Oldal 188 [188]
BIRTE GIESLER
[...] The same re-marking itself — more or less — would thus produce the other,
whose function in the differentiation would be neglected, forgotten.*
Following Irigaray, the idea of a male subject is a tautological and self-referring
illusory concept. The vision of male self-(re)production is precisely the over¬
tone of the idea of reproductive cloning and it is exactly what futur de luxe plays
through. Male self-procreation is exactly what happens in the Klein family ac¬
cording to Theo’s bizarre story. Theo claims that he had made his wife deliver
his own genetic copy to prove that “good” is not genetically determined. Pre¬
tending that she was suffering from a genetic illness is a way of trying to sever
the link between mother and offspring. While the characters simply believe
what the father says, the clones/sons seem to come to terms with the situation
by the end of the second version of the plot. Opposite to the male figures are the
mother and the daughter. The daughter explicitly hints at the abysses of life:
USCHI: You are not willing to look into the abysses making up life! [...] We
have to learn what we are [...] Even if it is that difficult. [...] We must
learn to confine. Yes. We also must learn that we have to die one
day.’
Hinting at death being its negation but part of life, Uschi stands for the abyss,
“the Other.” Shortly after pleading for respect of these abysses, she disappears
by killing herself. In the meantime Rudi forces Theo to finish with science,
and it seems that the remaining family is going to recover and come to terms
with the given conditions. In the end, after having been radically ridiculed and
questioned, the male subject of the father is reconfirmed.
Building on Victor Turner, Bauersima’s treatment of human cloning can
be interpreted as a satiric parable of a gendered social drama, namely the rite
of passage of the Western concept of subject. Being identified as a clone, the
subject is left bereft of his genetic family bonds, thus stepping into the phase
of separation. He enters the margin or the liminal, the phase of liminality,
from which point onwards co-existence of the male and female seems no
longer to be possible. After the phase of liminality, the daughter vanishes. The
plot suggests that the mother, who has basically already spirited herself away,
and the male characters, will overcome their difficulties and go on. The sons
return to a new and relatively stable situation, the phase of reintegration. In
35 Luce Irigaray: Speculum of the other woman, trans. Gillian C. Gill, Ithaca/New York, Cornell
University Press, 1985, 18, 21, original emphases.
36 [USCHI: Ihr seid nicht bereit, in die Abgründe zu schauen, die das Leben ausmachen! Wir
müssen lernen zu sein, was wir sind... Auch wenn es so schwierig ist. Wir müssen lernen, uns
zu beschränken. Ja. Auch sterben müssen wir lernen]. Bauersima: futur de luxe, 97, trans.
Birte Giesler.
+ 186 +