The Body as a Critical Text

Hortense Spillers in her article "Mama's Baby, Papa's Maybe: An American Grammar Book," writes that "[the] body ... focuses a private and particular space, at which point of convergence biological, sexual, social, cultural, linguistic, ritualistic, and psychologic futures join" (67). The body as a signifier is crucially important to understanding this week's readings and film, as the intimate is the most vulnerable and most personal.
In the world of the Oankali, Octavia Butler plays off the deepest human fears. Lilith, the protagonist, awakes in captivity to find she is being held by aliens and that Earth as she knows it is uninhabitable. The Oankali thrive by modifying their own genes by taking the best genes from other organisms, and are capable of developing genetic variations for others. Jdahya explains that they've fixed the cancer gene, modified the process of reproduction (so that it now requires ooloi as well), and strengthened the immune system, a process that will result in a species that is not quite Oankali, but not quite human. Although Lilith comes to accept this reality, she's never comfortable with it, always seeing it as invasion of sanctity. She wonders to herself: "Experimental animal, parent to domestic animals? Or... nearly extinct animal, part of a captive breeding program? Human biologists had done that before the war - used a few captive members of an endangered animal species to breed more for the wild population. Was that what she was headed for?" (58).
In addition to altering the very genetic code, Butler plays with concepts of sex and gender. The oankali have not just male and female, but also ooloi, and the involvement of all three sexes is necessary for pleasure or reproduction. Lilith is initially very uncomfortable with this, but grows to accept and enjoy the new form of intercourse, noting that it less physical and more psychological. The second time she has intercourse with it and Joseph, "She positioned herself against it and was not content until she felt the deceptively light touch of the sensory hand and felt the ooloi body tremble against her" (191).
The idea of comfort with the body as a sign of security and belonging is key. At the beginning, when she first leaves the isolation chamber with Jhadya, he explains that the Oankali never wear clothes generally, but that he wore them for her comfort. He then says, "You'll be free to wear clothing or not as you like." She is quick to respond, "I'll wear it!," even after being told that there are no humans about. Yet, near the end, when Nikanj lies wounded on the battlefield, she has no qualms about stripping to help save its life (231). A similar text runs through the final scene in Alien. Ripley, having managed to escape the spaceship despite the death of all her colleagues, believes herself to be alone and safe on the lifeboat. She takes off her clothing, again a signifier of safety. It is the appearance of the alien at this particular moment that offer the biggest shock, because of her vulnerability.
The body is also a source of differentiation. Octavia Butler's characters are notably multi-racial in Dawn, but the bigger difference is between the human species and the Oaknali. All of the humans experience some initial repulsion or at least uneasiness; some manage to overcome it, others die because they can not. Yet, it is about unification in the end, in some sense, not discord, for Lilith puzzles, "No words had been spoken. Strangers of a different species had been accepted as family. A human friend and ally had been rejected" (196). Alien is much less subtle. The alien is quickly created as a menace that must be destroyed, an object of exoticism that intends to destroy all the humans. While the Oankali are not truly humanoid, they are discussed in human terms and personalities, but the Alien is not, just seen as a monster.
If we view the body as a critical text, what extrapolations can be made from these readings and film about our collective security in our bodies, both concretely and abstractly? How do these readings challenge or affirm our identities? How is humanity defined?