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Junkie
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James H. Schmitz
http://24.131.35.125:8080/Schmitz/Neutral_heroine.htm
After reading this, I think I'm going to pick up a book or two of his next time I stop by Barnes&Noble.
Quote:
he Neutral Heroine of James H. Schmitz
--by Janet Kagan
Copyright l973 by Janet Kagan
Science fiction has been accused of many failings; within and without the field, critics have taken up arms ranging from popguns to shotguns to now and then a skilled rapier. Some wish to better the field, some only to prove their superiority to it. Some have lacked a sufficient overview of the genre and miscalculated as a result; some were unable to achieve any distance from it and loved everything regardless of its worth. Sturgeon's law (Ninety percent of everything is crap!) applies to critics of SF as well as to SF.
During the Women's Liberation Movement, a whole new set of criteria for judging literature has been developing -- Germaine Greer has discussed the role of women in adventure literature, Joanna Russ (i) (among others) the "image" of women in SF in particular. Greer (ii) is perhaps unfamiliar with SF. Russ is less easily forgiven, for, like so many of her predecessors, she judges SF by its worst examples and concludes that the field as a whole has given women a raw deal.
I cannot agree. In fact, science fiction has, in general, been more accepting of women and more acceptable in its views of women than has the general literature. Despite the severe restrictions placed on the genre, it has produced such authors as John Brunner, Samuel R. Delany, Ursula LeGuin, J.T. M'Intosh (sic), James H. Schmitz, Philip Wylie and John Wyndham (to mention just a few) who are notable for their female characters.
Her Environment & Heredity:
In order to place this controversy in perspective, we must first examine the marketing and social conventions among which SF (genre SF) has grown up.
Since, according to common suppositions in our culture, women are "uninterested in" and "unsuited for" scientific pursuits, science fiction is, by extension, a genre of which it is assumed they neither understand nor like.
This assumption, coupled with the decision that SF was not "serious" literature, led to the marketing of SF for adolescent males. This marketing pattern is still generally in effect today. (If this assumption offends you. male reader of SF, think how much more it offends me!) Although things have begun to change, the change is extremely slow.
The initial assumptions lead to several others, all of which seem just as baseless as these when they are given any serious consideration. The first is that male readers cannot identify with a female protagonist. This theory was promulgated either by a misogynist or a moron. Having discussed the idea with innumerable male readers, I find that they have no more trouble identifying a competent female protagonist than I do. The operative word is "competent". If there's no competent protagonist handy, the reader will pick the most competent and likeable of the secondary characters and identify with him, her, it. I know many a fan who has virtually ignored the adolescent hero of a Heinlein juvenile to focus instead on such competent characters as Hazel Stone or Mr. Kiku (iii). This tendency is so strong that many fans insist that secondary characters are the "real heroes" of the story.
The second result of the "adolescent male" marketing orientation is the lack of sex in SF. The Space Rangers, so the theory goes, could not be a sexually-mixed group because someone's mother might get the idea that the Space Rangers were balling each other. That it never occurred to anyone that a group of male Space Rangers might be balling each other shows the basic naiveté of the proponents of this theory.
Until just recently, SF has used sex scenes only if they were essential to the theme of the story or if sex itself was the basis for extrapolation. In the long run, I think this did more good than harm to the genre as a whole. It has enabled SF to avoid the mainstream's obligatory sex scene, included for no other reason than to convince readers that they are reading "adult" fiction. In most cases, sex scenes serve only to disrupt the pacing of the story and confuse the characterization.
Initially, then, the Space Rangers were all male. This led SF to avoid another cliché about women: that the only possible use for a woman aboard a manned flight is that of sexual receptacle (iv).
When SF writers began to hit upon the idea of punching up their plots with a little love-interest, the sex taboo was still in force. The writer could not baldly state that the only reason a woman was on board was to serve as a focus for sexual conflicts, to be the hero's girlfriend. The writer had to find some other explanation for her presence. She became the ship's doctor, psychiatrist, biologist, chemist, or some other sort of scientist. Hence, to a great many writers and their readers, women became something more than housewives, nurses or librarians.
We haven't avoided the cliché entirely. We've still got the old scientist's beautiful daughter, but she turns up in "sci-fi" movies more often than within genre SF -- just as the tentacled monster carrying off the beauteous maiden appears more on covers than within the magazines. We've still got somebody to scream fetchingly when things go awry and someone for the hero to save should the plot begin to lag a bit; but we already have more options than conventions in other branches of literature permit female characters.
Although women are not restricted to housewife roles within the SF framework, we find only one reason for using a female as the protagonist: the "women are..." story. This type of tale uses the biologically and culturally-determined characteristics of a female as the basis of its gimmick. For example, "women are overly protective of their children" (see Judith Merril's "That Only a Mother"), "women are illogical and always have cold feet" (James Gunn's "Just-So" stories explain that women are thus because they are not the same species as men -- they are aliens), or "women are technological morons" (v). In other words, the use of a female protagonist in an SF story is almost always determined by the biological fact that she bears children or by the culturally accepted stereotypes of "feminine" behavior.
The use of a male protagonist is not determined by the fact that he is capable of having an erection or impregnating a woman (except perhaps in the case of Robert Heinlein's "Time Enough for Love"). Use of the male protagonist is, however, encouraged by all these assumptions in the culture and the market.
We have seen the effect of marketing conventions; let us now turn to literary problems. It is, purely and simply, easier to write a male protagonist than a female protagonist. You can prove this to yourself with a simple experiment. Take any early action sequence in an SF novel, where the author is introducing his or her protagonist. Re-type it, changing all the male names to female names and all the he's to she's or vice-versa. Put it aside and reread it another day. You'll discover that both the tone and the characters have changed.
The literary convention is that the writer needn't tell the reader that a male protagonist is competent physically and mentally. if the protagonist is male, the reader assumes this competence unless it's otherwise specified; but the reader will not assume these characteristics for a female and has to be told (vi). This is, of course, an inheritance from centuries of unconscious linguistic prejudice.
You will also find that simple, everyday reactions and dialog change. (I'm not referring here to statements like, "I've just discovered I'm pregnant. (vii)" ) As small a thing as "I'm sorry" changes tone and character depending on whether it is followed by "he said, nervously" or "she said, nervously". Good characterization, of course, takes this into account. Unfortunately, SF authors are seldom known for their good characterization; they prefer to rely on convention to do most of their work for them. Using a female protagonist in a non-stereotypical way would necessitate working around convention -- even more painstaking labour than good characterization of a male protagonist.
Keeping this auctorial environment and heredity in mind, we turn now to the work of James H. Schmitz. The poor man! Somebody forgot to tell him the rules; and, in consequence, he has blithely ignored these conventions and written a collection of the most fascinating female characters to come out of contemporary literature. Schmitz specializes in the neutral ("non-role playing", if you will) heroine.
During a discussion group on the female characters of James H. Schmitz at a recent Boskone (viii) a puzzled male fan piped up with a complaint about Schmitz' The Demon Breed. "What bothered me about Nile Etland," he said, "was that you could have just dropped a guy into that part and it wouldn't have made any difference." (What he meant by this was that Nile Etland didn't do anything "feminine". She didn't have a baby. She was not endowed with "feminine intuition". She was not a lousy driver, etc.)
My answer is a restatement of the fan's problem: what always bothered me about Rod Walker in Heinlein's Tunnel in the Sky was that you could have dropped a female into that part and it wouldn't have made any difference (ix). Rod Walker didn't have an erection. He didn't return from his stoborhunt more defined as a man. Rod Walker is a neutral hero -- his position does not rely on his sexual identity -- just as Nile Etland is a neutral heroine -- her position does not rely on her sexual identity. Because of literary convention, no one was concerned enough to mention Rod Walker, but the question was raised about Nile Etland.
Her Upbringing
Let us examine some of the specific techniques Schmitz uses in character creation.
Schmitz begins by turning convention to his own use. He uses names for his characters which are not readily identifiable as "female" names. Unless you happen to remember the stories in which Gefty Rammer, Grilliom Tantrey, Gilas Amberdon, or Zamman Tarradang-Pok appear, you will be unable to specify which are male characters and which are not.
Although most SF writers have occasion to use unusual names for their characters, most of them clue you in with an "-a" or an "-i" ending if the character is female. If you miss the pronoun in a Schmitz novel, you may be mistaken as to the sex of the character for several pages, by which time you may already have endowed the character with certain attributes that wouldn't have occurred to you had her femaleness been trumpeted from the outset.
To accentuate this, Schmitz introduces his females in non-stereotypical situations, with non-stereotypical emotions, generally amidst a welter of strong action words. The reader learns about Nile Etland (The Demon Breed) first through Ticos Cay's judicious half-truths to the Parahuans -- implying that she may be a superhuman "Tuvela" or "Guardian", then through her appearance -- angry and frustrated in her attempt to contact her partner in an aircar buffeted by storm. (DB pp. 14-15) Her emotional reactions in this scene are (literary) male; a (literary) female would be frightened, not angry, and would not be handling the car in the competent manner in which Nile does.
In A Tale of Two Clocks, Trigger Argee first appears on the target range of the Colonial School .
... She held a small, beautifully worked handgun loosely beside her -- the twinbarrelled sporting Denton which gunwise citizens of the Hub rated as a weapon for the precisionist and expert only. (TTC p. 1)
This technique is used for secondary female characters as well. Only after Ilken Tegeler (The Eternal Frontiers) has spotted the enemy and reacted in a calm, efficient manner to the immediate danger does Schmitz inform the reader of her sex. (EF p. 7)
Having begun in this fashion, Schmitz continues to keep the reader on the track, never for a moment allowing him/her to slip back in to the stereotyped image of a female.
In general, he uses description sparingly. What his character looks like is not nearly so important as what she does. He avoids another SF writer's cramp as well: he does not feel obliged to make his heroines violet-eyed and ethereally beautiful. A Schmitz female is "tanned", "slender", or "slim". She may have "patrician features" or "short black brows" (x).
His aversion to the term "beautiful", is pronounced. He substitutes "handsome" or "not at all bad looking" (xi), unless the character is designed for some particular effect or impact. "Beautiful" for Schmitz is a term of intelligent calculation.
...For all her size, [Betheny] remained a superbly feminine being -- the current culmination of homo universalis, beautiful, maternal, infinitely appealing. It was a good part of the strength of the Swimmer League that its leaders were such parent figures, benevolent and magnificent. They were admired, desired, trusted. Even dedicated walkers surrendered to the attraction. And it had been, Crowell thought, a calculated move to send Betheny rather than a male counterpart to Kulkoor. The Star Union expedition's department heads were men. (EF pp. 47-48)
There is a deliberateness about Schmitz' "beautiful" secondary characters that remains unmatched in literature.
External appearance is never sufficient characterization for a Schmitz female. Her capabilities are more important and are given more expression.
Nor is clothing a sufficient characterization device as far as Schmitz is concerned. In no instance does he make any gratuitous mention of his character's garb. Trigger Argee's "modishly white silver hair" is mentioned because it is part of a disguise. (TTC pp. 1&20) Danestar Gem's extravagantly-colored wigs conceal the electronic gimmickry with which she does her job. ("The Searcher") The Beldon ribbon dress, given by Heslet Quillan to Trigger Argee in A Tale of Two Clocks, illuminates personality traits of both the giver and the receiver: Quillan's good-natured lecherousness and his cavalier attitude towards any and all authority, Trigger's prudishness and stubbornness. (TTC pp. 86-89) When Quillan is hoisted by his own petard, the reader cannot be anything but delighted.
Another technique Schmitz uses to maintain his neutral heroine is the direct avoidance of explaining any behavior as sex-related (sex-role-related). Many authors have a tendency to make gratuitous generalities about women which, far from adding depth to their characterization (as they seem to intend), detract from their individuality.
...Poyly said, with a womanly gift for irrelevance that eons of time had not quenched.
... she said, with a woman's talent for producing comfort when it was needed. (xii)
Again, this sort of thing is not sufficient characterization for Schmitz. In avoiding it, he adds dimensions to his characters,
...Jessamine was a sweet and understanding woman, but she had the streak of conservatism which tended to characterize junior members of the Grand Council of the Federation. (VAH pp. 76-77)
Does a Character give away information she is not supposed to? It is not "because she is a woman" but because "young mouths open easily". (DB p. 31) Is Pagadan's judgement in doubt? It is not because she is a woman, but because she is "one of our Lannai trainees" and "politically important" among her own people to boot- (AOV P. 7) Is Iiken Tegeler uncomfortable with the idea of ghosts? It is not because she is a woman, but because "Mailliards had a lively respect for the supernatural". (EF p. 139)
It's not that the terms "girl" and "woman" don't exist for Schmitz, but they do not function as reasons for behavior. Things just aren't that simple to this author.
The characters in many books would be astonished by the appearance of Zamman Tarradang-Pok because of her gender. Schmitz, characters find another reason:
...His first glance at Zam showed him that she was a Daya-Bal; and up to that moment he would have thought that no branch of humanity was emotionally less suited than they to perform the duties of an Agent of Galactic Zones. (AOV p. 130)
Schmitz' later descriptions of the Daya-Bal culture justify this initial reaction; and Zamm's background explains why she alone has broken out of this particular mold.
With similar discretion, he uses the term "human" as an explanation for behavior. Nile Etland faces down the Parahuans in a spectacular attempt to convince them that she is indeed a "Tuvela". Initially, she is elated by her success.
Afterward, brief sharp letdown. No Tuvela, no Guardian. Simply a scared human in a potentially very bad spot. (DB p. 90)
Science Fiction authors (not all of them, to be sure, but a great number) tend to be wary of emotion and seldom rise above a clichéd portrayal of it. While most writers might allow their female characters a dollop of fear or their male characters a smidgen of anger, Schmitz again rises above the run-of-the-mill to extend the full range of emotions to characters of both sexes, This may explain why his characters seem more fully human than most -- even Telzey Amberdon, despite her recent flourishing into omnipotence and omniscience (xiii).
In Schmitz' universe, a man (Hogan) is allowed to run in panic from Greenface, and once the danger is past, to feel sorry for the creature ("Greenface") Another man, Gefty Rammer, is unable to commit cold-blooded murder of the janandra despite its obvious malevolence because he recognizes it as sentient. ("The Wind of Time")
Just as Schmitz recognizes that males are susceptible to terror and sympathy, he recognizes that females are capable of anger. Any Schmitz character is liable to any extreme of emotion, so long as it does not impair his or her ability to function.
He has developed the techniques that make this attitude work. Any emotion which prevents a Schmitz character from behaving logically, in his or her own best interests, turns out to have been imposed on the character by someone or something else. Dowland's panic ("Beacon to Elsewhere") has been manufactured by the aliens as a sort of e-t scarecrow. Trigger Argee's obsession for Brule lnger (A Tale of Two Clocks) is engendered by the plasmoids in order to return her to their influence.
Referring on several occasions to the harm which can result from "unresolved tensions", Schmitz seems to feel that emotions should be given an outlet when it is safe to do so. He therefore allows his characters to react sharply before or after the need for action. After Nile Etland has successfully disabled the Great Palach Koll...
...She stood gasping and shaking in fright and hate, staring down at it. (DB p. 58)
After dealing with Virod, Lyad and assorted other nasties coolly and to the best of her abilities in a harrowing situation, after rescue has been effected, only then does Trigger Argee give way to her emotions.
...A thought suddenly popped to mind again, and Trigger burst into tears. The Commissioner glanced over at her.
"What's the matter, Trigger girl?" "I'm so s-sorry I killed Pilli. He s-screamed."
Then her mind froze up with a jolt, and thinking stopped completely. Quillan reached over the back of the seat and eased her over on her side.
"Got to her finally!" he said. (TTC p. 157)
Telzey Amberdon finishes draining the deadly energy from a schizophrenic psi.
Telzey checked carefully to make sure of it. Then she swallowed twice and was sick. Afterwards she rinsed her mouth at the water's edge, came back and brought Axwen awake. ("Poltergeist" p. 162)
A more difficult feat, which Schmitz also manages to accomplish with grace, is the conveying of fear while his character behaves competently despite it. Two of the most interesting examples of this occur when Nile Etland is being hunted by tarms, trained beasts used by the Parahuans,
...Nile looked up, and her mind went bright with terror. She took one slow step to the side, thumbed the antigravity up high. Nothing beneath her feet now... she was falling limply, bonelessly, turning over slowly, toward the shelter of the canopy below. No human motions, no voluntary motions of any kind. Be a leaf, an undefinably colored uninteresting small dead dropping part of the forest. (DB p. 60)
Their is no doubt here of the reality of her terror in reaction to one of Schmitz' fine monsters, but with the words "her mind went bright", Schmitz emphasizes the thinking which leads to her subsequent actions enabling her to fool the tarm into believing she's not worth bothering with.
Nile Etland's second encounter with a tarm is similarly handled.
...Nile stood where she was, frozen with dismay. There was no immediate cover available here; the slightest motion might bring her to the tarm's attention. (DB p. 118)
Once again, with "frozen with dismay", Schmitz gives us the fear and the only possible safe reaction to the tarm's presence under the circumstances.
For examples in which Schmitz handles his male characters in the same way, I would refer you to such characters as Hogan ("Greenface"), Gefty Rammer ("The Winds of Time"), Alan Commager ("The Ties of Earth").
In avoiding the familiar stereotype, Schmitz also avoids the trap of creating his own consistent stereotype. Schmitz' female characters are not limited to a single role or a single personality type. Despite their consistent strength, Telzey Amberdon differs greatly from the character of Pilch, just as Goth differs from Trigger Argee.
Female characters in Schmitz' work can be pilots, spies, modern-day pirates, planetary Regents, psychologists, trouble-shooters. In The Witches of Karres, Hulik do Eldel is never at any moment suspected of being the only spy -- nor is she eliminated from suspicion. Her spying is, further, definitely not the Mata Hari type. The play among the characters, techniques, and ultimate ambitions of the three spies in this instance adds dimension to the episode that would have been lacking had only a single obstacle been put in Pausert's way.
This tendency to use females for many of the roles in a given novel (not in just the primary role) has the curious side effect of leading the reader to believe that there is a higher ratio of women to men in Schmitz' universe than in our own. This is another by-product of those literary conventions I've mentioned. Andre Norton used to be able to travel on for galaxies and never see but one nursing female, and nobody thought it peculiar.
Schmitz tones this effect down somewhat by taking advantage of the inequities of the English language, referring to such walk-on parts as "sledmen", "watchmen", etc. Although these groups are not entirely composed of males, the device does help in a minor fashion to counter-balance the seeming oversupply of females.
Her Children's Children
The writing of James H. Schmitz abounds in elegantly conceived and detailed water-world ecological systems. His monsters are terrifying but seldom horrible -- they are deadly animals, not supernatural constructs. His societies, human and e-t, are fascinating structures. He has developed an intriguing and workable legal system for dealing with the "unrecognized" psi powers of individuals in the Federation.
Throughout the background of many of his stories runs a thread of benevolently manipulative power that delights even the most sophisticated reader: the nations of the Overgovernment, the Agents of the Vegan Federation, the Psychology Service.
Still, Schmitz' work remains primarily notable for his characterization of the neutral heroine. I cannot believe that such characters as Nile Etland, Goth, Maleen and the Leewit, and Pagadan are memorable only because they are unusual. They are memorable because they are real , interesting, believable. As with the best of SF's heroes, they have a life of their own.
Perhaps the success of James H. Schmitz' techniques will encourage other writers to develop their own female characters past the point of stereotype. In the universe of James H. Schmitz, stagnation is the worst fate that can befall society.
What is stereotype but a form of stagnation? Both the writers and critics of SF must take another look at what they are doing and how they are doing it. Both err in the same way, the way Parahuans err in The Demon Breed, by generalizing and then calculating from their generalizations. As one of Schmitz' characters observes;
To say that the human is thus and so is almost always to lie automatically. The species, its practices and philosophies remain unpredictable. Individuals vary, and the species varies with circumstances. This instability seems a main source of its strength. We cannot judge it by what it is today or was yesterday. We do not know what it will be tomorrow. (DB pp- 154-155)
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I have a question for everyone here: would you/do you enjoy reading a story with a sexually neutral protagonist?
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The most important thing in this world is love.
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09-02-2004, 09:21 PM
