing at the onset of WW II, her identity might have remained
neatly contained within this stereotype. However, in the last decade, Moore’s work has
6
received a second look from critics such as Veronica Hollinger, Raffaella Baccolini, Despina
Kakoudaki, and Debra Benita Shaw who sought fictionalizations of “anti-essentialist” or “anti-
naturalism” theories, such as Judith Butler’s performance theory or Donna Haraway’s cyborg
theory. Perhaps fortunately for Moore, such critics found in “No Woman Born” (1944) a
remarkably fruitful text. What is striking about these re-evaluations of “No Woman Born” is
that each suggests that Moore was aware of the means and aims of certain mechanisms of
patriarchal ideology. Even more remarkably, they suggest that Moore was capable of critiquing
these mechanisms with a thoughtfulness and critical distance critics such as Rosinsky presumed
the “self-alienated” Moore could not possess. Indeed, in “No Woman Born”--a story in which
Deidre, a dancer, loses all but her brain to a fire and is refitted with the body of a robot--Moore
seems conscious enough of the male “gaze” and its relationship to gender “constructions” to
weave several metaphors (e.g., woman as “machine”); historical images of women (e.g., the
”lost” Deidre of Irish folklore); generic conventions (e.g., the figure of Frankenstein’s monster);
and contemporaneous images from television and film (e.g., dancers as “mechanical dolls” and
“mass ornament”8)--into a critique of “constructed” notions of gender.
Further, while earlier critics asserted that Moore uncritically adopted the “male point of
view,” these reevaluations suggested that Moore told this particular story from the point of
view of Deidre’s “maker” (Maltzer) and her presumed lover (Harris), in order to undermine the
male point of view. Such critics argued that, as unreliable narrators, Maltzer and Harris’s
perceptions of Deidre expose how gender constructs (e.g., the “fragile woman”) function within
the male imagination in order to contain and re-contain women as “known” entities. Moore
frustrates such constructs by presenting both men with a female identity that, despite Maltzer’s
belief that he “knows” Deidre because she is his “creation,” is unprecedented and partially “self-
constructed.” Interestingly, Moore’s denunciation of Maltzer’s arrogance is also the climax of
7
the text. While Deidre feels less and less of a need to keep up appearances (such as pretending
to be “female” or even pretending to be “Deidre”), and her growing strangeness fills her with a
wonderful new sense of power and possibility, Maltzer’s belief that Deidre’s formerly
“feminine” psyche will not be able to withstand her new, “unfeminine” existence eventually
drives him to attempt suicide; ironically, the woman he is determined to regard as hysterical and
fragile calmly saves his life in a demonstration of super-human strength.
Beyond simply weaving these themes of “construction” into an engrossing story,
however, critics in 00’s noted that Moore had also created a unique female character who could
be seen as an effective starting point for discussions of two branches of “anti-essentialist”
feminist theory, a theoretical branch often concerned with questions of “naturalness,”
“performance,” and organic “unity.” For example, due to the fact that Moore’s “female” cyborg
demonstrates that the outward “signs” of “femininity” can be mimicked, Deidre and her
irreverent “dance” engage Judith Butler’s theories that gender is not a “natural,” biological
phenomenon but a “constructed” or “performed” behavior. At the same time, as part-woman,
part-machine, Deidre also anticipates the hybridic and irreverent “cyborg” of Donna Haraway’s
“Cyborg Manifesto” (1985). For example, Deidre’s ability to maintain psychic integrity after the
loss of her “natural” body suggests that Deidre’s sense of self is not the result of or limited to a
“natural” or “pure” identity derived from her body. Further, as a being of “no woman born,”
Deidre is an example of a unique “cyborgian” identity that must orient itself in the world
without the aid of “origin myths” founded upon notions of Edenic innocence, biology, or an
original “unity” from which “natural” binaries of good/evil, natural/unnatural, and
human/animal are derived and organized into hierarchies. Indeed, as will be discussed again in
Chapter One, due to these and other resonances with Haraway, as well as the fact that
8
Haraway’s manifesto seems to cite to the story’s title,9 certain such critics believe that Haraway
may have even had “No Woman Born” in mind when composing her seminal manifesto.
And yet, while such an apparently purposeful critique of gender constructions could
have invited challenges to Rosinsky’s claims that Moore identified with and/or had internalized
misogynistic stereotypes, when critiques of “No Woman Born” began to appear they did not
attempt to draw comparisons between the texts of Moore’s early and mid-career. Perhaps
because “No Woman Born” was such an unexpectedly rich well for anti-essentialist theory, or
perhaps due to the year in which it appeared, critics instead treated the story as a stand-alone
text in order to mine its potential as a fictionalization of such theories or as a means to discuss
gender relations in World War II.10 At the same time, critics who hold the belief that Moore’s
career began with and was subsequently influenced by an internalized misogyny are silent
regarding “No Woman Born” other than to suggest that its somewhat ominous ending is
evidence of Moore’s unwillingness to embrace her heroine’s full potential; that the fictional use
of the male point of view reveals Moore’s psychological allegiance to the male point of view11;
and that Deidre’s metallic body is further evidence of Moore’s “anxiety about female flesh.”12
Thus, the “alienation” and the “good/bad woman” division Rosinsky perceived in Moore’s work
seems real enough, at least, in the form of a philosophical split between the criticism of Moore’s
texts. In other words, whereas one camp employs a presumption of sexism and mimicry to the
texts of the Bad Woman Author of “Shambleau,” a second camp celebrates the somewhat
mutually exclusive insights and innovations of the Good Woman Author of “No Woman Born.”
Once again, Moore’s “identity” as an author may have remained neatly contained had
critics not taken a third look at Moore’s fiction, as well as a closer look at the decade in which
Moore made her debut. For example, recent research by Eric Leif Davin (discussed in Chapter
One) suggests that the level of participation by women in early science fiction history has been
9