The third space, the desert and a new genesis: Bodies, hallucinatory spaces and hum/animals in Angela Carter's and Edward Abbey's fiction

The British writer Angela Carter and the American environmentalist writer Edward Abbey portray an apocalyptic America based on mythological and religious beliefs, as a third space that has become the site of power—a microcosm for the patriarchal capitalist society that is the "center" of the world's misery with its schizophrenic ideas of democracy, capitalism, and globalism. Capitalism and Globalism for Angela Carter, Edward Abbey, Ronald David Laing, Michel Foucault and Gilles Deleuze induces madness with its discourses and grand narratives about success and growth and destroys the whole world by turning it into a commodity. Starting from the 17th century madness is excluded from the scientific and philosophic discourses so there could be no language between reason and madness as affirmed by Foucault. Discourses about animality and criminality were established in the context of madness. This also led to the racial, religious, lingual establishments consisting of valuable and invaluable human categories. Freudian and Lacanian concepts of lack contributed to further categorization. For R.D. Laing, M. Foucault and G. Deleuze & F. Guattari the institutions of psychoanalysis contribute to capitalisms negative aims. For R. D. Laing madness is not only an individual problem but must be considered in societal terms. And madness maybe considered as a form of personality. With his view of madness he gave voice to the mad people and with his idea of the divided self in existential terms he opened a third space related to perception of madness and personality. On the other hand, for Foucault, the body must be the focus in questions related to the self and madness. The body is shaped via the technologies of the self. With his view that all relations are power relations there is a shift to the space suggesting that all relations are spatial. The body being shaped by these power relations becomes also imprisoned in the soul. Madness may be a response of the individual and may be a form of personality or a choice of existence as suggested by Laing and it maybe a Flight from unwanted experiences, but this wiew will contribute to the ongoing system that will continue to induce madness. Then how is it possible to break away from the effect of prevalent discourses related to power relations and the self restrictive technologies of the self? So there is the necessity to employ Deleuze's "Nomadic thought" for "Flight," whom Foucault calls the philosopher of this century. In Deleuze's philosophy each concept in a thinking process must be analyzed in order to redifine and create new concepts that will enable Flight. Rather than focusing on lacks, gaps must be found in order to fill them with becomings. In doing this, two terms are crucial, active and reactive, are the terms which Deleuze took from Nietzsche and adopted in his own philosophy employing nomadic thought. Active forces are the possessors of power, who rule and dominate massess. Reactive forces are the ones, who react to these discourses, but remain passive as part of the massess. There is the necessity to go beyond and above these discourses to give way to active discourses that surpass those of the dominating and controlling forces. For this reason, there is the need to indulge in active thinking processes and to do philosophy. There is also the need to deconstruct the discourses related to doing philosophy, as it should not be the job of the philosophers only. It should be made the job of any thinking individual. In this process of thinking, the aim of this thesis is to take Homi K. Bhabha's concept of Third Space from its context of psychoanalytical tradition and discuss its application for possibilities of opening new third spaces via Deleuzian nomadic way of thinking. Homi Bhabha calls the" liminal" space between the two World or cultures of the colonizer and colonized as the " Third Space of enunciation." Entering the "Third Space" shows the potentiality of constructing a non-fixed identity, it generates a new sense of identity that maybe "almost the same, but not quite" thus discourses about madness, religion, science, sexuality and criminality can be changed with different discourses. Bhabha, uses the Freudian term, "the unheimlich" which means the 'Unhomeliness,' to suggest that what is involved in the construction of hybrid identity is an "estranging sense of the relocation of home and the world— the unhomeliness—that is the condition of extra-territorial and cross-cultural initiations." Being surrounded by this unhomeliness, the world will be "soundless," and "disorganized" for these hybrid individuals. Such a hybridity takes place as a result of cultural diversity, which keeps the different other under control and gaze in an alien territory. Angela Carter's and Edward Abbey's works present homeless characters as third space hybrid characters, who have open-boarded identity, to create various new concepts related to animality, criminality in its context of madness and to enable the possiblity for flight that is to bring about a new philosophy. This new philosophy is the ecosophy in Angela Carter's and Edward Abbey's novels. These characters are also polyhonic. They are also the outcome of the third space actual and virtual America, particulary the American and Russian Desert. These characters are made active and they use violence in order to give way to the creation of new concepts. For the analysis of these charcters, there is the need of doing an anti-psychiatric reading based on Laing's ideas of madness and a reading based on Deleuze & Guattari's anti-oedipal and ecopsychiatric reading alongside Edward Abbey's environmental philosophy of the self. The whole thesis is established on a reading of R. D. Laing's view of madness and the dynamics of crime in America based on the views of the writer and critic Joyce Carol Oates in her fiction as studied by Dilek Ünügür Çalışkan in her MA thesis Crime and Suicide as a Consequence of Madness in Joyce Carol Oates's Fiction (1998). Carter and Abbey by taking their characters from the capitalist comsumerist madness inducing environments into the Desert,,they try to establish their new philosophy, the ecosophy as the third space in the actual third space desert. The desert as an isolated place is excluded from the discourses of civilization in history and must be included in scientific and philosophical discourses. As Deleuze asserts, concepts have both actual and virtual meaning. The desert having both actual and virtual meaning must co-exist. concepts do not merely exist on their own and should be taken alongside with a cloud of meanings surrounding them. From this viewpoint the desert conveys several meanings, the desert in addition of being a technological testing site is the home for the indegenous inhabitants and several animate and inanimate objects. Unfortunately, it is turned into a place of suffering and pain for many people, among them the indegenous children and women who suffer the most. In addition, the desert is the place for evolution of nonbordered identities as it is a nonbordered open space of the nomad, like Mexican American, who travel in and out of Mexican border. Native American people and Russian Indegenous people are other nomadic people, who were forced to settle down in villages. In their stories the trickster figure and shaman are counter figures, who have counter stories against the mainstream stories of the West. When looked from this perspective Carter's and Abbey's characters are like Deleuzian characters very like in Kafka's minor literature and in minor art like the Chicana painting. Edward Abbey created his self, actually, his ecoself and new environmental discourses in the desert in his autobiography Desert Solitaire and opened a third space in literature. For him, the desert as a wild space must exist and the grand narratives about success and growth that contribute to the destruction of wild spaces must be changed. Reading Angela Carter's novels from this perspective, as she is also fascinated by American open spaces enables the reading of the desert and the open spaces, as the place for the creation of a new self, the ecoself. Her characters are subjected to shape-shifting to create an ecosophy. Alongside R. D. Laing's, M. Foucault's, G. Deleuze's & F.Guattari's views of madness and the self, Edward Abbey's description of the environmental self can be employed in reading of these three novels.for the creation of new selves in the context of the new philosophy, the ecosophy. These novels present mad, hybrid, assembled characters, whose reading cannot be based solely on the reading of the self & other, but there is the need to employ the notions of the self & multiple others. These characters are a little bit indegenous, animal, woman all at the same time and they are polyphonic suggesting nonbordered identity that cannot be categorized and classified according to western viewpoint. They are subjected to violence and experiential learning in the desert. These forms of violence stand for the visible and invisible crimes comitted in the society. By showing these crimes the self can be saved from its confinement in scientific, religious, philosophical and psychoanalytical discourses in history. And this cannot be done by ideology, but it can be done with the effort of the willing individual, who desire change and transformation. Discourses related to West & East and Capitalism & Communism are created in order to establish the third space American character the obeying and consuming Little Man of the mass. The model of the New Little Man is spread to the world through media and Hollywood. In addition stereotypes are created to make the consumerist Little Man common. It is also anounced as the only possibility of man and grand narratives are created that would accompany him as explained in the second part of this thesis. The intellectual background in America is established as the Third Space for philosophical, religious, scientific as well as psychoanalytical discussions and show how bodies and geographical spaces are shaped. The first part of this thesis, as the introduction part, discusses the necessity for a new philosophy employing the nomadic thought via a Deleuzian conceptual toolbox in explaining the hybrid, polyphonic, in-between, homeless characters in these three novels in the light of Laingian, Foucauldian, Deleuzian view of madness and environmental philosophy of Edward Abbey. In the second part concepts that are represented with the allegorical hybrid, polyphonic characters are discussed one by one applying the nomadic way of thinking in the light of R. D. Laing's view of madness of society, M. Foucault's technologies of the self, Deleuze and Guattari's schizoanalysis and ecopsychology. In the third part of this thesis the body in its relation to space, and the discourses about the dynamics of thingification and environmentalism and the elements that shape and map the body and the land, are discussed in the works of Edward Abbey and Angela Carter. There is the discussion of the relation between self & other, self & others, us & them and how the desert is excluded from the discourses of civilization as an isolated space. First there is the dissection of human body and mind, then there is the rigid categorization of the human body with gender roles, and then there is the seperation of the human body from the animal body and lastly there is the seperation of the human body from the body of the Earth. With the disconnection of time and space the human being is doomed to dangle in a void. Now the human being has to look for the ways to connect to other bodies and the body of the Earth. The fourth part of this thesis analyzes The Passion of New Eve, Nights at the Circus, The Monkey Wrench Gang as an active third space and look for possible ways to create the new self in their eco philosophy. It also discusses scientific and psychoanaytical animality discourses based on Freud's view and sexuality discourses in juxtoposition with the counter discourses of animality based on animal symbolism in the indegenous counter stories. In this context western animal symbolism is discussed with the counter indegenous animal symbolism. Madness in this context is again important as it is one of the important characteristics of shamanism. It is important to note that shamanism should not be considered as a new religion. Here, being on the shaman's road and the effort in trying to connect to the sacred spirits is important. In other words it is a quest like pilgrimage that differs from religion to religion that will not be discussed in this thesis. Angela Carter's and Edward Abbey's characters are like a shaman, a historical, a political, a religious, a feminist and an activist figure and appear on other characters' roads as changing and shape-shifting allegorical characters that tell the only necessity of protection of the life on Earth and the preservation of Earth despite the differences in viewpoints. These openbordered identities are forced to use violence as it is a reaction to their violent environment. Their aim is not violence. The behavior of the mad characters can be considered as a reaction as they cannot distinguish real power from the false one. Change can be possible by opening the mind as a third space for thinking and imagination. In the sixth section of the thesis these characters can be thought as a possiblity of the creation of new concepts for the ecosophy presented in the three novels. And these newly created concepts (characters that shifted shape) ) show the possibility of Flight. In conclusion these new becomings can give way to constructive discourses. The various faces and roles of the shaman can show different ways in approaching the world that is the only real thing that makes life possible and is therefore sacred. There is the need to integrate the discourses related to the sacred Earth and life on it, into world religions to save, protect and enlarge the diversity of life on Earth as a third space in the way Carter and Edward Abbey in their eco philosophy do. Being active, indulging in thinking process, accepting only after questioning and challenging dogmas, being aware of real personal needs and real talents, respect for the different and diverse, the effort to connect one's body to the earth's body, not labeling people because of race, color, language and choices can be possible by creating an egoless self, an ecoself that will give way to ecodemocracy. Feminism, ecofeminism, environmentalism, tribal feminism can be active discourses, but being confined in one of these -isms, without being open to difference that can bring about change in eco consciousness would be restricting, considering the evolution and development of these -isms as a consequence, or complimentary part of the former –isms in history makes the rise of ecodiscourses possible. Alongside the scientific third space discussion related to the search of life on other planets like Mars, there is the necessity to create a third space in the present real world in respect of religious discourses that do not only center around the life after death (heaven & hell). World religions should open a third space for the real world rather than virtual world. Angela Carter and Edward Abbey by liberating the eye from the white face of the commanding and threatening master to travel around the world via the animal and black colored, beastlike faces of their characters that replace the white face of Jesus Christ and open a third eye to different perspectives that would allow the creation of new concepts. It also suggests, the possibility to look at the inhuman world through the eyes of different creatures and this is only possible with high levels of empathy. Angela Carter and Edward Abbey in opening a third space of philosophy as ecosophy in their active act of writing and art as they exorcise the evil residing in society.