Animal Dystopia in Marie Darrieussecq’s Novel Truismes

Päivi Koponen

doi:10.3390/h6030065

Abstract

The article focuses on the contemporary French author Marie Darrieussecq’s dystopian novel, Truismes (1996), that contemplates the differential boundaries between human and non-human existence within the scope of contemporary Western metaphysics. The novel challenges the anthropocentric conception of dystopia on the grounds that it is not only a human dystopia; the story centres on a female protagonist whose body begins to turn into a sow. In the novel’s dystopian reality, non-human nature has only capitalistic value in relation to human needs, which has caused a large-scale ecological crisis. For the heroine, the dystopian cityscape is the antagonist that she struggles against; the story represents the sow-woman looking for a better place to live. By giving a narrative voice to an animal, Darrieussecq’s novel urges the reader to identify with the non-human world. The article aims to come to an understanding of the agency beyond the human species. Further, it argues that agency constitutes an entanglement of intra-acting agencies; it is not an attribute of (human) subject or (non-human) object as they do not pre-exist as such separately. Consequently, human and non-human agencies are related to one another; humans are not only affecting the non-human world, but they affect each other in a very profound way. In this, the article contributes to the ongoing interrogation of human relations with non-human agency that is being actively conducted in contemporary Western scientific discourse. The concept of agency also allows participation in discussion about the current ecological crisis.

Highlights

To be entangled is not to be intertwined with another, as in the joining of separate entities, but to lack an independent, self-contained existence
The article contributes to the ongoing interrogation of human relations with non-human agency that is being actively conducted in contemporary Western scientific discourse
This article studies contemporary French author Marie Darrieussecq’s first novel, Truismes, which challenges the differential boundaries between the human and the non-human world

Summary

Introduction

To be entangled is not to be intertwined with another, as in the joining of separate entities, but to lack an independent, self-contained existence. This article studies contemporary French author Marie Darrieussecq’s first novel, Truismes, which challenges the differential boundaries between the human and the non-human world. Ontology (Ian Bogost, Levi Bryant, Graham Harman, and Timothy Morton), posthumanism, and transhumanism Each of these approaches challenges the Cartesian dualism between (human) observer and (non-human) object of observation that still dominates Western metaphysics. Plumwood maintains that what defines nature is human superiority that contrasts systemically with nature in one of its many dimensions As he puts it, “Nature, as the excluded and devalued contrast of reason, includes the emotions, the body, the passions, animality, the primitive or uncivilised, the non-human world, matter, physicality and sense experience, as well as the sphere of irrationality, of faith and madness” This article asks how an understanding of the entangled intra-relation between humans and animals changes the anthropocentric notion of dystopia

Living under the Threat of Humans

Looking for Better Place to Live

Conclusions