‘A Rebel with a Cause’: The Real Subversive Potential of Transgressive Fiction (Northeast Modern Language Association)
Philadelphia, PA
Organization: Northeast Modern Language Association
Event: Northeast Modern Language Association
“In olden days a glimpse of stocking / Was looked on as something shocking. / Now, heaven knows, Anything goes.” This epigraph begins Chris Jenks’ 2003 work Transgression, exemplifying the sense in which acts of transgression can have real, tangible, palpable effects on society. Jenks defines “transgression” as violating, infringing upon, or going beyond the limits set by a boundary or convention (2). Transgressive fiction, then, is the genre of literature that depicts various acts of boundary-crossing in order to analyze and criticize them for the purpose of reflecting upon the ideological constructions that its characters react against or wholly reject.
As such, transgressive fiction can define, redefine, and challenge the established rules and ideologies that govern human experience. But what role can transgressive fiction be said to play in the measurable, tangible, perceivable evolution of specific societal norms today? As M. Keith Booker states in his 1991 work Techniques of Subversion, “even the most transgressive works of literature do not in general immediately send their readers into the streets carrying banners and shouting slogans. Transgressive literature works more subtly, by gradually chipping away at certain modes of thinking that contribute to the perpetuation of oppressive political structures” (4). In other words, transgressive fiction does not necessarily have a revolutionary potential, but rather provides us with the opportunity to reflect on the changing nature and functioning of various ideological constructions—and perhaps this is wherein its revolutionary potential lies.
What does this “gradually chipping away” really look like? Can we see this “chipping away” in society today, or can we only see its effects once it has been carried through to completion? What texts, if any, can be said to have had real (or imagined) effects like these? What texts should have had such effects, but didn’t? Why did they fail? What benefits or detriments has society experienced as a result of literary works that attack the ideological constructions on which society is based? And finally, why read transgressive fiction at all if it can’t be said to have such effects?
Rebecca Warshofsky