The Year of the Flood Reading Response 1

I was never a big fan of science fiction books so I was really surprised that this book has really caught my attention. I think The Year of the Flood does a really good job of portraying real life issues especially issues that women face with futuristic elements. The book starts off by introducing Toby and Ren both who are women with less then ideal situations. Toby is forced to leave her old life behind due to the unfortunate events that happen to her family. You can see how this book also has very primitive ideas ingrained in it as well with Toby talking about how she can no longer be with her boyfriend because of how different they are now economically and how she didn’t feel she was in the same class as him so she decided to break off their relationship without his consent. It shows this idea of class structure and there being no social mobility in terms of marriage at least.

Toby eventually ends up at Secret Burgers where she ends up being a sex toy for her boss Blanco in order to keep her job and essentially not be killed. It’s sad to see that this also happens in reality where employers have this leverage over their employees especially in jobs where workers are more desperate to keep their job. It’s really horrifying to think how in their current society, no one is controlling these people and employees can end up dead in the parking lot with no questions asked. Ren on the other hand is at Scales and Tails which is basically a high end sex club. It’s quite interesting to see how for now she seems to feel that she’s quite fortunate to be there.

The newly innovated technology in this book intrigues me. I must have done a double take when Toby said she didn’t have enough money for a new identity since she needed to buy a DNA infusion and skin color change. Even in The Year of the Flood a lot of the advanced technology seems to only be commonly available to the rich. It’ll be interesting to see how technology is used as we get further in the book.

Year of the Flood: Post 2

As I got more deeply into the Year of the Flood, I began to take a closer look at the different female characters are how they are portrayed. Specifically, I was interested in Amanda and Lucerne, and of course, Toby and Ren.

Amanda interests me because thus far she seems to be a female in control of both her self and her sexuality. She knows how to get what she wants, and is not afraid to use her sexuality. She seems skilled at controlling the boys around her to get them to do what she wants. This outlook on life seems to be very commonly debated among feminists. Taking agency over one’s own sexuality is very good, but why must this be a world in which a woman’s sexuality is a commodity and something that can be traded?

Lucerne, I don’t think would be a particularly well-loved character. She seems selfish and only interested in what she can gain from a situation. I wonder how much she really cared for Zeb, or if he was just an adventure she wanted to partake in. Upon returning to the Compound, Lucerne quickly gives a story in which she was being sexually abused to make her appear even more so a victim – perhaps a reflection on how women and their sexuality are “owned” by men, who would immediately feel defensive if one of their own was used in such a way.

Toby’s experience with Blanco really hit me in that I saw how helpless she was with her situation. He decided he wanted her, and she had no choice but to comply, or else fear his wrath. Not only did she have to have sex with him, but she had to pretend that she enjoyed it. On the surface she may seem weak, but what could anyone do in that situation? No one could help her, or even cared to, so she had to do what she could by just complying.

Ren’s experiences when she returns to the Compound with her mother reflect her growing up. Something that bothered me was how she reacted to having sex with Jimmy. I found it quite stereotypical to assume that a girl would immediately become attached to the boy she first has sex with, and even fall in love with him. This is a very common myth in society now, but I didn’t see any of her early experiences would have taught her this. However, I understand perhaps Atwood was trying to make a point, as she may be with all of these characters.

Reading Response – 10/24

Margaret Atwood’s “Year of the Flood” presents a plausible situation (in my opinion) of biological warfare through corporate consumption of products. For this reading response, I wanted to focus on Toby’s history as it reflects situations for different women currently in the United States.

For example, when Toby works as a furzooter after the death of her parents, she is sexually assaulted by people with furry fetishes. While Toby did not consider it rape, she didn’t consider it sexual assault either. She was knocked to the ground and had people rub their pelvises against her body; IT WAS SEXUAL ASSAULT. However, because she essentially has no identity, she would not have been able to report it to authority. They would have found out about her father’s death and his illegal rifle and she would have had the blame placed on her. Her situation is similar to the reality of many sex workers in the United States. Many of them cannot report rape or sexual assault out of fear that they would be arrested for their illegal work.

Furthermore, Toby’s relationship with Blanco at SecretBurger resembles that between a pimp and the women they manage. Sex workers can get killed or injured due to angering their pimp (i.e. Dora’s death) and often end up being in abusive relationships with little means of being able to escape.

Prior to her work at SecretBurger, Toby later becomes an egg donor for pay. The complications that she experiences are like those of egg donors today. Female college students are often targeted for their eggs and many of the donors become infertile or suffer medical complications that make them ill just like Toby.

While “Year of the Flood” is a work of fiction, Toby’s experiences as a woman are very real.

Year of the Flood: Post 1

The first thing immediately notice about Year of the Flood, is the power that it wields compared to the Hunger Games. I think that although the Hunger Games was technically a protest piece of literature, it was largely a novel meant to sell and entertain a wide audience, ranging from pre-teens to adults. Year of the Flood on the other hand is much more direct and conveying with it’s political messages. A large part of this is because it’s far more frightening because of its realism. The dystopia that the book is set in is fueled by monolithic corporatism and corporate takeover of civilian life. Given the recent political trend of structuring government to support or give corporations more (a largely neoliberal agenda) that is exemplified in legislation and court rulings such as the Citizens United decision.

Uncanniness occurs when something is very close to reality, but slightly different. Magaret Atwood’s dystopia is uncanny because our future may not be far off. Because of this Atwood is  able to use fear as a very powerful tool in her literary arsenal to sway readers of her agenda.

Reading Response 10/24

For me, part of the appeal of reading dystopian fiction such as The Year of the Flood is grasping the minute details of the new and futuristic, but not really far off, world. The systems, structures, hierarchies, and even products found in these dystopian worlds all contain references to present-day “real life” world and ingrained in these usually extreme (or arguably not really) versions seems to be a warning. One aspect of the dystopian world in The Year of the Flood that intrigued me was the concept of identity especially in the context of the work of Butler, Haraway, and Halberstam we read so far. After her mother dying and her father committing suicide, Toby was straddled with the numerous debts from her mother’s medical treatments as well as having to explain her father’s death via an illegal weapon. Toby opted for covering up her father’s death/ disappearance and orchestrating her own disappearance. She was able to “burn” her identity, which is not farfetched especially if you watch way too much police procedural television shows like me (at some point, witness protection will always be bought up…). However, she was not able to “buy a new one – not even a cheap one,” which is implied entails at least a “DNA infusion,” “skin-colour change,” and etc. (Atwood, 2009, p.30).

The concept that identity can be erased and that physical procedures and products can be bought to create a new one is intriguing. In light of Haraway and Halberstam and even in our present-day world, this concept is not really radical. Literal bodily modification like plastic surgery is becoming a norm in our world. While we arguably claim that DNA and fingerprints to be the physical essence of our individual identity, what is to say that these characteristics are not also inherently unstable and can be modified. The fact that in Atwood’s dystopian world that these seemingly physical essences of individual identity can be changed for a price brings up the issue of the instability of identity (especially gender) as well the technology involved in fashioning it is bought up in pieces by Haraway and Halberstam. These products and procedures also bring up the question of whether or not if there is an essential identity (usually sans technology) can be found. Phrases like “technology of sex” and “technology of gender” have been bought up in our class, but it is possible that “technology of identity,” which is quite literal in Atwood’s dystopia, is an overarching theme to be explored.

At the same time, the concept of identity in Atwood’s world seems to be tied to knowledge, especially systematically collected knowledge. The purpose of these products and procedures to physically change one’s identity is done in the context of the CorpSeCorp’s system of controlling the population. Not far fetched from the paper trail and increasingly virtual trail in tracking people in our world, it is implied that the CorpSeCorp would have knowledge of an individual’s DNA, fingerprints, life histories, and etc., which is then utilized for control. This is implied in what is considered the greatest sin according to God’s Gardeners, which is slanted as against CorpSeCorp and its accompanying principles, is the sin of desiring too much knowledge. Likewise, a reoccurring principle the gardeners teach is to “Beware of words. Be careful what you write. Leave no trails.” (Atwood, 2009, p. 6). The notion that identity is tied with trackable and collectable (written) knowledge is implied. This idea is then played with in Amanda’s art pieces of appearing and disappearing words…

Reading Response: Atwood

Atwood’s The Year of the Flood is a dystopia, so it is always interesting to see what authors do with gender and gender roles in these novels. In this futuristic world, it seems that gender relations have only gotten worse from the present day.

Toby’s experiences working at SecretBurger are horrible and worse off than what goes on currently. Though there is certainly sexual harassment in the workplace, it is possible to report it to the police or file a lawsuit and know that something can be done. She has absolutely no choice, and no one cares if she lives or dies. I wonder if this is because she is a female, making it a gender issue, or if it’s because she is not part of a Compound, and therefore not important.

It was also interesting to note the amount of casual sexist insults that are used by the boys Shackie and Croze, who also persistently bother Amanda, saying she “owes” them sex. Sex seems to be something Amanda knows how to trade.

There is clearly a lot of prostitution going on, although it seems as if the girls are treated better than one can imagine they are being treated today. They wear the body suits to protect them from disease, and aren’t supposed to be harmed.

This world that Atwood portrays, although futuristic, seems to be a dangerous place for women, more so than men. Perhaps a lot of it is supposed to serve as social commentary on the conditions of women now. The sexism is more blatant, the violence more prevalent, and the prostitution more accessible, but it all seems eerily familiar.

Reading Response: Atwood

As someone with minimal experience with Science Fiction or Fantasy literature, delving into Margaret Atwood’s The Year of the Flood has been really invigorating for me. Familiarizing myself with the foreign vernacular, behaviors and belief systems of The Gardeners keeps me on my feet; as I read I’m continuously adding to a mental Venn diagram comparing their society with ours. And yet, despite the challenge of keeping track of all these distinctions, the strangeness of their world has an exciting and liberating effect on me as a reader; I like that it provides such an easy escape from reality.

Still, I’m conflicted by the appeal of The Gardener’s lifestyle and what I consider their detestable belief systems. In other words, the anarchist farmer in me would love to squat an abandoned building decked out with a rooftop garden, beehives, mushroom dens, etc., living simply and harmoniously with my environment. And yet, I don’t think I’d tolerate the social atmosphere of The Gardener community for more than a few days. My skepticism towards organized religion surely plays a part, but I’m critical for deeper reasons as well: the drastic power imbalance and social stratification of members, for one, and the fact that this hierarchy is corroborated by their insistence on “avoiding the original sin of desiring too much knowledge” (102). In other words, faith and acceptance are encouraged over epistemological endeavors.

Another alarming aspect of Gardener lifestyle is their upholding of superficial gender binaries. Even though we have only encountered female narrators so far in the novel, it is clear that men are the subjects of their community and women the objects. Indeed, this characteristic highlights some of the more frustrating similarities between our cultures, which for fantasy’s sake, I would have hoped had been overcome in theirs. I’m grateful, at least, that Toby, one of the primary narrators, shares my skepticism and resistance to their indoctrinating ways, as is revealed by her response to the following interaction with fellow Gardener Nuala:

“You’ll want to grow your hair,” said Nuala. “Get rid of that scalped look. We Gardener women all wear our hair long.” When Toby asked why, she was given to understand that the aesthetic preference was God’s. This kind of smiling, bossy sanctimoniousness was a little too pervasive for Toby . . . (46)

Indeed, Gardener values are rife with contradiction. For example, while they manipulated Toby’s fear from her sexual enslavement from Blanco to get her to join their cult in the first place, once a member, their addressing of sexual harassment shifted toward utter laxity. When Toby approaches Pilar, with whom she has a relatively close bond, about Mugi sexually assaulting her, Pilar’s response is coded and non-committal: “We never make a fuss about such things . . . There’s no harm in Mugi really. He’s tried that on more than one of us – even me, some years ago . . . The ancient Australopithecus can come out in all of us. You must forgive him in your heart” (104). Because Pilar’s response is seriously problematic in a wide variety of ways, I will focus simply on its reflection of The Gardener’s hypocritical tendencies. They show zero tolerance for meat-eating, for instance, despite such behavior being present in our Australopithecines ancestors, but non-consensual sexual acts warrant, in their opinion, not just acceptance, but forgiveness.