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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 overtone 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 according 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. Pretending 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 +
