A text in which both misogynous and feminist fantasies are present and which can be taken as an example of the interweaving of the themes of metamorphosis and identity is 'Spider Rose', a short story published in 1982 by Bruce Sterling. Sterling’s stories offer a consistent acknowledgement of the conditional status of human definition devoid of any nostalgia for ‘essential’ human nature; there is no need to be cautious about the evils of unchecked technological development because, as one of his characters says, 'mankind no longer exists' anyway. However, Sterling’s ambivalence towards a technologically defined reality, as shown by his refusal of essential definitions of humanness, seems to point to the kinds of positive changes that this capacity for transformation has the potential to produce and demonstrates his sensibility, unusual for a male cyberpunk writer, to the feminist stance. At the core of feminist cyberpunk fiction, together with the potentially liberating possibilities of the interface between human and machine, one finds explorations of the human and the social; it is in these that one senses the main affinities between feminism and Sterling. The metaphor of metamorphosis, then, can be read in a number of ways, all relevant to feminist perspectives. Yet there is another possible reading of 'Spider Rose' which sees the protagonist’s metamorphosis as an illustration of Gianni Vattimo’s speculations about Heidegger’s antihumanism and Nietzsche’s nihilism. Spider Rose’s only chance of overcoming her negativity crisis, her nihilistic spleen, is to divest herself of her human qualities, to become a ‘weak subject’, accepting the development as a fact and without attempting to inhibit its flux. In this way her gloomy and nostalgic nihilism can be dissolved leaving space for a ‘happy nihilism’, which, though depriving her of her humanness, endows her with a renewed humanity.
"Spider Rose's Metamorphosis: A Consolatory Nihilism"
PACINOTTI, LIA
2005-01-01
Abstract
A text in which both misogynous and feminist fantasies are present and which can be taken as an example of the interweaving of the themes of metamorphosis and identity is 'Spider Rose', a short story published in 1982 by Bruce Sterling. Sterling’s stories offer a consistent acknowledgement of the conditional status of human definition devoid of any nostalgia for ‘essential’ human nature; there is no need to be cautious about the evils of unchecked technological development because, as one of his characters says, 'mankind no longer exists' anyway. However, Sterling’s ambivalence towards a technologically defined reality, as shown by his refusal of essential definitions of humanness, seems to point to the kinds of positive changes that this capacity for transformation has the potential to produce and demonstrates his sensibility, unusual for a male cyberpunk writer, to the feminist stance. At the core of feminist cyberpunk fiction, together with the potentially liberating possibilities of the interface between human and machine, one finds explorations of the human and the social; it is in these that one senses the main affinities between feminism and Sterling. The metaphor of metamorphosis, then, can be read in a number of ways, all relevant to feminist perspectives. Yet there is another possible reading of 'Spider Rose' which sees the protagonist’s metamorphosis as an illustration of Gianni Vattimo’s speculations about Heidegger’s antihumanism and Nietzsche’s nihilism. Spider Rose’s only chance of overcoming her negativity crisis, her nihilistic spleen, is to divest herself of her human qualities, to become a ‘weak subject’, accepting the development as a fact and without attempting to inhibit its flux. In this way her gloomy and nostalgic nihilism can be dissolved leaving space for a ‘happy nihilism’, which, though depriving her of her humanness, endows her with a renewed humanity.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
