Chapter 8 .sx Your word is my command :sx the structures of language and power in women's science fiction .sx Lucie Armitt .sx One of the frustrations felt by some readers and critics of science fiction stems from the fact that , despite the potential for innovation inherent in the apparently limitless narrative possibilities of the genre , in actuality such innovation is rarely fully realised within either content or form .sx My first serious encounter with science fiction was through an interest in the political implications of language and its structures for women .sx Language is of paramount importance with regard to how we structure reality ( providing a cognitive framework for compartmentalising objects and sensations into linguistic units of meaning) .sx Indeed it has been argued that " reality construction is probably to be regarded as the primary function of human language " , a claim which emphasises the need for women to challenge the patriarchal bases of language if we are also to challenge the patriarchal bases of society .sx However , trapped as we are within a patriarchal linguistic and social framework , it is very difficult for any writer to distance herself from that framework and write through and about alternative structures whilst still aiming to depict reality as it is lived and experienced .sx As this essay sets out to demonstrate , it is not enough merely to challenge surface manifestations ( with revisions of words such as 'chairman' , 'mastery' , 'authoress' and so on , important though such revisions are ) , but we must also analyse and subvert the deep structural principles of language .sx Because of its ability to provide the writer with this much-needed distancing from lived reality , science fiction is an obvious choice for the writer intent on such exploration .sx The two novels upon which this essay focuses ( Doris Lessing's The Marriages Between Zones Three , Four and Five , and Suzette Elgin's Native Tongue ) succeed in illustrating two important issues :sx first , that the power structures upon which societies depend are structured by and through the structures of language ; and , second , that by providing a fictional context for what has otherwise been largely theoretical abstraction , contemporary science fiction by women has made a by no means insignificant contribution to the current theoretical debate on women's relationship to language - and thus power .sx An essential starting point for any critique of language as a power base of or for society is to demystify this ability to shape and control our thoughts , perceptions and behaviour .sx In The Marriages Between Zones Three , Four and Five Doris Lessing begins with a vision of language as pre-eminently deterministic of behaviour patterns in both the individual characters and the societies depicted .sx To language is attributed an autonomy outside of human communication and almost pre-existing of any social referent whatsoever .sx She personifies language as a pseudo-deity whose origins are unquestioned , and whose demands remain unchallenged :sx " there was an Order , and it said , simply , that she must go " , ( p. 13) .sx Throughout the novel the main protagonists' behaviour is directed and determined by this " Order" , a term for which we are given no further definition , and which incorporates for the reader the dual implications not only of the linguistic imperative but also of a hierarchical power structure ( both implications being significant to its understanding) .sx So the main characters of the novel are impelled to act by unspecified drives and urges which have no contextual reference and which are never fully explained , but which exist and are articulated and understood solely at the level of language .sx The narrative opens :sx Rumours are the begetters of gossip .sx Even more are they the begetters of song .sx We , the Chroniclers and song-makers of our Zone , aver that before the partners in this exemplary marriage were awake to what the new directives meant for both of them , the songs were with us , and were being amplified and developed from one end of Zone Three to the other .sx ( p. 11 ) .sx It is perhaps fitting that rumour should be the catalyst which initiates the narrative , it being the one form of utterance which typically lacks a definite source or origin for its existence .sx In addition , it is all the more fitting that the event concerned is a marriage , because mainstream linguistic theory has frequently used the social contract of the marriage vow as the primary illustration of the 'illocutionary speech act' , a term which is of value to this argument because it hints at the power which even conventional linguistic theory attributes to language as the initiator , as well as the descriptor , of social codes .sx The term 'speech act' refers to an utterance which not only articulates , but actually brings into being a particular state of affairs .sx Thus , for example , in speaking the words which form the marriage vows , the marriage itself is brought into existence .sx It is created by and through language .sx As is clear from the quotation cited above , once the rumour is initiated in The Marriages , the marriage is seen to exist , and neither Al-Ith nor Ben Ata has the power to change events , which are from then on pre-ordained .sx I would not wish to suggest , however , that Lessing's vision of language is that of an entirely self-referential or self-perpetuating system ( an approach which would toe the line of traditional linguistic theory) .sx Many of the theories put forward both by psychoanalytic and later structuralist theoreticians could be usefully applied to this text , particularly where they have relevance to women's marginal position to the Symbolic Order or to the dominant discourse .sx At one point in the narrative Lessing refers to the orders by which Zone Four functions as " ukases " ( p. 251 ) , a term deriving from Tsarist Russia , and which has come to take on the meaning of 'any arbitrary order .sx ' The implications of this word are doubled by the pun inherent in this definition which refers to the arbitrary nature of the power base upon which Zone Four ( and by extension the patriarchal establishment ) is based , and which makes fully apparent ( i ) the intrinsic nature of the relationship between language and the structures of power ; and ( ii ) the fact that such structures are not pre-ordained at all , but entirely arbitrary .sx H e l e-grave ne Cixous distinguishes between the Realm of the Gift and the Realm of the Proper ( Propre ) , a distinction worth applying here as Zone Three could be considered representative of the former , and Zone Four the latter .sx From a linguistic perspective this is manifested through Zone Four's barked commands and imperatives ( one might well say that 'sentences are passed' on the ordinary people of the zone by those positioned higher up the military hierarchy ) , while Zone Three's communication works via finely tuned spatial techniques which take us beyond the limits of word and sentence .sx The confusion and dislocation felt by Jarnti and Ben Ata at encountering Zone Three ( either directly or via Al-Ith ) is due to the fact that - their commands being misplaced and indeed irrelevant in that region - they lack any ability to shape or construct reality through language .sx The linguistic units which frame the commands simultaneously pre-package their perceptions of reality .sx Under the rules of the Realm of the Proper , language ap- propr -iates , leaving no room for the creation or generation of the alternative visions associated with the Realm of the Gift .sx Science fiction often draws very closely on narrative devices and structures common to other forms of popular fiction , and in some ways the narrative concerns of The Marriages works through similar methods to the folktale or quest allegory .sx The story of a queen of one land who marries the king of another in order to restore harmony to her realm is a conventional one within such literature , and in line with the allegorical form both Al-Ith and Ben Ata are personifications of the abiding characteristics of their own respective zones .sx In this context Waelti-Walters' comments on the fairytale form are significant :sx Woman is gift and possession .sx .. the touchstone of the whole system of values men in our civilisation have built up between themselves and which has taken symbolic form in language .sx .sx Initially , as implied above , Al-Ith embodies the Realm of the Gift and Ben Ata the Realm of the Proper , the two forming an irreconcilable dichotomy .sx Through their enforced marriage , however , these contrasting features gradually become blurred , and Al-Ith in particular forms the site of the conflagration of the two , rendered visible through her pregnancy with Arusi .sx Thus she takes on board this role of the touchstone of the value system , her victimisation at the hands of a hostile system becoming more and more apparent as the narrative progresses .sx Waelti-Walters' comment refers to the linguistic implications of this ( the use of the term 'symbolic' here relating to the importance of language in the forging of social codes , rather than the more specific psychoanalytic definition of the term) .sx The basic structuralist argument , deriving from the work of Ferdinand de Saussure , argues that language operates via a system of signs ( the sign being the twofold combination of the sound/word and the mental concept ) which take on meaning in relationship to each other and the system as a whole .sx Later advocates of structuralism came to believe that this linguistic model could usefully be applied to other social codes and to the workings of literary narratives , one of the most important of these being Propp's Morphology of the Folk Tale .sx Lessing's narrative works quite closely along folk - legend parallels , about which Propp notes :sx " Functions constitute the basic elements of the tale , those elements upon which the course of the narrative is built " - the 'function' in this sense being the way in which any particular action or event takes on significance ( or indeed signification ) within the narrative as a whole .sx In the traditional folktale , 'functions' take on significance primarily as they relate to , or derive from , the underlying moral code ( which structuralist critics would also interpret as a linguistic code ) , this being the real ( if frequently disguised ) power behind its telling .sx As various critics , including Waelti-Walters , have shown , this moral code is not an apolitical guideline for children , but a product of the prevailing ideology out of which the tale arises , and which seeks primarily to protect the status quo .sx This is where The Marriages departs from the afore-mentioned model .sx Lessing not only foregrounds ideology within her narrative framework , but demonstrates the significance of language to it .sx The Chronicler is the persona whose main function is to stress the folk-legend quality of the tale .sx He it is who interrupts the narrative , just as the reader forgets that this is a story told by a storyteller , to remind us that chroniclers in the two zones frequently take one scene and depict it in very different ways , turning it in the process into history or myth ( fact or fiction ) as best suits their purposes .sx So Lessing's Chronicler reminds us that language plays a central role in the construction of so-called 'truth' ( to 'chronicle' an event being to present it as 'fact' ) ; thus truth is never absolute , but at all times remains a subjective - and in this context an ideological - construct , something that can work for good or ill .sx As the Chronicler states :sx " Describing we become .sx We even - and I've seen it and have shuddered - summon " ( p. 243) .sx But language is not just depicted as a key to power in this novel , it also becomes one of the fundamental keys to knowledge .sx It is through writing his version of the story of Al-Ith that the Chronicler learns :sx " I write in these bald words the deepest lessons of my life " ( p. 242 ) , lessons which Al-Ith will come to share .sx Referring to the intrinsic relationship between language and our perceptions of reality , Grace comments that , through language , " we do not just see shifting patterns of light , we see people and objects and actions " .sx When Al-Ith attempts to initiate herself into Zone Two without being granted access to it by 'the Order' , she stands just over the threshold of the zone and considers :sx that all around her , above her , were people - no , beings , were something , then , or somebody , invisible but there .sx ... Almost she could see them .sx .. as if flames trembled into being .sx ...