Identity in Doris Lessing’s Space Fiction By David Waterman

In order to ensure that subjects stay in their proper place, as prescribed by society, the dominant power, following Michael Mann’s hypothesis, employs a strategy of “social caging” (41–42). Charles’s social cage, in other words his proper place, already exists; it was created for him by society, and rather than change his place, one must change the subject. Thanks to education, discipline and tradition, institutions are capable, accord­ing to Michel Foucault, of creating the norm which is a sign of “appartenance à un corps social homogène” [belonging to a homo-genous social body] which also plays “un rôle de classification, de hiérarchisation et de distribution des rangs” [a role of classification, establishing hierarchies and assigning ranks] (216; my translation). The norm is a powerful concept, discussed in more detail further on,which is employed in order to make classification seem routine and natural, a normative sort of discipline which operates discreetly. The norm is also linked to power, according to Michel de Certeau, who defines the norm as an “ambition de maîtrise” [a desire for control] whereby the authorities (such as psychiatrists, for example) are obliged to “défendre leurs modèles,” [defend their models] in spite of their shortsightedness: “Quand ‘l’observateur’ est assez enfermé dans son institution judiciaire, donc assez aveugle, tout se passe bien” [when the observer is cloistered within the judicial institution, hence more or less blind, everything seems to be fine] (95; my translation).

Because Charles has lost his memory, the principal repository of his identity, his mind and his body must be reinscribed according to the dictates of the social system, which includes certain memories and a certain version of social history, which are necessary to his sense of belonging to the dominant culture. “Memory” is a key word, first because western philosophy is based in large part on the concept of memory to define individual as well as collective identity, and secondly because the authorities exploit the past in the construction of a society. The appeal to tradition is a powerful argument, and a subject has difficulty when s/he tries to go against the flow.