PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN NEIL GAIMAN'S NEVERWHERE ..., Exercises of Literature

Download PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN NEIL GAIMAN'S NEVERWHERE ... and more Exercises Literature in PDF only on Docsity! UNIVERSITY OF TARTU DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE PORTRAYAL OF WOMEN IN NEIL GAIMAN'S NEVERWHERE, AMERICAN GODS AND CORALINE MA thesis TEELE KESKÜLA Supervisor: Lect. ENE-REET SOOVIK TARTU 2014 2 ABSTRACT The aim of this paper is to investigate the depiction of female characters in Neil Gaiman's novels Neverwhere, American Gods and Coraline in order to determine whether they correspond to gender stereotypes or not. The introduction gives a brief overview of Neil Gaiman's works, including some critical responses to it. It also summarises the three novels analysed in the present thesis. The first chapter attempts to define fantasy fiction and explores various aspects of it. It continues with the discussion of differences between men and women and of gender stereotypes in general and in literature, with a focus on fantasy fiction. The first chapter also addresses some problems in relation to male authors writing female characters. The second chapter analyses the main female characters in the three novels, focussing on their appearance, character traits, behaviour, occupation and relation to other characters. In addition, it attempts to determine to what degree these female characters correspond to the feminine gender stereotype. The results of the analysis are presented in the conclusion. 5 INTRODUCTION Neil Gaiman is one of the most prolific authors of fantasy fiction writing today. He has won wide critical and popular acclaim and, being one of the few contemporary writers of fantasy to do so, has aroused academic interest. The various aspects of Gaiman's works that have been analysed include myth and religion (e.g., in American Gods), identity (e.g., in Coraline) and gender (e.g., in the Sandman series). Following from the previous research on gender and in order to contribute to the field, the aim of the present thesis is to investigate the depiction of female characters in Neil Gaiman's novels in order to determine whether they are represented in stereotypical or non-stereotypical roles. The analysis covers three novels, Neverwhere, American Gods and Coraline, which were chosen because they have been recognised as key works in Neil Gaiman's writing career and because they are set in a modern world, which makes it possible to compare female characters of these novels to contemporary gender stereotypes. 1. Neil Gaiman's works Neil Gaiman, born in 1960 in Portchester, Hampshire, United Kingdom, into an upper middle class family (Brown 2005), began his writing career as a journalist after graduating from school, contributing pieces to magazines and newspapers in London such as Time Out, Sunday Times and The Observer. His career in journalism did not last long, so in 1987, his first graphic novel Violent Cases was published, followed by Black Orchid in 1987. The first one was relatively brief and dealt with the stories of the gangster Al Capone. The second one, however, featured an independent, well-developed and introspective female heroine, which had been unusual for graphic novels so far (Brown 2005). Since then, many critics have supported Sarah Jaffe's opinion that "Gaiman is far better at writing women and getting into their heads than most other male writers, comic or otherwise" (quoted in Martin 2012: 12). 6 In 1987, after being approached by DC Comics, Gaiman began writing the ground- breaking Sandman series (Brown 2005), which grew into 75 monthly, 24-page instalments, now bound into ten separate books (Neil Gaiman n.d.). The series tells the story of Dream, a god-like creature, and his six siblings, Death, Delirium, Despair, Destruction, Destiny and Desire. Just as Dream is a personification of dreams, his siblings represent various aspects of human existence, as their names imply. Sandman tackles several issues in its almost two thousand pages, the most significant of them being familial responsibility, self-identification, and aging (Brisbin, Booth 2013: 20-21). In addition, the fluidity of the notion of gender in the series serves to separate Sandman from previous comics and graphic novels. It is as if Gaiman's characters deliberately attempt to undermine gender stereotypes: they are either male or female, but they are all first and foremost people (Brisbin, Booth 2013: 22). It is therefore not surprising that during the years it was published, Sandman became one of the most significant and popular comics in history. Moreover, next to collecting nine Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards and three Harvey Awards, Sandman became in 1991 the first comic to receive the World Fantasy Award (Neil Gaiman n.d.). Even though Neil Gaiman became known primarily for his graphic novels, which besides Sandman include, for example, Signal to Noise (1992) and Mr. Punch (1994), he is a prolific author who has written in many genres and for very different audiences (Brown 2005). His first books – a Duran Duran biography and a biography of Douglas Adams – were published already before the Sandman series in the 1980s (Neil Gaiman n.d.). In 1990 followed his first novel for adults, Good Omens: The Nice and Accurate Prophecies of Agnes Nutter, Witch, written with Terry Pratchett and which tells a humorous tale of the end of the world. In six years time Gaiman novelised Neverwhere (1996), his BBC TV series about a magical and fantastic underworld of London. Other adult novels written by Neil Gaiman include Stardust (1998), a tale of fairies set in the Victorian era; Hugo and Nebula Award- 7 winning American Gods (2001), in which ancient gods that had come to the United States of America with the first settlers are being replaced with new gods, gods like Media and Technology; and Anansi Boys (2003), a story of the two sons of the trickster-god Anansi (Pringle 2006b: 170). Gaiman's shorter prose works are collected into Angels and Visitations (1993), a collection of his essays, journalism and short stories meant to commemorate his tenth year as a prose writer (Brown 2005); Smoke and Mirrors: Short Fictions and Illusions (1998), nominated for the UK's MacMillan Silver Pen Awards; and Fragile Things: Short Fictions and Wonders (2006) (Neil Gaiman n.d.). Gaiman's first book for children, The Day I Swapped My Dad for Two Goldfish, appeared in print in 1997 and immediately became immensely popular. Other books by Gaiman for younger readers include Coraline (2002), the winner of several awards such as The Hugo Award and The Nebula Award; The Graveyard Book (2008); and Instructions (2010), illustrated by Charles Vess (Neil Gaiman n.d.). In spite of the fact that Neil Gaiman's fiction targets readers of very different ages and that it is written in various genres and styles, all of his works display those features that make Gaiman's writing so enjoyable. First of all, his books tend to transcend genre lines: in them, horror, fantasy, fairy tales, science fiction and apocalyptic romps are all mixed together into novels, short stories, poems, comics and screenplays (Goodyear 2010). Secondly, Gaiman uses sources, sometimes obscure, that are as eclectic as are his modes of writing. He draws inspiration from mythologies of various countries and civilizations, English folk tales, the Midrash, old children's stories and many other places (Goodyear 2010), weaving this information into stories with "mythic freshness" (Pringle 2006b: 171). More precisely, this freshness is expressed in the way Gaiman's stories make topics such as mythology, spirituality and mortality easily understandable and absorbing. However, this forms only a part of Neil 10 If Neverwhere is a novel about London, then American Gods is "about America, about American myths and the American soul" (Gaiman 2005 [2001]: 653), which, it is important to remember, is written from the viewpoint of an Englishman, or an immigrant, as he defines himself, for whom America is so big and contradictory that he was able to only describe a small part of it (Gaiman 2005 [2001]: 654). It is thus clear why Gaiman describes American Gods in the introduction to the novel as a "big and odd and meandering" book, which, for some reason, became hugely popular (Gaiman 2005 [2001]). Indeed, it has won the Nebula and the Hugo awards for science fiction, the Bram Stoker award for horror and the Locus award for fantasy (ibid.). The variety of awards the novel has received also makes it clear that it is quite difficult to classify American Gods as far as genre is concerned. At the beginning of the novel itself, the readers meet Shadow, the protagonist, who is being released from prison a couple of days before the official beginning of his parole since his wife and his best friend had just died in a car crash. On his way home, he meets Wednesday, an old mysterious con artist, who hires him as his bodyguard during his travels across the United States visiting old acquaintances and friends. Being naturally kind and taciturn and having learned to mind his own business in prison, Shadow seems not to be surprised when his dead wife starts walking the earth again or when Wednesday's acquaintances and friends all turn out to be old gods and other mythical creatures. Thus, Shadow among many others meets Odin, the first of the Norse gods who had been brought to America by Viking explorers and who now goes by the name of Wednesday; Mad Sweeney, a brawling Irishman who is revealed to be a leprechaun; Mr Jacquel (Anubis) and Mr Ibis (Thoth), two small-town embalmers; Czernobog, a pagan Slavic god of darkness, who lives with the Zorya sisters, daughters of Dazhbog; Easter; Mr Nancy or Anansi the spider, the West African and Carribean trickster god, now a neatly-dressed old man (Wearring 2009: 244). 11 The reason for Wednesday's visits to all of these gods of old is his plan to recruit them to fight against the new gods in an upcoming war. These new gods are gods of the Internet, technology, media, credit cards and highway and they seem to have the upper hand: one of the fundamental ideas of American Gods appears to be that gods exist only because people believe in them. Therefore, the new gods were created only because the Internet, media, technology and other commodities of modern life play a more important role in people's lives each day. The more time and money are sacrificed to serve these new gods, the more powerful they grow. At the same time, the old gods, who were worshipped anywhere between 14 000 B.C. and the 1700s, are forgotten and diminished, forced to prostitute and beg for worship (Singh 2007: 155). However, as powerful as the new gods are, they lack character, personality and individuality. At the same time, the old gods act as humans with their "personal qualities, their idiosyncrasies, their vanity, their flaws" (Sings 2007: 156). By juxtaposing these two worlds, it quickly becomes clear where Gaiman's own sympathies lie: with the gods of old, who in the end triumph over the new ones. As was already mentioned above, American Gods is Neil Gaiman's attempt to describe and criticise a part of America, which he, an immigrant, is able to fathom. As an outsider, Gaiman is in a position in which it is possible for him to notice features that Americans themselves might miss. Perhaps Shadow was created as an outsider for the same reason: being a son of a communicator in the Foreign Service, Shadow moved around a lot as a child, both in Europe and in the United States, not really settling down anywhere. Even in the present, he is "a newcomer to picturesque Lakeside, an unknown relative to the gods, a tourist to the towns and cities through which Wednesday drags him" (Hill 2005: 21). Yet Shadow, Mark Hill (2005: 22) advocates, embodies such all-American characteristics as strength, nobility, courage and the need for justice, which makes us, the readers, like and respect him. 12 What is more, both Baba Singh (2007: 159) and Mark Hill (2005: 25-26) suggest that by alienating Shadow from the modern American society and by contrasting the old and the new world, Gaiman points out the flaws in the latter and critiques them. In the contemporary America Gaiman describes, "opiates have become the religion of the masses" (Gaiman 2005 [2001]: 237) and television is "the idiot box. [It is] the TV. [It is] the all-seeing eye and the world of the cathode ray. [It is] the boob tube. [It is] the little shrine the family gathers to adore" and to sacrifice their time and sometimes each other (Gaiman 2005 [2001]: 189). The new gods of media, technology, the Internet and highways are, consequently, described as shallow, crass, rude, arrogant and foolish, interested only in power, money and the satisfaction of carnal desires. In contrast, the gods of the past are not without their flaws, but are nevertheless seen as energetic, ingenious and brave, valuing justice and freedom above else. Here Gaiman definitely takes a romanticised and nostalgic view of the past, but as Hill (2005: 28-29) points out, American Gods does not condemn the modern American society, it rather points out its shortcomings, since they are there, and reminds the readers of the positive American qualities. The discussion on contemporary concerns related to the loss of connection with gods and to meaningless religions in American Gods is also important for Mathilda Slabbert and Leonie Viljoen (2006: 137). They believe that by combining traditional elements of fantasy – characters, symbols and metaphors from various mythologies and religions, for example – with modern divinities – such as gods of technology, freeway and media – and with elements of travel writing, mystery, horror and philosophy, Gaiman has created an unusual sort of fantasy, a postmodern, metamythological mixture of the ancient and the modern (Slabbert and Viljoen 2006: 137-138). This is evidence of Gaiman's ability to weave together different myths and religions in order to comment on universally relevant problems as in Neverwhere. 15 mean you aren't scared. Being brave means you are scared, really scared, badly scared, and you do the right thing anyway" (Gaiman 2013 [2002]: xv). Yet David Rudd (2008: 159-160) argues that Coraline is concerned with much more than being brave, it explores issues such as identity, sex, death, evil, desire and violence that interest readers of all ages and that are especially important for children to work through at some point in their lives. Rudd (2008: 160) continues by claiming that identity, finding one's place in the world and being acknowledged in one's own right are central themes in Coraline. Taking a psychoanalytic approach drawing largely on Freud and Lacan, he points out the subtle ways by which Coraline is negotiating her place between the two worlds, the Symbolic and the Real, and by which she is trying to define her identity and come to terms with the realisation that she has to become independent from her parents (Rudd 2008: 164-165). Since Coraline is classified as domestic fiction, in which home and the family are central throughout the narrative and which attempts to convey a lesson, albeit blended with fantasy, there is another issue that has especially been of interest to feminists, namely, the relationship between Coraline and her mother as well as her other mother (Russell 2012: 162- 163). Danielle Russell (2012: 161), similarly to David Rudd, is also interested in female identity, but for her, finding and defining it are related to motherhood. More precisely, Russell (2012: 162-163) sees Coraline as a "matrilineal narrative", in which "smother mothers", who would obstruct their daughter's passage to maturation by keeping them in perpetual childhood, are contrasted against "genuine mothers", who empower their daughters to become independent. These "genuine mothers" do not prevent their daughters from growing up, they rather limit and guide them on their way, as Coraline's mother does in the novel. What is more, Danielle Russell (2012: 163-164) explains that not only has Gaiman created a story that explores the issue of identity from various aspects, but it also comments clearly on gender roles. More precisely, both of Coraline's parents work at home and do 16 household chores and in that, they seem to be equal partners. Particularly noteworthy is the fact that Coraline's mother has a life beyond being a mother and a wife, a claim evidenced by her lack of skill in cooking, shopping and other domestic affairs and her interest in her work. In opposition to Mrs Jones, Coraline's other mother demonstrates her domestic prowess and her desire to do nothing but take care of Coraline. Even though Coraline is tempted by the other mother's offer of fulfilling her every desire, she nevertheless chooses "her own mother, her real, wonderful, maddening, infuriating, glorious mother" (Gaiman 2013 [2002]: 159) and by doing so, she denounces the traditionally domestic female role model. With these three novels, Gaiman has proven himself to be an author with endless imagination. His imaginary worlds are populated with gods and other mythical creatures, monsters and ordinary men and women. To investigate more thoroughly the depiction of female characters, the following chapter will examine the nature of fantasy fiction, discuss gender stereotypes and consider a few problems in regard to male authors writing female characters. 17 CHAPTER 1 1.1 What is Fantasy Fiction? 'Fantasy fiction' or more generally 'fantasy' is a term that cannot be easily defined. As Rosemary Jackson (2002 [1981]: 8) explains, the 'fantastic' is derived from the Latin verb 'phantasticus' meaning 'to make visible or manifest', so that in reality all literature could be labelled 'fantastic'. 'Fantasy', however, has been used as a term within literary criticism to refer to genres ranging from myths, legends and fairy tales to science fiction and horror stories – in other words, to any type of literature that is not primarily realistic. Even though all of these forms share similar features and do represent the fantastic, they are not what might be called pure fantasy or full fantasy (Pringle 2006a: 8). One possible definition, offered in The Ultimate Encyclopedia of Fantasy (ibid.), suggests that fantasy "seems to deal in the fulfilment of desire", meaning that fantasy fiction seeks to satisfy the desire for a "kinder world, a better self, a wholer experience, a sense of truly belonging". In that way, fantasy first and foremost appeals to emotions such as desire, nostalgia, yearning and even laughter, thus setting it apart from science fiction. Science fiction is as difficult a term to define as fantasy. To some extent, these two genres overlap – for example, both of them evoke a sense of wonder in the reader –, but mostly they are seen as distinct from each other. One possible definition suggested in the Encyclopedia of Fantasy (1997c) states that "the label sf [science fiction] normally designates a text whose story is explicitly or implicitly extrapolated from scientific or historical premises". To put it differently, if a work of science fiction does not seem particularly plausible, it may still be possible or at least arguable. This "thought experiment, the 'what if?'", according to Farah Mendlesohn (2004 [2003]: 4), is a vital element in science fiction, which in turn leads to cognitive estrangement, to use Mendlesohn's (2004 [2003]: 5) term. It refers to the feeling in readers that something in the fictional world in a science fiction text 20 psychoanalysis and psychoanalytic readings of texts". More precisely, she argues that fantasy as a literary form helps to uncover those cultural and social norms that are invisible or unseen, instilled deep into people's minds, or rather into their unconscious, since authors of fantasy, like all writers, write in a historical, social, economic and political environment (Jackson 2002 [1981]: 2) and thus, either consciously or unconsciously, incorporate current issues into their works. In that way, fantasy fiction enables authors to comment on significant social, political or cultural matters and at the same time makes it possible for readers and writers alike to work through serious problems. This feature of fantasy has been noted as one of the most important by other theorists as well. For Deborah O'Keefe (2003: 11-12), for instance, fantasy fiction does either covertly or overtly convey author's views, but since in fantasy everything is seen as magical, mythical or uncanny, then everything is more likely to be subject to examination and interpretation than in realistic fiction, for example. The unreal world of fantasy actually does not require readers to do even that, O'Keefe goes on, it might be there only to be enjoyed; in this way, fantasy is a sort of escapist literature, enabling people to flee from their everyday lives. Indeed, the fuzzy form of fantasy gives its authors the liberty to create alternative worlds in which they are able to freely express their ideas, including writing about some issue close to their heart as Neil Gaiman did in Neverwhere, but it also gives readers the freedom to ignore it all and to just lose themselves in deep, strong reading, to use Harold Bloom's term. However, fantasy fiction does not provide only the means for social commentary or for escaping the everyday world. Deborah O'Keefe (2003: 13, 16-17) states that nowadays, both adults and children are very likely to be reading the same books of fantasy and taking advantage of the opportunity to identify with brave, resourceful characters, which help children in particular in their psychological growth. O'Keefe (2003: 18) reports that Bruno Bettelheim has convincingly argued that reading fairy tales helps children to learn to deal with 21 difficult situations and complex feelings, thus contributing to their growth into intelligent individuals. A good example to support Bettelheim's claim is the worldwide success of J.K. Rowling's Harry Potter series: not only has Rowling created characters with whom children and young adults (and even adults) can identify easily, but it is possible through these characters to learn to cope with wishes and fears inside oneself as well as with complicated situations outside (O'Keefe 2003: 18; Black 2003: 238). 1.2 Gender differences between men and women Even though commentary on and reflection of current social, political and economic matters forms only a part of the significance of fantasy fiction, the authors' participation in and observations of their social and cultural background are the most relevant to the current thesis. To reiterate, when authors write, no matter what they are writing or whether they are male or female, they are subject to various influences: their own past experiences, social and cultural background and conditions; the environment that surrounds them at the time of writing; the books and other pieces of writing they have already read; the authors they love, admire, imitate or know personally. Joanna Russ in Images of Women in Fiction: Feminist Perspectives (Comillon 1973: 4) even goes as far as to claim that there are certain storylines or myths, as she calls them, that underlie every piece of fiction ever written and that all authors consciously or unconsciously follow these patterns. It may be said that this is especially true in the case of fantasy fiction, since it depends heavily on the past and its archetypes (Encyclopedia of Fantasy 1997b). Joanna Russ, however, argues her case further and claims that that authors writing fiction have not treated their female characters kindly, since "[c]ulture is male" (Comillon 1973: 4), meaning that authors living in the Western world live in a patriarchy – a system, such as a family or a society, in which men have all or almost all of the power (Collins 22 English Dictionary n.d.) – and therefore are influenced by patriarchal views. Here fantasy's reliance on the past becomes particularly relevant, because while fantasy as a genre has been considered to be more generous in the treatment of women than, say, science fiction or romance, then the influence and the imposed limitations of patriarchal bias are frequently obeyed and left unquestioned (Encyclopedia of Fantasy 1997b). Patriarchy as a system that has dominated the Western world to a greater or lesser extent until the present day, has been under close scrutiny and harsh criticism by the feminist movement already from the end of the nineteenth century. Gerda Lerner (1986: 238-239), one of the most prominent scholars of women's history, defines patriarchy first in a narrow meaning as "a system /.../ in which the male head of the household ha[s] absolute legal and economic power over his dependent female and male family members"; and second in a wider sense as "the manifestation and institutionalization of male dominance over women and children in the family and the extension of male dominance over women in society in general", but which does not necessarily imply that women have absolutely no power, rights, influence or resources. Other scholars, even though their definitions of patriarchy differ, have emphasised, as Mary Murray (2005 [1995]: 8) concludes, the "economic, political and ideological domination of women by men, which may include but is not by no means limited to sexual domination and paternal power". For example, Kate Millett (2000 [1969]: 25) in her Sexual Politics claims that "our society, like all other historical civilizations, is a patriarchy" in which the male domination is twofold: men dominate women and older men dominate younger men. Sylvia Walby (1991 [1990]: 20) defines patriarchy "as a system of social structures and practises in which men dominate, oppress and exploit women". Marxist feminists such as Roisin McDonough and Rachel Harrison (2013 [1978]: 40) maintain "a dual notion of patriarchy as, first, the control of women's fertility and sexuality in monogamous marriage 25 government. Yet only in the more advanced postindustrial societies have such changes brought about a shift towards gender equality with more women in higher professional positions and with more political influence (Inglehart and Norris 2003: 10-11). It is clear, then, that in the 150 or so years since the beginning of the feminist movement, the position of women in Western societies has changed radically. Nowadays, more women than ever before in history have received or are receiving education in a wide range of fields, which greatly increases their options in life. Consequently, many women look and apply for a job, not only because their financial situation demands it, but rather as a means of achieving a sense of accomplishment or fulfilment with oneself, of finding one's identity and a place in the world outside the home (Eagly et al 2008: 112). Resent research has even gone so far as to claim that if differences in genitalia and secondary sex characteristics put aside, men and women are actually quite similar as far as their personality, cognitive ability and leadership skills are concerned (American Psychological Association 2005). Psychologist Janet Shibley Hyde conducted an analysis of 46 meta-analyses that were carried out in the last two decades of the 20th century. During her research she found that gender differences seemed to play a very little role in regard to the psychological variables that were examined (American Psychological Association 2005). That similarity becomes even more pronounced in postindustrial societies. Alice H. Eagly, Wendy Wood and Mary C. Johannesen-Schmidt suggest that there are two main reasons for the division of men and women into distinctive if complementary croups, reasons that lose their validity for the most part in postindustrial societies. Firstly, they believe that women's ability to bear children and give birth determines that women and not men are forced to choose occupations that accommodate having and raising children (Eagly et al 2008: 271- 272). This, however, becomes less important in societies where the birth rate is low, where 26 babies can be fed in other ways than nursing or where other people can take care of children – in other words, in Western or postindustrial societies (Eagly et al 2008: 272). Secondly, Eagly and her colleagues propose that men's larger frame and greater physical strength and speed direct them towards roles and occupations that require exactly these characteristics (Eagly et al 2008: 272). In societies where, for example, agriculture or hunting are central to economy, this would certainly be true: jobs that demand strength and speed would definitely be done by men, whereas women would perform tasks more appropriate to their physical abilities, like cleaning, cooking and doing the laundry. Yet in postindustrial societies, where technology is advanced enough to be used to make difficult jobs easier and where services, information and research are more important than, say, manufacture or agriculture, there are few tasks that require great strength to be fulfilled (Eagly et al 2008: 272). Eagly, Wood and Johannesen-Schmidt do make a convincing and logical case: in Western, i.e. postindustrial societies, there are several benefits provided by the society itself that make it easier for women to plan ahead in terms of family and to choose whatever career path they prefer. What is more, men, especially fathers are encouraged to stay at home and take care of their children or household (Kite 2001: 215). The requirement of great strength and speed in performing certain tasks appears to be disappearing as well since the development of technology has made quite a number of jobs less physically demanding (Correll 2004: 93). In addition, it seems that, based on Janet Shibley Hyde's research, men and women are psychologically not that different either. However, instead of claiming that gender inequality does not exist in the 21st century Western world, Hyde as well as Eagly and her colleagues stress that even though gender differences might be instable and thus subject to change over time, they are still present in contemporary society: the manifestation of gender differences depends much on the context in which they appear – in other words, whether 27 gender is a relevant characteristic in a given situation or not – as well as on other factors such as occupation, race, level of education and nationality, which will not be discussed in great detail in this paper (American Psychological Association 2005; Eagly et al 2008: 225; 274- 275). The use of the terms 'sex' and 'gender' is often a problematic one and usually a definition is called for to explain the author's understanding of them. In this thesis, 'gender' refers "to the socially constructed attributes and 'performed' roles that are mapped on to biologically sexed bodies in historically and culturally specific ways" (Merrick 2004 [2003]: 241). Following from this, 'sex' denotes biological sex, i.e. the anatomy, including internal and external reproductive organs, hormones and chromosomes of a person that make it possible to classify them as male, female or intersex (American Psychological Association 2011). The reason why gender may be regarded as the most important in the previous list of factors is that the sex of a person is in most cases one of the first things that is noticed about them and the basis for their automatic and unconscious categorisation as man or woman (Eagly et al 2008: 224). This, of course, is a simplified view of the matter, since it is possible to define many more 'genders' between or rather in addition to man and woman, such as transgender, transvestite, transsexual, hermaphrodite, trans man and trans woman (Eagly et al 2008: 207), but due to the limited scope of this thesis, the dual distinction between man and woman will suffice. Even so, defining people according to their gender is always culturally meaningful and in most cases determines what is expected of people, how they are treated and influences the general course of their lives (Eagly et al 2008: 1-2). Dividing people into men and women has, then, a profound influence on every aspect of their lives. Mary E. Kite in her essay Changing Times, Changing Gender Roles: Who Do We Want Women and Men to Be? (2001: 215) suggests that this is due to the power of our 30 and without children in their care, their psychological equality being granted, are still thought of in the same terms as all other women (Eagly et al 2008: 222). In other words, this means that popular notions in regard to men and women are applied to social categories, not individuals. The power of gender stereotypes should not be underestimated, as Linda Brannon (2004: 160) argues. According to her, gender stereotypes determine our ways of perceiving men and women and even when our beliefs and opinions differ from reality, gender stereotypes can nevertheless be those yardsticks against which we measure ourselves and others. For the most part, since it is expected of them by society and because it seems to be more beneficial to have a sort of division of labour between men and women, people at least partially tend to conform to gender stereotypes (Eagly et al 2008: 277-279). What is more, in evaluating oneself and others, both men and women are likely to view behaviour that deviates from the norm negatively (Kite 2001: 221; Eagly et al 2008: 278), but the severity of this violation depends largely on which and how many characteristics are overstepped. For instance, violators exhibiting character traits usually associated with the opposite sex are deemed less likeable than those who possess traits from both sexes (Kite 2001: 221). In addition to the nature and number of characteristics violated, the sex of the violator is also of significance: women who transgress their traditional gender roles are viewed in a more positive light than men (Kite 2001: 224). What is more, Kay Bussey and Albert Bandura (Eagly et al 2008: 106) cite several studies which report that parents, too, make this distinction in raising their children. According to them, parents deem the activities and toys usually considered appropriate for little girls to be more gender-specific than those generally associated with boys; in other words, it is less likely for a little girl to be reprimanded for playing with toy cars or climbing a tree than for a boy for playing with dolls. 31 Due to their subtle and intricate nature as well as their influence, gender stereotypes have been the focus of research for decades. Based on the studies carried out so far, gender stereotypes as well as gender roles can be analysed and viewed on three different levels: first, character traits commonly associated with men and women; secondly, the physical appearance of men and women; and thirdly, the societal roles appropriate for men and women (Kite 2001: 216). To begin with the personality traits traditionally associated with either men or women, it still has to be kept in mind that gender roles and gender stereotypes and thus gender-related character traits are fuzzy sets that are not applied to individuals but rather to the general categories of men and women. Alice H. Eagly, Wendy Wood and Mary C. Johannesen- Schmidt (Eagly et al 2008: 274), therefore, suggest that firstly, the cluster of features commonly regarded as feminine is related to the welfare of the whole community. This cluster, labelled by researchers as 'communal' or expressive' (Mary E. Kite 2001: 216), is composed of character traits such as being affectionate, kind, caring, considerate towards others (Eagly et al 2008: 274) and, as Linda Brannon (2004: 162) adds, being passive, dependent, pure, refined and delicate. Secondly, the qualities usually associated with men are named 'agentive' or 'instrumental' (Mary E. Kite 2001: 216), indicating that men are deemed to be oriented not towards the community but the self instead (Eagly et al 2008: 274). This is expressed by being assertive, self-confident, in control, active, independent and strong (Eagly et al 2008: 274; Brannon 2004: 162). Looking at these two clusters of characteristics it becomes clear that they seem to be on the two opposite ends of a binary scale: if men are active, then women are passive; if men are independent, then women are dependent and so on. The traits stereotypically attributed to both sexes are, therefore, mutually exclusive and complementary, thus confirming the statement that what is perceived feminine is not masculine and vice versa. 32 These groups of character traits become more strongly associated with each sex the more people believe men and women truly do behave that way (Eagly et al 2008: 275). However, since these are beliefs, they are subject to change over time, as are the opinions concerned with the physical appearance of men and women. Mary E. Kite (2001: 216) proposes that nowadays in Western societies, men are stereotypically thought to be strong, rugged and broad-shouldered, whereas women dainty, pretty and graceful. Mike C. Parent and Bonnie Moradi (2011: 959) add to this list that in the case of women, being thin and investing time into taking care of oneself is, in particular, one aspect against which women are judged. Be that as it may, stereotypical physical attributes, just as character traits, are nevertheless opinions and beliefs that people hold, which means that even though men and women may not fulfil these standards they may strive towards it, but at the same time, may choose not to do so (Eagly et al 2008: 104). The already mentioned researchers Eagly, Wood and Johannesen-Schmidt (Eagly et al 2008: 275) believe that personality and appearance put aside, the most significant differences between men and women appear in the roles they are expected to play in society. It thus has been and is assumed that men are to become heads of households, who handle all financial matters (Kite 2001: 216). Consequently, work outside the home becomes a major focus of their lives (Parent, Moradi 2009: 176). Women, on the other hand, are to concern themselves with matters of the home, caring for their children and tackling household tasks, including cleaning, cooking and even decorating (Mahalik et al 2005: 424). What is more, the nature of relationships men and women enter as well as the behavioural expectations in them vary between genders. It is acceptable (and even preferred) for men to have multiple sexual relationships and to refrain from committing emotionally to their partners (Parent, Moradi 2009: 176). Women, however, are presumed to form deep, supportive relationships with 35 1.4 Gender in fantasy fiction Even though fantasy has become quite a popular literary genre, with examples of contemporary novels such as J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series and George R. R. Martin's A Song of Ice and Fire series, not to mention a few older classics like J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings trilogy and Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea series, there has been little academic interest in the genre (Nestvold, Lake 2008), in spite of the fact that the Internet abounds with informal opinion articles. Moreover, if those opinion articles may be concerned with marginal works of fantasy or science fiction, then the majority of academic articles tend to analyse fantasy fiction that has already been established as literature, such as Lewis Carroll's Alice in Wonderland or, more recently, J. K. Rowling's Harry Potter series (Nestvold, Lake 2008), thus neglecting not only peripheral works of fantasy, but the novels, short stories and graphic novels of some other popular authors. According to Peter Hunt, Millicent Lenz and Robin Anne Reid, there are several reasons to literary theorists' and critics' reluctance to analyse fantasy fiction. Reid argues, firstly, that fantasy is deemed both politically conservative, and thus perhaps not of sufficient interest, as well as formulaic and repetitive (Reid 2009: 62). The last characteristic is exemplified by certain elements and motifs that repeatedly occur in fantasy, such as the young hero on a quest, wise advisers and evil monsters (Hunt, Lenz 2003 [2001]: 2) and by the authors' tendency to write series of at least three books, if not more. Peter Hunt and Millicent Lenz (2003 [2001]: 2) also agree with Reid in that fantasy indeed tends to resort to certain formulas, as it were, and add that it has also been accused of being childish and escapist (Hunt, Lenz 2003 [2001]: 2). However, as it was previously mentioned, the property of fantasy of providing an escape to another world can be seen as a positive quality rather than a negative one. In regard to fantasy being childish and thus perhaps too simplistic to be analysed on an academic level, then the above discussion proved that most fantasy fiction, 36 either for children or adults, is a powerful tool for commenting on social issues or for helping to talk about delicate problems; and even if it does only provide simple delight in reading and a sense of wonder while doing it (Hunt, Lenz 2003 [2001]: 5), it is free to do so. As far as gender is concerned, Hunt and Lenz (2003 [2001]: 3) suggest that the formulaic nature of fantasy may be its greatest weakness. More precisely, in the most common form of fantasy, the tale with the questing hero called heroic fantasy or epic fantasy, women have been primarily marginalised, depicted in stereotypical roles such as mothers or seen as dangerous. Especially in epic fantasy, images of a dangerously erotic woman whose beauty and sexuality sometimes earn her the title of goddess abound (Reid 2009: 34). This kind of visual objectification of women directly carries out the male fantasy – a phenomenon named by Laura Mulvey (2001 [1975]: 397-398) the "male gaze", according to which woman "holds the look, plays to and signifies male desire". In fantasy, particularly in films and comics, the male gaze is expressed by emphasising the curve of the female body or with feminine, sexualised poses, gestures and gazes (Reid 2009: 90-91). In relation to the formulaic nature of fantasy fiction, Hunt and Lenz also quote Ursula K. Le Guin, one of the most prominent female writers of fantasy and the author of the famous Earthsea series, who ironically has said that "[a]uthority is male. It's a fact. My fantasy dutifully reported the fact. But is that all a fantasy does – report facts?" (quoted in Hunt, Lenz 2003 [2001]: 3), thus admitting that she, too, among other authors, has succumbed to the limitations set by the standard patriarchal views in Western societies. Yet Guin's own fiction exhibits a change over time: if her Earthsea series, beginning with A Wizard of Earthsea (1968) and The Tombs of Atuan (1971) did at first portray men and women according to traditional, patriarchal standards, then the later Tehanu (1990) already questions several gender-related issues in the earlier books (Reid 2009: 63). 37 Thus, Le Guin is correct in asking if all fantasy does is report facts, because, after all, the purpose of fantasy since the beginning of the genre has been to oppose the dominant worldview (Mathews 2002 [1997]: 3). In a way it has done so in that fantasy in general can be seen as being more generous in depicting women as, for instance, science fiction or horror (Encyclopedia of Fantasy 1997a), all of which can be classified as speculative fiction, a term denoting a broad literary genre "encompassing any fiction with supernatural, fantastic, or futuristic elements" (Collins English Dictionary n.d.). In fantasy fiction, strong female heroes can already be found in works published at the beginning of the twentieth century, such as the adventurous Dorothy Gale in The Wonderful Wizard of Oz (1900) by Frank L. Baum (Reid 2009: 35). The questioning of both male and female stereotypes in literature continued with authors such as John Erskine, George Viereck and Paul Elridge (Reid 2009: 37) until the 1960s and 1970s, when authors of fantasy, women in particular, began using "the mode of fantasy to recuperate female archetypal roles that have fallen into stereotypes; to recover lost matriarchal tradition in myth and history; to deal explicitly with women-centered issues such as rape and gender inequality; and to reenvision traditional fantasy from a feminized perspective of caring and community" (Reid 2009: 62). Female characters in science fiction, as an example in comparison to fantasy, have mostly been objectified and sexualised, especially during the Golden Age of science fiction from the 1940s until the early 1960s, when most of the authors as well as readers were or were at least assumed to be male (Reid 2009: 170). Only since the 1960s have authors of science fiction began to challenge the stereotypical images of women as damsels in distress, sexual interests, evil witches, wives and mothers (Reid 2009: 173). Although this tendency is not evident in all the works of contemporary authors of science fiction, the number of writers who believe that gender is a social construct rather than a biologically or historically determined notion is growing (Reid 2009: 170-171). 40 women in society at large". The early influential feminist thinkers such as Simone de Beauvoir and her The Second Sex, Mary Ellmann and her Thinking About Women and Kate Millett and her Sexual Politics all focus primarily on writings by men. All of them criticise the image of woman as it is created by man to embody characteristics such as passivity, helplessness, instability, piety, irrationality, compliancy, to name just a few (Robbins 2000: 59-64). Even though focus on representations of women in literature has shifted to other forms of media, like television and advertisements which are rich in images (Robbins 2000: 69), some current feminists are still interested in literature and express similar ideas to those of the early thinkers. For example, if it is assumed among some feminist theorists that men's writing differs from that of women's, then Cheryl Lange (2008) goes even as far as to suggest that male authors are unable to properly depict female characters or write from a female point of view. Judith Kegan Gardiner (1981: 348) proposes two main reasons for this: the first and the most common one is that men simply do not share the same experiences as women; and secondly that there exists a "female consciousness" that produces inherently feminine styles and structures that are impossible for men to imitate. The first explanation seems to be valid to some extent, based on the earlier discussion of gender roles and gender stereotypes in Western societies. If men and women are indeed assigned gender-based roles and consequently are seen and treated differently, then it may be more difficult for men to write female characters in non-stereotypical roles. Gender-based conditioning begins already at a very young age. To make it clearer, babies in cultures similar to ours are already at birth sentenced to become either "proper" men or "proper" women, depending on their biological sex. As they are growing up, they then acquire modes of behaviour that are approved by society. If it is one still saturated with patriarchal views either fully or partially, then it means that most boys are already at a very 41 young age taught by such social agents as parents, the media, their friends and acquaintances the standards of what it is to be masculine (Mahalik et al 2005: 417). To put it differently, they are taught to become the dominant gender over women, which would entail becoming strong, independent, confident, breadwinners for themselves and their families and successful leaders. Most importantly, according to patriarchal beliefs, men are expected to steer clear of everything feminine, like displays of excessive emotion (Parent, Moradi 2009: 176). Girls, on the other hand, are to become modest, warm, kind, family-oriented and domestic, embodying the qualities that would best complement those of men. Furthermore, not only are girls expected to direct their lives towards becoming housewives and mothers, they are socially pressured to take care of themselves in order to look pretty (Mahalik et al 2005: 424). Referring back to the previous discussion of gender roles, differences in the experiences of women and men become clearer. More precisely, believing it is true that at least to some extent men are regarded as the dominant group in society, they are expected to provide for themselves and their families and be successful at work. Women, at the same time, are considered to be best adapted to handling household matters and raising children. If women do work outside the home, they are covertly steered towards more feminine fields, while men, who are seen as good at mathematics, are encouraged to choose specialties in science, maths or engineering, for example. Following from this, it is possible to argue that as men and women do face different expectations, they lead different lives and consequently have different worldviews. Of course, in the case of both boys and girls, it still has to be remembered that even though children are educated within the framework of patriarchy, they have the choice to challenge this system and not to act out the abovementioned gender stereotypes and roles (Eagly et al 2008: 104). To continue, it is therefore logical for some critics to assume that since men appear to be to a greater or lesser degree alien to the female experience, they are not willing to take on a 42 female voice or write female characters. Alan Williamson (2001: 1), who has studied male writers and their female protagonists, suggests that there might be another side to this. More specifically, he believes that writing a female character entails identifying with women, which may jeopardise male authors' own gender identity. As a result, it is possible that while these men experience the emotions traditionally labelled as 'feminine', they fail to conform to the gender roles prescribed to them and thus fail to be proper members of their sex. Williamson (2001: 2-3) goes on to underline an additional aspect that may have been deterring men from writing women. He claims that male writers have been subject to much negative criticism by feminists, who argue that men are not able to know how women think or feel, which in turn leaves only one option to male authors: to write flat, empty and stereotypical characters that serve to perpetuate the patriarchal system. Laura P. Claridge and Elizabeth Langland (1990: 3-4), too, warn us in the introduction of their book Out of Bounds: Male Writers and Gendered Criticism that even if a male writer appears to support feminist ideas in his works, his true agenda may be something different altogether. For Claridge and Langland, the word "feminism" is not simply a political term that denotes the struggle towards the economic, social and political equality between men and women, it also entails a true respect and concern for women's autonomy and independence. So when some male authors are interested in what can be called a feminine mode of expression, they do not necessarily concern themselves with advocating equal rights for women or their independence, but rather they wish to expand their own space of expression and thus escape the constraints of masculinity. In other words, some men adopt a feminine voice in order to extend themselves, because just as women are oppressed by patriarchy, some men feel that the masculine gender norms, which are also created within the patriarchal system and after its laws, restrain them. At the same time, Williamson (2001: 2), quoting Wendy Lesser from her book His Other Half, advocates a more positive opinion by saying that there is more than one way for 45 Taking this into account, the following chapter will then attempt to answer these questions: has Neil Gaiman in his novels Neverwhere, American Gods and Coraline depicted his female characters either stereotypically or not; if not, do these female characters embody any feminist values that might reflect the author's own ideas; and is it possible to detect a temporal development in his portrayal of women based on these three novels? 46 CHAPTER 2 2.1 Methodology There were six female characters analysed in Neverwhere, ten in American Gods and three in Coraline. Only the main female characters, i.e. those who contributed to or participated in the plots of their respective novels, were included in the analysis. Characters such as airport workers, waitresses, cashiers, people on the streets and so on were not analysed. All characters were evaluated according to the evaluation form in Appendix 1, which is borrowed largely from Laura Solomon (1998) (Appendix 2), but modified to fit the demands of the present thesis. The list of stereotypical masculine and feminine features in the evaluation form is compiled based on the discussion of gender stereotypes in section 1.3 in the current thesis. The questions the analysis seeks to answer are: are the female characters active or passive?; are they central or marginal?; do they have an occupation?; is their appearance described?; what characteristics are used to describe them and what characteristics do they display?; are these characteristics stereotypically feminine or masculine or neither? 2.2 Neverwhere 2.2.1 Lady Door The first female supporting character the readers meet is Door, who at that moment is being chased by Mr Vandemar and Mr Croup, two vicious hitmen. By then she is quite tired and with the last of her strength she opens a door to London Above, only to collapse at the feet of Richard, who takes her to his home and helps her to recover. There, Richard observes that Door is "dressed in a variety of clothes thrown over each other: odd clothes, dirty velvets, 47 muddy lace, rips and holes through which other layers and styles [can] be seen" (Gaiman 2013 [1996]: 30); that on top of this medley of clothes and fabrics Door is wearing an old brown leather jacket, which makes her look small and vulnerable and which in its own way acts like an armour; that her hair is "a dark shade of auburn, with copper and bronze highlights" (Gaiman 2013 [1996]: 54); and that it is difficult to guess her age from her appearance, which might range from fifteen and sixteen to much older. Richard's verdict after finishing his account of Door in his mind is that she looks like as if "she'd done a midnight raid on the History of Fashion section of the Victoria and Albert Museum, and was still wearing everything she'd taken" (Gaiman 2013 [1996]: 30). Her clothing seems out of the ordinary for a member of London Above, as Richard's observation indicates, which in turn suggests that Door is definitely a member of London Below, one of the people who have fallen through the cracks, to use Gaiman's own definition. Yet there is something vaguely aristocratic about the materials Door is wearing, such as velvet and lace. Her choice to cover herself with a leather jacket is also significant, because by doing so, she is apparently trying to hide her identity as well. Door's eyes in her pale, elfin face, are her most remarkable feature. When Richard looks into them properly for the first time, he notices that it is almost impossible for him to tell what colour they are: they are not the traditional blues, greens, browns or greys we are used to, but rather they are similar to fire opals of "burning greens and blues and even reds and yellows that [vanish] and [glint] as she move[s]" (Gaiman 2013 [1996]: 40). Her eyes are so remarkable that the readers are reminded of them on several occasions throughout the book and they are the feature that make Door look beautiful. Here a difference between male and female characters also appears: if the appearance of both male and female characters is described at some point in the novel, either at their introduction or shortly afterwards and with no considerable difference in length or detail, then in the case of female characters, Gaiman 50 Islington and his employees, Mr Croup and Mr Vandemar. However, Door's magical skills are one of her weaknesses as well: if she opens too many doors in a short period of time, she becomes tired and weaker than usual, needing some time for recovery. Next to her magical power that quickly drains her energy, Door's family, who were all killed violently by Mr Vandemar and Mr Croup, could be seen as one of her weaknesses. It is the memory of this event that at times overcomes Door and renders her helpless and sobbing. Such displays of emotion are generally considered a feminine characteristic (Parent, Moradi 2009: 176). Other female characters are described as calmer and more composed. Yet these episodes never last long as Door recovers quite quickly. In addition, instead of passively lamenting her family's death, Door decides to find out who committed the murder and have her revenge. Here Gaiman has changed the traditional format of a fantasy story: instead of a questing hero/protagonist, one of the supporting female characters is on a mission, in which the main character, i.e. Richard, only participates. Overall, it is possible to argue that Door is a quite round and likeable character, since the readers receive information about her past, her motivations and her personality. It is possible to sympathise with her loss and relate to her desire for revenge, because the reasons for it are known. Door is also an active character, perhaps even the most important one in the novel, because without her none of the events in Neverwhere would have happened. Similarly to her eyes, which constantly change their colour, Door appears to defy being classified either traditionally feminine or traditionally masculine. On the one hand, she definitely is small, fragile and physically weak, depending on others for help and protection. She also cares for others' well-being, e.g. when she is unable to leave Richard behind to fend for himself in London Below, and at times she is emotional and excessively trusting, which makes it possible for angel Islington to deceive her. At the same time, Door demonstrates that she is 51 intelligent and clever, able to lead, ambitious and concerned with matters beyond the personal sphere, i.e. the unification of London Below. 2.2.2 Hunter In creating Hunter, Gaiman has recycled the ancient Greek myth of the Amazons. According to it, the Amazons were a nation composed mainly or exclusively of women who were armed, rode horses, hunted and plundered and thus had no need for men except for reproduction, so that the Amazons would not die out (Blok 1995[1994]: 1). Subsequently, the image of the heroic and independent Amazon has been used and propagated by feminists and feminist writers especially since the second half of the twentieth century (Encyclopedia of Fantasy 1997b). Hunter in Neverwhere, too, displays many of the features that are reminiscent of a true Amazonian warrior. When Richard sees her for the first time, she is described as "a tall woman, with long, tawny hair, and skin the colour of burnt caramel" (Gaiman 2013[1996]: 101). Also, Richard finds it difficult to place her accent, but her voice is "rich as cream and honey" (Gaiman 2013[1996]: 100), which is emphasised throughout the novel similarly to Door's eyes. Her clothing of dappled leather is in modest shades of grey and brown, completed with a duffel bag, a staff and a knife at her waist. Even though she does not mention her name, it is possible to guess her main profession from her clothes, which clearly are meant for camouflage, and from her accessories, which could be used for travelling and hunting. All in all, Richard concludes his appraisal of Hunter by stating that without a doubt she is the most beautiful woman he has ever seen. Although Hunter's appearance is not described in detail, the emphasis on her beauty suggests that she is attractive to men or, to borrow from Laura Mulvey (2001 [1975]: 397-298), styled according to male fantasy. In other words she is there to be looked at and enjoyed by men. 52 Yet Hunter is as dangerous as she is gorgeous. She proves on several occasions that she is both physically strong as well as skilful in handling different weapons, which enable her to fight and defeat male characters, for instance, when auditioning for the position of bodyguard for Door, and consequently protect Door from danger in London Below. As the novel progresses, Gaiman reveals how skilful Hunter really is and how great her passion for hunting has grown over the years: she is able to move without sound and sleep standing up, constantly keeping guard; she fights like "Emma Peel, Bruce Lee and a particularly vicious tornado all rolled into one" (Gaiman 2013[1996]: 122); and she has killed many great beasts in her past, so that her reputation precedes her wherever she goes and fills people with awe. Since hunting apparently is Hunter's greatest passion and by implication her main occupation, it is possible to suggest that work (i.e. hunting) holds a very important position in her life. What is more, in relation to hunting, Hunter reveals herself to be rather self-oriented – insofar as she puts her needs above others' – ambitious, and competitive. Her main goal in Neverwhere becomes apparent by the end of the novel: she wishes to slay the Beast of London and to prove that she is the greatest warrior there. The Beast is a formidable and impressive opponent due to its size and its hide which is bristling with arrows, knives and spears, proof of the number of warriors who have attempted to kill it and failed. In order to succeed, Hunter needs a spear, for which she betrays Door. It is her own agenda, her own passion that drives her and she is willing to risk and do anything to achieve her aim. If by the end of the novel there is little doubt as to Hunter's profession, then at the beginning, she is deliberately vague in describing her occupation, thus confusing Richard and perhaps the reader as well. In other words, when Hunter is asked what she does for a living, she answers that she "sell[s] personal physical services" (Gaiman 2013 [1996]: 108), which makes Richard think that she might be a prostitute, even if her clothing and equipment might suggest otherwise. However, Richard's is only one possible interpretation – Hunter, after all, 55 (Gaiman 2013 [1996]: 12), so she gives him books to read, chooses which clothes he ought to wear and precisely a year after their first meeting decides that it is time for them to start looking for an engagement ring. In regard to Richard, she has established clear boundaries as well: no nicknames are allowed and she does not go into his apartment, because it makes her feel "uncomfortably female" (Gaiman 2013 [1996]: 20). Taking this into account, Jessica does seem principled and controlling, enough to make Richard's co-worker Gary compare her to the Creature from the Black Lagoon, a terrifying and vicious creature from the 1954 film of the same name (IMDb n.d.). Indeed, Prentice and Carranza (2002: 273) found that being controlling is seen as a negative quality in women. Jessica's strong personality also extends to her job, which seems to be important to her. She is determined to advance in her career and in order to do so she, for example, arranges a dinner with Mr Stockton, her boss, and, later, an exhibition of Mr Stockton's vast collection of angels in the British Museum. At the exhibition, Gaiman underlines Jessica's controlling manner once more by comparing her to a general in command of her troops composed of a head waiter, serving staff, caterers, a string quarter and her assistant. Even though Jessica apparently is focused on her career and is independent and self- sufficient in that she manages well on her own, she nevertheless values and yearns for personal, romantic relationships. While being work-oriented is a traditionally masculine trait, then Mahalik and colleagues (2005: 424) have claimed that forming deep as well as romantic relationships is usually associated with women. In the case of Jessica, this is evidenced already at the beginning of the novel by her and Richard's relationship and subsequent engagement, but is reiterated later, when she and Richard have separated. More precisely, at the aforementioned exhibition, Jessica tries to concentrate on matters at hand, but cannot help but think that "it would be nice [to have a boyfriend] /.../: someone to go to galleries with on the weekends. Someone to ..." (Gaiman 2013 [1996]: 183) (italics in original). 56 Similarly to Door, Jessica expresses her emotions as well, a feminine rather than masculine quality, but at the same time she is able to control herself. For instance, she feels worried, nervous and jittery at the exhibition, since she is under a lot of pressure, but she still maintains her professional manner and focuses on her work; and after Door collapses in the street before Richard's feet and he decides to take her to his apartment instead of following Jessica to dinner with Mr Stockton, she flings her handbag to the ground out of anger and frustration, spilling its contents over the pavement, but she quickly recovers herself, collects her things and proceeds to the restaurant as if nothing out of the ordinary happened. The previously described episodes suggest that Jessica possesses emotional strength, values deep, personal relationships and enjoys being in control. Because being controlling is considered a negative feminine character trait, Jessica as a character might not be regarded as likeable as, for example, Door or Hunter, but she nevertheless is an active, if peripheral, one. What is more, next to feminine characteristics such as emotional strength and desire for romantic relationships, Jessica displays several traits that Linda Brannon (2004: 162), Alice H. Eagly, Wendy Wood and Mary C. Johannesen-Schmidt (Eagly et al 2008: 274) consider stereotypically masculine: she is oriented towards advancing her career, which is central to her life; she likes to be in control (perhaps too much so); and she is quite self-sufficient and independent in that she is able to manage on her own rather well. 2.2.4 Anaesthesia, Serpentine and Lamia Anaesthesia is a passive, peripheral female character in Neverwhere and the only one who seems to exhibit solely stereotypically feminine characteristics such as weakness, fragility and shyness. First of all, when Richard meets Anaesthesia for the first time, just after he enters London Below, she looks to him a small, thin girl in her late teens with "a large, water-stained red button pinned to her ragged clothes, of the sort that comes attached to 57 birthday cards" and which says "in yellow letters, I am 11" (Gaiman 2013[1996]: 77). Already by appearance alone, Anaesthesia definitely belongs to London Below. The red button is a reference to a later episode, in which she tells Richard how she was born in London Above, but escaped on her (perhaps 11th) birthday from her abusive aunt and her boyfriend. In London Below, Anaesthesia is one of the rat-speakers, a community who communicates with rats. Her ability to do so can be defined as a magical power, one that people living in London Above lack, yet differently from Door, Anaesthesia nevertheless resembles a weak, child-like girl. Her delicate nature is further enhanced later, when she admits to Richard on their way to the Floating Market that some parts of London Below still scare her, even though she has been living there for years and her knowledge of it ought to, by assumption, grant her a certain sense of security and freedom of movement. However, her fear is so genuine that Richard has to resist the urge to put a protective arm around her. Their journey to the Market reveals more about Anaesthesia. It becomes clear that she is shy and modest: she begins telling the story of her past with words "'[y]ou don't want to hear about me'" (Gaiman 2013[1996]: 86) and only continues after Richard insists and encourages her. However, despite being small, fragile and shy, Anaesthesia proves herself capable of temporary bravery, which is a masculine rather than feminine trait (Eagly et al 2008: 274; Brannon 2004: 162; Prentice, Carranza 2002; 274). More precisely, just before Knightsbridge, which is on the way to the Floating Market, Richard and Anaesthesia are confronted with a violent gang, whom Anaesthesia opposes apparently without fear. Yet after the gang leaves, she "look[s] down, shyly" and says "'I'm not really brave /.../ I'm still scared of the bridge'" (Gaiman 2013 [1996]: 100), which reinforces the impression of Anaesthesia as being a primarily weak, delicate, yielding – insofar as she agreed to take Richard to the Floating Market as Lord Rat-Speaker ordered, in spite of her fear of Knightsbridge – and shy. 60 Moreover, she is depicted as a dangerous if peripheral character, a traditional role for women in fantasy fiction as Hunt and Lenz (2003 [2001]: 2) have claimed. In Lamia Gaiman has recycled yet another traditional trope, the femme fatale. Heather Braun (2012: 2) states that the term usually refers "to manipulative, dangerously attractive women", especially in literature, silent film and film noir. These female characters are often unconscious of their beauty or its destructive power. Yet femme fatales are not always oriented towards destruction or willing to acknowledge their charm. Heather Braun (2012: 3) claims that several femme fatales attempt to warn their victims, which only serves to increase the femme fatale's desire. Lamia is a typical example: she is beautiful as well as dangerous and she is willing to use her powers to seduce men in order to get what she needs, but which inevitably would lead to her victim's destruction. However, she does not warn her victim, Richard, against his fate, who is rescued only by Marquis's timely intervention. All three characters discussed above – Anaesthesia, Serpentine and Lamia – are peripheral characters in Neverwhere and only Lamia could be described as an active one. If Anaesthesia manifests several stereotypically feminine characteristics such as weakness, fragility and shyness, then Serpentine is in contrast impressive, independent, assertive and able to lead a large household. Lamia, differently from Anaesthesia and Serpentine, is clearly a magical creature, who is as dangerous as she is beautiful. Her good looks are her most prominent feature, which could be seen as signifying male desire. 2.3 American Gods 2.3.1 Laura Laura is the wife of Shadow, who is the male protagonist of American Gods. Of the female characters in the novel, she is the most active and central one. Laura is first mentioned when Shadow thinks of her while he is in prison: he loves her with all his heart and dreams of 61 how he is going to make love to her as soon as he is released. Much of what the readers learn of Laura, especially at the beginning of the novel, is thought, remembered or seen by Shadow, because first, she seems to be the most important person in his life, the one who saw something more in him than a big dumb guy and the one who frequently occupies his mind throughout the novel; and secondly, being Shadow's wife appears to be one of the most prominent defining features of Laura, in spite of the fact that she has an occupation – she is a travel agent – and apparently a life besides Shadow, which she continues to live while Shadow is in prison. By having Shadow remember events from his past that are related to Laura, Gaiman tells the readers that Laura is a very beautiful woman with "long, chestnut hair and eyes so blue Shadow mistakenly thought [the first time he saw her] she was wearing tinted contact lenses" (Gaiman 2005[2001]: 18) and that she and Shadow have a relatively happy marriage, until Shadow is imprisoned for assault. The fact that Gaiman gives the readers an account of the appearance of Laura and other female characters, who admittedly are almost invariably beautiful, is not unusual, because the male characters are described in similar manner. In their marriage, as much as Shadow describes it, Laura appears to play the role of a traditional wife. She cooks well, she likes to dance (meaning that she probably is graceful, since Shadow had enjoyed her dancing) and particularly in comparison to Shadow, who is a large man, she is physically weak and delicate, so that Shadow used to be able to easily pick her up. Later on in the novel, when Laura meets Mr Town, other qualities that Prentice and Carranza (2002: 273) mainly associate with women, such as being flirtatious and shy, are manifested. However, this might signify Laura's conscious effort to seduce Mr Town by appearing stereotypically feminine. If at the beginning of the novel Laura is presented as a beautiful, loving and traditional wife, then her funeral marks a definite change. The funeral is in several ways an important 62 event in the novel. Firstly, Shadow drops a magical coin, which had been given to him by the leprechaun Mad Sweeney, into Laura's casket, not knowing that this coin will turn Laura into a living dead and thus give her supernatural powers. Secondly, Audrey, Shadow's best friend Robbie's wife, tells him that Laura and Robbie had been having an affair and that they even had died together in the same car, while Laura was giving Robbie one last farewell present, because they had decided to end their relationship amicably. Not long after the funeral, the newly deceased Laura visits Shadow in his hotel room. Although a walking and talking corpse ought to frighten him, Shadow is unable to be afraid of her and instead they have a relatively normal conversation as a husband and wife would, which might be an indication of the strength of their relationship. At the end of her visit, Laura promises to take care of Shadow, to protect him to the best of her ability. Here are traditionally feminine characteristics such as affection, kindness and consideration for others emphasised and manifested in Laura. Later on in the novel, she does indeed fulfil her promise by saving or helping Shadow several times. For example, she rescues Shadow from the spooks working for the new gods, who have him locked up in a train carriage. She kills everyone there except for Shadow, whom she equips with a coat, chemical hand- and footwarmers and some food before she helps him escape. On the one hand, she keeps her promise of caring for Shadow, but on the other, she commits several brutal murders. If stereotypical women are pure, refined and delicate, then Laura in the situation just described definitely is not. She explains that it is different for her, now that she is a living dead: " 'It's easier to kill people, when you're dead yourself, /.../ I mean, it's not such a big deal. You're not so prejudiced any more.' " (Gaiman 2005[2001]: 164). For Laura, therefore, being dead is a strong point, since it gives her much more freedom and strength than when she was alive – magical powers in fantasy fiction are used to make female characters more equal to male characters. 65 2.3.2 Samantha Black Crow Samantha Black Crow – or Sam, as she likes to be called – enters into the narrative when she knocks on Shadow's car window to check whether he is still alive or not. It takes a while for Shadow to recognise Sam as a woman: her voice is high-pitched like a woman's or a boy's, so she has to specify that she is girl-Sam, not boy-Sam. In fact, during her appearances in the novel, Sam seems to escape fixed definition as primarily feminine or masculine. The first impression of her suggests that she is a straightforward, unabashed and brave young woman, who is willing to take matters into her own hands. More precisely, since she is currently hitchhiking from Madison to El Paso, Illinois, a trip she has made five times a year for the last three years, she asks Shadow for a lift, joking at the same time that she is a damsel in distress to be rescued by Shadow, a knight in a very dirty car. Whether she actually is a damsel in distress is a matter of debate, but taking into consideration that she has taken the same journey for several times, it seems unlikely. During the car ride, Shadow has the time to look at Sam properly. He observes that she has short, dark hair and an attractive, slightly mannish face. Later, when they go out to eat, he finds out, or rather, guesses, that Sam studies art history and women's studies at University of Wisconsin, Madison; casts her own bronzes; and works at a coffee shop to pay her rent. Eating in a diner on each side of a table, Sam and Shadow seem to be opposites: if Shadow is quite a big guy, then Sam is in comparison relatively tiny; and if Shadow keeps surprising Sam by going from a big dumb guy to a mind-reader to a lover of Herodotus' Histories, then Sam's background is not a mystery to Shadow as he guesses it correctly without knowing anything about her. Sam is actually quite willing to share information about herself as well, even if it is concerned only with her family history. More precisely, while visiting her sister, Marguerite Olsen, at Lakeside, they ask a neighbour – Mike Ainsel, who is Shadow in hiding – over for 66 dinner. After a few glasses of wine, Sam explains to him that she and her sister have the same father, but different mothers: their father is Cherokee; Marguerite's mother is of Corsican descent; and Sam's mother is European Jewish, a wild woman "from one of those places that used to be communist and now are just chaos" (Gaiman 2005[2001]: 420). Her mixed descent already seems to suggest that Sam refuses definite categorisation. Indeed, on the one hand, she is a beautiful young woman, who likes to take matters into her own hands (e.g., when she asked Shadow for a ride or when she suggested Marguerite should ask her neighbour over); who is able to take care of herself; and who is brave enough to hitchhike and to stand up to spooks who come to her home to threaten her. Then again, her confidence seems at times to falter, revealing a fragile and scared girl beneath. For example, after the aforementioned dinner, Sam lets Shadow take her out to the local pub. As soon as they get into the car, she says that she is scared of him, because the spooks had told him that he had killed two men and that he is wanted by federal agents. She goes on saying "[i]f you're going to kill me please don't hurt me. I shouldn't have come here with you. I am so dumb. /.../ I should have run away or called the cops when I first saw you. I can identify you. Jesus. I am so dumb" (Gaiman 2005 [2001]: 423). By saying so, she acknowledges the physical power Shadow has over her, since she is delicate and weak in comparison to him. Yet Shadow has no ill motives and succeeds in calming her down. In Sam, therefore, Gaiman has again created a character who possesses both feminine and masculine characteristics. She is beautiful, weak, delicate and at times prone to emotional outbursts, especially when her self-confidence falters. She also takes time to invest into romantic relationships, which Mahalik and his colleagues (2005: 424) associate primarily with women, as evidenced by the last episode in which she appears in the novel. But then again Sam is independent, brave, able to provide for herself, willing to take risks, self- 67 confident and relatively active, insofar as she takes matters into her own hands and participates in the storyline. 2.3.3 Marguerite Olsen As it was already mentioned, Marguerite Olsen is the sister of Samantha Black Crow. She lives in Lakeside, a small and idyllic town in Northern America, and she is the neighbour of Mike Ainsel or Shadow. Similarly to other female characters in the novel, Marguerite, too, is beautiful, with black hair and black eyes. In Lakeside, she works for the Lakeside News as a reporter, having studied journalism previously. Her choice of career corresponds to those traditionally favoured by women: since it is believed that women have better verbal skills, they are more likely to choose careers where good verbal skills are needed, such as journalism, and avoid occupations where good mathematical skills are required, such as engineering (Correll 2004: 94-95). Shadow and the readers receive a great deal of the information about Marguerite through gossip. At the beginning of Shadow's stay in Lakeside, Missy Gunther, a local, describes Marguerite as a sweet lady, who has had a hard life and who now works for the Lakeside News. Later, Chad Mulligan, the local police officer, offers a more detailed account of Marguerite's past to Shadow: she had been a journalism major when she married Darren Olsen, who was in hotel management. Their marriage was happy for a while, until Darren lost his job and spent all their savings on drinking, gambling and prostitutes. After the divorce, Marguerite got custody of both of their sons, Sandy and Leon, and Darren moved to another town, only to come back every once in a while and make everyone miserable. When he finally stopped coming, Sandy, Marguerite's eldest son, disappeared and has not been seen since. Based on the previous two accounts, it becomes clear that when Marguerite is described, the focus is on personal relationships. Indeed, when she is mentioned in the novel, 70 During the two pages describing this scene at the pub, the words 'hysteria' and 'hysterical' are used three times together, all in relation to Audrey, who is clearly screaming and sobbing. Here Gaiman probably wanted to emphasise the scope of Audrey's emotional disturbance. At the same time, he appears to have created a very stereotypical, if peripheral and passive, character. What is more, Audrey causes only problems every time she makes an appearance, in spite of the fact that Mabel, a local at Lakeside, describes her to Shadow as a sweetheart. Additionally, she is very emotional, even prone to hysteria, which is traditionally considered a very feminine characteristic. Prentice and Carranza (2002: 273) identified in their study that character traits such as being gullible, impressionable, melodramatic and emotional, which could be used to describe Audrey, are seen as negative characteristics to be avoided rather than cultivated by women. 2.3.5 Bilquis Bilquis or "[t]he Queen of Sheba, half-demon, /.../ witch-woman, wise-woman and queen, who ruled Sheba when Sheba was the richest land there ever was, /.../ who was worshiped even when she was alive, worshiped as a living goddess by the wisest of kings" (Gaiman 2005 [2001]: 400), is the first woman of the old gods to make an appearance. She is created on the basis of the myth of the Queen of Sheba, the ruler of the kingdom of Saba (or Sheba). The myth appears in several different traditions, including Jewish, Islamic and Christian, and in very different forms. In one of the legends, the Queen of Sheba visits king Solomon, but the nature and purpose of her visit varies: sometimes she arrives with gold, jewels and spices; sometimes her hairy legs attract the king's attention (Encyclopaedia Britannica n.d.). In American Gods, however, nothing is left of the former magnificence of Queen of Sheba, who is now forced to pose as a prostitute soliciting worship from men. She is first 71 described as "a tall woman dressed cartoonishly in too-tight silk shorts, her breasts pulled up and pushed forwards by the yellow blouse tied beneath them" and whose "black hair is piled high and knotted on top of her head" (Gaiman 2005[2001]: 29). She is wearing clothes that correspond to the rules of the trade, which means that her body is there to be looked at, inspected and enjoyed by men or as Laura Mulvey (2001 [1975]: 397-398) put it, Bilquis represents and carries out male desire. She herself makes a "gesture of presentation, as if /.../ demonstrating a new product" (Gaiman 2005[2001]: 29) to a customer in her room by running her hand from her thigh to her breast, thus underlining the commodification of her body. According to Reid (2009: 90-91) such gestures in fantasy are used to express the male gaze as well. Since her appearance is important in her line of work, Bilquis seems to spend a great deal of time taking care of herself. For example, she thinks to herself that she always seems to be shaving her legs. Being beautiful and well-groomed has been identified by Parent and Moradi (2011: 959) as one of the most important stereotypically feminine traits. At the same time, the impression of Bilquis is "cartoonish", later enhanced by the comparison of her as she is walking on the street to a "slutty plastic bride on a black and neon wedding cake" (Gaiman 2005 [2001]: 400). This appears only to highlight the loss of her former glory. Yet Bilquis seems to have adapted, either by necessity or by choice, to her current situation quite well. In order to survive in the modern world, she has begun to leave advertisements on adult websites, because soliciting on the streets is not always possible (due to bad weather, for instance) or profitable, even though she has avoided leaving any trace of her for a thousand years, preferring to approach her tributes personally. When she watches the other prostitutes, Bilquis is proud of herself of not having the same problems as they do: she is completely independent, she has no children, she does not have to pay anything to anybody. 72 She is relatively active, insofar as she is constantly searching for new opportunities for obtaining worship, and self-oriented as well, which are both primarily masculine traits. However, Bilquis is not as independent or in control of her life as she would probably prefer. Namely, she, as she herself realises, "has a habit as bad as that of the smack whores and the crack whores" (Gaiman 2005 [2001]: 401), because she cannot be without worship, she is constantly seeking it, sometimes even desperately so. Since there are not many worshippers any more, Bilquis's power is consequently diminishing, so she uses it only to stay alive. "[F]or everything else that's not simply living she uses her sharp eyes and her mind, her height and her presence" (Gaiman 2005 [2001]: 405). Her lack of great power becomes especially evident as Bilquis is faced with the new god of technology, a young, rich and confident boy. Bilquis's magic is not strong enough to make her equal to the new god, who brutally kills her. As a character, Bilquis does not play a big role in the novel, but she can nevertheless be described as an active rather than a passive character, insofar as she is constantly seeking worship. Her manner of obtaining it resembles Wednesday's, who is one of the most prominent male characters in American Gods, appetite for women. He, in order to retain his youthfulness and vitality, seduces young girls and robs them of their virginity, while Bilquis seduces men, lures them to her room and persuades them to worship her, until she is ready to devour them. Sex is especially notable in relation to these two characters, but it is mentioned or hinted at in relation to other characters as well, such as Easter, goddess of media and Mr Town, who fantasises about having sex with his partner's widow. Following from this, if sex is mentioned in American Gods, it is in connection with male and female characters equally. By implication, Bilquis is a beautiful woman, even if cartoonish and slutty, but differently from stereotypical women, she is concerned only with herself, trying to stay alive and fulfil her needs. She is even proud of herself for being so independent and self-reliant. 75 the moon from the sky, which forms into a silver Liberty dollar in Shadow's hand, she displays her magical powers and leaves the impression, unlike her sisters, of being a true goddess, but at the same time, she can also be seen as kind and caring insofar as she is willing to take care of Shadow, in the same way as Laura promised to protect Shadow. Zorya Polunochnyaya is depicted later on in the novel once more as a mythical creature and a helper of Shadow: she guides his passage on his journey as Shadow is walking through the dreamworld during his vigil. In general, the Zorya sisters are all peripheral and passive characters. Zorya Vechernyaya and Zorya Utrennyaya are both concerned primarily with domestic issues such as cooking and cleaning, tasks that have been traditionally associated with women. Of the two, the latter is described as beautiful, while the former not so much so. Zorya Polunochnyaya, too, is striking and beautiful, but unlike her sisters, she appears as first and foremost a mythical being and therefore for the most part escapes stereotypical categorization, apart from being kind and caring. 2.3.7 Easter Easter is the last of the female gods of old to be discussed in this paper. If Bilquis is struggling to survive and if the Zorya sisters live in a small apartment in relative obscurity, Easter is rather successful: she is rich and happy, because people all over the world celebrate the holiday dedicated to her. When Shadow sees Easter for the first time, he finds no other word to describe her than 'curvaceous', yet she is not fat. What is more, her hair is platinum blonde, her eyes are green as the spring and there is a tattoo of blue forget-me-nots around her left wrist. She is a gorgeous woman, emitting a pleasant smell of jasmine, honeysuckle, sweet milk and female skin, which combined with Easter's self-confidence, flirtatious manner and vitality make Shadow feel like a deer caught in headlights, he is almost instantly charmed. 76 The description of Easter, especially the emphasis on her voluptuous figure, again plays to and expresses the male desire and fantasy (Reid 2009: 90-91). In other words, she is created to look appealing to men. The way Easter is talking and behaving suggests that she thoroughly believes in her power and that she is a woman comfortable in expressing her sexuality and in that, she resembles Wednesday: both of them view men or women without romantic affection, as prey or entertainment. For example, as Easter is looking at Shadow's naked body upon the tree while he is holding vigil for Wednesday, she says that "[t]hey [i.e. men] just aren't as interesting naked, /.../ [i]t's the unwrapping that's half the fun" (Gaiman 2005[2001]: 558). She is looking at him dispassionately, as if his body his something she has seen several times before. There is something slightly masculine about her attitude, because it suggests multiple partners. Yet, when Shadow is brought back to life, Easter suddenly becomes aware of his nakedness, she blushes and looks away, as if reminded of her femininity, of her supposed purity and delicacy. However, Easter is not only a beautiful and confident woman basking in the annual worship of thousands of people, she proves that she still is a powerful goddess, on the par with other gods. Namely, she has the power to give life to living organisms, such as flowers that spring from the ground at the mere touch of her hand or feet. It is also Easter, who, after Shadow's vigil is completed, takes him down from the tree, breathes life back into him and helps him travel to the battlefield of the gods. At the same time, powerful and confident as Easter is, she nevertheless is stereotypically emotional. For example, when Wednesday demonstrates that the worship she annually receives is actually hollow as people really do not know what or who they celebrate, Easter's eyes well up with tears. This moment reveals her to be emotionally vulnerable and slightly emotional. 77 In American Gods, Easter is a peripheral and passive character, but similarly to several other female characters, she, too, defies stereotypical categorisation. More precisely, if Easter is definitely beautiful, flirtatious, emotional, kind and caring – she does resurrect Shadow –, then she is also independent, successful and self-confident. Moreover, she seems to refrain from committing to long-lasting romantic relationships, instead preferring multiple (sexual) relationships, which appears to be a characteristic the old gods share. 2.3.8 Media The goddess of television, Media, is the only one of the new gods mentioned in the novel who is a woman. Unlike the old gods, she does not have to worry about being worshipped, since in the contemporary world there are plenty of people who are willing to sacrifice their time to the television and to the goddess behind it. In American Gods, if she is not possessing an actress's body in a television show, Media appears as a perfectly made-up and coiffed woman, which indicates that she invests time into taking care of her appearance, which is seen as a traditionally feminine trait (Parent and Moradi 2011: 959). The readers as well as Shadow first meet Media when she takes over the character of Lucille Ball in the television show I Love Lucy in order to communicate with Shadow. Her aim is to persuade Shadow to join the new gods and her arguments seem convincing: she begins by stating that they are by now much more powerful than the old gods and that they would pay him as much as he wants, double, treble or even hundred times more than he is earning now. She then adds that they can also give him much more and starts suggestively unbuttoning her blouse. Even though she has enough power and bargaining tools, she still, similarly to Bilquis, resorts to using her body as an instrument in either seducing or persuading Shadow. 80 of a black cat, who is able to speak in the other world, Coraline realises that the only way to defeat the other mother is to challenge her. So she proposes a game of hide-and-seek: if Coraline finds the souls of her parents and the children, they can all return to their old worlds; but if she fails, she sews black buttons to her eyes and joins the other mother forever. Intrigued, the other mother agrees and their game begins. Using common sense and logic, Coraline one by one finds all of the souls she is looking for and even manages to escape back to the real world. During the game, Coraline constantly reminds herself that she is brave and that she is not frightened, until she knows that it is true: "[t]here [is] nothing here [in the other world] that frighten[s] her. These things /.../ [are] illusions, things made by the other mother in a ghastly parody of the real people and real things on the other end of the corridor" (Gaiman 2013[2002]: 141). Knowing that, Coraline, who seems to be afraid of only spiders, is not frightened even when the other mother's hand follows her to the real world. Instead, Coraline forms a plan using her dolls as protective coloration (an expression she herself uses) to trap the hand in the old well. Using only her intelligence and wit, Coraline, therefore, defeats an extremely dangerous and powerful magical being. If in fantasy fiction in general, magic is seen as a tool that gives greater power to female characters, among other things, then in Coraline, it is clear that individual positive characteristics are depicted as more valuable than magic. Consequently, not only wisdom, but also bravery and courage are both embodied by Coraline and cherished in the novel. Moreover, Coraline, the most active and central character in the novel, appears to be rational, decisive, self-reliant and independent instead of being passive and yielding. If at times she feels a sob welling up, she stops it, or when she feels frightened, she reminds herself that she is brave, until she truly believes it. Even though Coraline is a young girl, she embodies several positive characteristics traditionally considered masculine 81 and thus she can be seen as a role model, who, according to Gaiman, lends support to women in real life who face a difficult time in their lives (Gaiman 2013[2002]: xv). 2.4.2 Mrs Jones Coraline's mother and father are both nearly always busy, constantly working on their computers in their separate studies. As characters in the novel, they are passive and in the background. The short appearances they make, such as the previously mentioned episode of Coraline and her mother shopping or either of the parents working in their offices and telling Coraline to play on her own, leave the impression that for the most time Mr and Mrs Jones ignore Coraline or leave her to her own devices. However, this sort of arrangement is quite significant. First of all, as Danielle Russell (2012: 162-163) puts it, Mrs Jones "defies traditional expectations", because she is in an apparently egalitarian relationship with her husband: both of them work at home and share household duties. For example, in several instances it is Mr Jones who cooks dinner, something like "leek and potato stew, with a tarragon garnish and melted Gruyére cheese" (Gaiman 2013[2002]: 10), which Coraline labels as "recipes" and refuses to eat. Of the two, it is definitely Mr Jones who seems to be a better cook with Mrs Jones making, for instance, chicken that is always dry and which does not taste of anything. Secondly, work is quite important for Mrs Jones, which in turn indicates that she has a life beyond home and family. Danielle Russell (2012: 163) also foregrounds the relationship between Mrs Jones and her daughter. It is true that Mrs Jones, similarly to Mr Jones, seems to pay little attention to Coraline and allows her to do whatever she wants "as long as [she doesn't] make a mess" (Gaiman 2013[2002]: 7). By doing so, it is possible to claim she teaches and encourages Coraline to think for herself and to be independent, although she does limit and curb Coraline's actions by reminding her to dress appropriately or to be home in 82 time for lunch. These little statements, in addition to Mrs Jones calling Coraline 'darling' or hugging her tightly, also reveal that Coraline's mother does actually care for her daughter. Overall, both Mrs and Mr Jones are passive, peripheral characters. Importantly, they have invested in a relationship in which they share household duties as well as the management of financial matters. Since the majority of their time seems to be devoted to work, they leave the impression of ignoring their daughter, but this can be interpreted as giving Coraline enough freedom to learn to be independent and self-reliant. Coraline, too, comes to this conclusion after she realises how much she misses her parents and their comforting presence, even if it is only in the background, after the other mother has kidnapped them. What is more, at the end of the novel, Coraline significantly refuses the idyllic life the other mother is offering to her and chooses "her own mother, her real, wonderful, maddening, infuriating, glorious mother" (Gaiman 2013[2002]: 159). This choice is meaningful in another way as well. Coraline is presented with two female role models: one, the other mother, a domestic female stereotype; the other, Mrs Jones, a woman defying traditional expectations. By opting for the latter, Danielle Russell (2012: 164) underlines, Coraline determines that she, too, does not and will not conform to stereotypes. 2.4.3 The other mother Coraline sees the other mother for the first time when she discovers that the brick wall behind the door that is supposed to lead to another flat has disappeared and that she is able to walk through it, into the other world, which greatly resembles the one she has just left. Once there, Coraline hears somebody calling for her from the kitchen and she follows the voice, which sounds a lot like her mother's. In the kitchen she finds a woman that looks similar to her mother, only her skin is white as paper, she is taller and thinner, she has black hair that drifts around her head, fingers with long dark nails that are constantly moving and, most 85 The other mother, similarly to Coraline, is an active and central character. She is created, as Danielle Russell (2012: 164) suggests, to represent the traditionally domestic female, who excels at domestic tasks and whose life is devoted to her family and home. However, the other mother deviates from the stereotype in several ways. First, she does not place the needs of her family or Coraline before her own, she is clearly driven by her own agenda; and secondly, she is the head of her household in the other world, having created it and being in control of everything, from the other father to the crazy man upstairs. The other mother wishes to extend her control over Coraline as well, but Coraline chooses her real mother, who encourages her to be self-reliant and to take initiative, over the perfect life the other mother is offering her. 86 CONCLUSION The aim of the present thesis was to investigate the portrayal of female characters in the fantasy fiction of Neil Gaiman, more precisely in the novels Neverwhere, American Gods and Coraline. The results of the analysis support the claim that Neil Gaiman, if he wishes to, is capable of depicting women in an egalitarian manner. Even though there were more passive than active female characters, most of the women in these three novels were depicted as having non-stereotypical characteristics. This was especially evident in Coraline, the only novel of the three which has a female protagonist and which apparently values equality between men and women. Fantasy fiction in general has been seen as being kinder towards women than, for example, science fiction or horror, but since it finds inspiration in the past, in various mythologies, religions, beliefs, folk tales and fairy tales, fantasy can be described as formulaic, which has led to the marginalisation of women and to their depiction in stereotypical roles. Only in the second half of the twentieth century have authors of fantasy, especially female writers, began to question the notions of gender and sexual identity. However, although the number of female protagonists and active female characters has increased, women in fantasy fiction are still largely represented in stereotypical roles, which means they are passive, pretty, kind, caring, faithful, delicate, concerned with matters of the home or family and oriented towards the wellbeing of others, whereas men are most often seen as in control, independent, physically strong, confident, active, employed and concerned with the self over others. The analysis of Neil Gaiman's novels Neverwhere, American Gods and Coraline revealed that almost all of the main female characters were beautiful or striking in appearance, but only in Neverwhere was this a trait that was emphasised throughout the novel and only in relation to women. Both male and female characters in all three novels were described when 87 they first entered into the narrative or shortly afterwards. The length of and amount of detail in the descriptions was equal between men and women as well as between women themselves. In Coraline, however, the appearance of the main characters was not revealed, except for some features of the other mother and the other father, such as their button eyes. Beauty is not the primary defining trait of any of the female characters analysed, but some of them use their good looks to their advantage. For example, Lamia in Neverwhere seduces men in order to get their warmth; Bilquis, the former queen of Sheba, in American Gods solicits worship from men by working as a prostitute; and the goddess of media in the same novel uses her feminine charms to convince Shadow to change his loyalties. In addition to beauty, several women have been equipped with magical powers, which are seen in fantasy fiction as levellers between men and women, to grant them more independence and freedom among men. More precisely, in Neverwhere, Lady Door has the ability to open any door possible or impossible, which, for instance, helps her to escape from Mr Vandemar and Mr Croup, two vicious criminals. In American Gods, more than half of the female characters who were discussed possess some supernatural power. Yet their power does not always match that of the male characters. If Laura, who becomes a living dead, does succeed in protecting Shadow and killing several men, and if Easter does enjoy the worship of thousands of human beings, then Bilquis has trouble meeting her needs and finally is killed by the god of technology, the Zorya sisters live in relative obscurity and the goddess of media, even though she, too, is worshipped widely, plays a minor role next to the male gods. The other mother in Coraline, is also a supernatural being and seemingly a very powerful one, but she is defeated in the end by Coraline. 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