Colonised countries are often "feminised" in the culture of the coloniser: for instance, Orientalist art of the Victorian era concentrated almost exclusively on harems and odalisques, presenting the Middle East as languorous, exotic and sexual (1). In the second chapter of The Martian Chronicles, Bradbury underlines this connection by making his female Martian Ylla represent her planet in the process of colonisation. The battle over possession of the planet is replaced with a battle over the female body.
The connection is heightened by the language used to describe Ylla. She is depicted by reference to natural images: eating fruit, handling dust, walking through mist. Mars and Ylla are described in the same language: Mars is "warm and motionless", echoing Ylla's languidity (2). They are both painted in brown, red and yellow tones.
Ylla is overwhelmingly passive: she "waited", "lay back", "wanted very much to sit quietly here, soundless, not moving until this thing occurred" (3). She is presented as a body waiting to be possessed. Although she seems to welcome the arrival of the Earth men, she never acts to aid them: she waits until her husband and York battle, and surrenders herself to the victor.
The first battle between York and Yll is cultural, between Yll's Martian books and the Earth song "Drink to Me Only With Thine Eyes" which Ylla finds herself humming: it "invades" her mind. Ylla is also invaded by dreams of York, prefiguring the potential sexual invasion of her body which would occur if he were to woo her as he does in her dream. The ultimate battle between Yll and York is physical, presumably resulting in York's death: Yll returns home to claim his spoils.
Ylla's final words "I'll be all right tomorrow" perhaps presage the end of the book, where Mars has survived both the destruction of her original civilisation and colonisation by Earth (4). Both Ylla and Mars endure, while men wage war over their bodies.
Notes:
1) There is a large body of critical work making a connection between colonialisation and feminisation: for instance, Said and Yegengol.
2) Bradbury, "Ylla", The Martian Chronicles.
3) Bradbury, "Ylla", The Martian Chronicles.
4) Bradbury, "Ylla", The Martian Chronicles.
Works cited:
Bradbury, Ray. The Martian Chronicles. Blackstone Audio: Ashland, 2009.
Said, Edward. Orientalism. Vintage Books: New York, 1979.
Yegenogl, Meyda. Colonial Fantasies: Towards a Feminist Reading of Orientalism. CUP: Cambridge, 1998.
Wow, I totally missed that! That's very interesting.
ReplyDeleteYou know what I had specifically been on the lookout for feminising language related to colonization. I had even paid close attention to the story The Green Morning because land is usually sexualized: fertile, curves, abundant, spreading, planting seeds and all that. But there was nothing and I gave up that path thinking...mhm...most unusual.
ReplyDeleteAnd I completely missed the second chapter.
Awesome stuff, Lara!