In the first chapter of my thesis, Weldon´s novels are characterised as gender satires. We can see how the unfair nature of the power relations established in heterosexual couples are exposed and denounced in her novels. The acceptance of this unjust state of affairs on the part of women results in a crippled and unhappy existence for them and what is seem as most angering in this kind of situation is the fact that they are incapable of a positive reaction, and, thus, remain motionless in the face of injustice.
In this regard, the earliest novels by Weldon, written in what she describes as pre-feminist times, explore the way in which the protagonists, a group of women, confront the anonymity to which they are reduced on account of their gender. The masculine presence is the ruling factor in their lives, it is a necessary requirement if their existences are to be rendered meaningful, to the extent that, a character like Helen also called X in Down Among the Women commits suicide when she is deprived of it. Similarly, the relationship established among women may be termed as one of “horizontal violence”, as corresponds to oppressed social groups where any trace of individuality, or what is traditionally understood as soul, ends up by being suppressed and lives becomes a mere fight for survival among its members.
This arbitrary situation is caused by the Western traditional epistemological system based on a set of polarities in which the male gender, identified with the intellectual sphere, occupies the dominant extreme. Women, on the other hand, assimilated to the physical and what is considered inferior, have been historically relegated to the domestic sphere.
In the first chapter of my thesis we can see the way in which, against all odds, Weldon´s heroines take advantage of their social invisibility to prosper and even become extremely successful, thanks to their flexible personalities. They are helped by their fluid identity or, rather, by the fluidity of the identities they adopt, which precisely results from the fact that the female condition during hard times means anonymity for those women who don´t fulfill the strict criteria pertaining to a crippling model of femininity. Fay Weldon starts from this marginal position in order to achieve a complete reversal of the situation, thus combating the rigid construction of personality based on the traditional axis of gender.
Nonetheless, I was soon aware that the approach employed in the first stage of my work was limited and left many aspects of Weldon´s narrative unresolved. In this regard, the fact that the etiquette gender satire accompanied by a trenchant black humour could be applied to most of Weldon´s work is really misleading when analysing her novels. It is easy to attribute the complexity of her narrative to the contradictory language employed in the satiric genre, by means of which it is meant the opposite of what is said.
GENDER SATIRE
