IN ERICA JONG'S FEAR OF FLYING A Thesi

83 Pages·2014·0.42 MB·English

AN “ANNULMENT OF THE SIGNS, [AND] OF THEIR MEANING”:

BAUDRILLARDIAN “SEDUCTION” IN ERICA JONG’S FEAR OF FLYING

A Thesis

Presented to the faculty of the Department of Humanities and Religious Studies

California State University, Sacramento

Submitted in partial satisfaction of
the requirements for the degree of

MASTER OF ARTS

in

Humanities

by

Harrison Clay Bole

FALL
2014
© 2014

Harrison Clay Bole

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

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AN “ANNULMENT OF THE SIGNS, [AND] OF THEIR MEANING”:

BAUDRILLARDIAN “SEDUCTION” IN ERICA JONG’S FEAR OF FLYING

A Thesis

by

Harrison Clay Bole

Approved by:

________________________________, Committee Chair
Victoria Shinbrot, PhD.

________________________________, Second Reader
Jeffrey Brodd, PhD.

______________________________
Date

iii
Student: Harrison Clay Bole

I certify that this student has met the requirements for format contained in the University

format manual, and that this thesis is suitable for shelving in the Library and credit is to

be awarded for the thesis.

__________________________, Graduate Coordinator ___________________
Victoria Shinbrot, PhD. Date

Department of Humanities and Religious Studies

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Abstract

of

AN “ANNULMENT OF THE SIGNS, [AND] OF THEIR MEANING”:

BAUDRILLARDIAN “SEDUCTION” IN ERICA JONG’S FEAR OF FLYING

by

Harrison Clay Bole

A review of the critical literature on Erica Jong’s 1973 novel, Fear of Flying, suggests a

lack of consideration of Isadora Wing’s uses of deception both within, and by way of, the

text. The aim of this paper is to make up for that perceived lack, by taking a detailed look

at how Isadora presents herself to various audiences. In the process, the author brings

Jean Baudrillard’s concept of “seduction” to bear on Fear of Flying, while also making

illustrative use of Eliza Haywood’s eighteenth-century novella, Fantomina: or, Love in a

Maze. The author aims to demonstrate Isadora’s use of Baudrillardian “seduction,” and

how she mirrors Baudrillard’s “seductress” and Eliza Haywood’s Fantomina in her wish

to present a deceptive self-image both within, and by way of, the text. The end of the

paper will briefly discuss the implications of Isadora’s deception, and how it connects

with broader themes present within Fear of Flying.

___________________________, Committee Chair
Victoria Shinbrot, PhD.

____________________________
Date
v
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This thesis is dedicated to my parents, for their support, encouragement, and friendship.

I also want to thank my readers, Dr. Victoria Shinbrot and Dr. Jeffrey Brodd, for carving

out time from their busy schedules to read and critique this work. Lastly, I acknowledge

my longtime friend, Irene, for listening to me talk about Erica Jong, literally, for years,

and for the great academic example she has always provided.

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TABLE OF CONTENTS
Page

Acknowledgements…………………………………………………………………….....vi

Chapter

1. INTRODUCTION……………………………………………………………………...1

2. SEDUCTION, SEDUCTRESSES, AND MYSTERIOUS SIGNS……………………..8

3. BAUDRILLARDIAN “SEDUCTION” IN FEAR OF FLYING……………………...28

4. CONCLUSION……………………………………………………………………......60

Appendix A. Endnotes…………………………………………………………………...62

Works Cited…………………………………………………………………..………….71
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1

CHAPTER ONE: INTRODUCTION
Erica Jong’s first novel, Fear of Flying, which has been considered both a “mock-
memoire” (Miller and Jong 27) and “picaresque” (Butler 312; Spaldo 193), details the
turbulent European trip of a twenty-nine year-old protagonist who, while in her second
marriage, decides to have an affair with another man (Jong, Fear of Flying 16, 44, 46,
107, 110, 122-123, 126, 164, 235-239, 369-374). “Originally published in 1973 by Holt,
Reinhardt, and Winston” (“Fear of Flying”), Fear of Flying has often been of note in the
media during its forty years in public circulation, and has been included amongst the
most significant novels in the history of American letters (“American literature”;
Fleischer, “Have you read the 200 ‘best American novels’?”; Jong, “I’ve Got a Little
List” 283). Perhaps unsurprisingly, Fear of Flying has garnered a number of critical
readings as well. However, while during the course of the novel, Fear of Flying’s
heroine, Isadora Wing, redresses a number of issues regarding sex, gender, the body,
psychoanalysis, academia, literature, and the importance of honesty (Jong, Fear of Flying
14-16, 16-22, 24-25, 92-93, 113, 139, 174-175, 252, 267-269), critics often focus or limit
their discussion to what the novel says in regards to sex and gender (Diamond 21; Dillon
219; Hogeland 625; Lehmann-Haupt 35; Rosen 204)
Nonetheless, a brief overview of the critical literature presents a number of
differing approaches to Fear of Flying. For example, there are readings as to Isadora’s
“appropriation”i (Spaldo 211) of an “aggressive”ii (Dworkin 2) sexuality that had
previously been germane to male protagonists (Hogeland 625; Rosen 204; Spaldo 211) or
marginalized female tropes, such as the “bawd” (Dillon 219). Norma Rosen, for example,
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sees the heroine fitting into the prior category, stating that Isadora “adores males with all
the fervor Humbert lavished on Lolita, and rivals his passions with hers for male bodies,
male smells, male ejaculations” (Rosen 204). Millicent Dillon, notably, reads Isadora
Wing as the modern incarnation of the “bawd,” a character that “revel[s] … in what …
[is] prohibited,” which, for Dillon, is an “anchronis[tic]” trope for modern literature, as
“prohibitions … edge toward a vanishing point” (Dillon 219). Within the novel, Isadora
confirms her affinity for both categories, idolizing passionate and tragic protagonists
(Jong, Fear of Flying 228) as well as “bawdy” female characters like Chaucer’s “Wife of
Bath” (142). At one point Isadora Wing lists out a number of idealized dichotomies,
between obsessive protagonists and their alluring, and sometimes dangerous or sinister,
sexual-poetic “‘love object[s]’” (Jong, Fear of Flying 277):
Dante and Beatrice. Scott and Zelda. Humbert and Lolita. Simone de Beauvoir
and Sartre. King Kong and Faye Wray. Yeats and Maud Gonne. Shakespeare and
the Dark Lady. Shakespeare and Mr. W.H. Allen Ginsberg and Peter Orlovsky.
Sylvia Plath and the Grim Reaper. Keats and Fanny Brawne. Byron and Augusta.
Dodgson and Alice. D. H. Lawrence and Frieda. Aschenbach and Tadizio. Robert
Graves and the White Goddess. Schumann and Clara. Chopin and George Sand.
Auden and Kallmann. Hopkins and the Holy Ghost. Borges and his mother. Me
and Adrian? (228)
The final pairing of Isadora Wing and Adrian Goodlove, the man for whom Isadora
makes her husband, Bennett Wing, a cuckold, indicates Isadora’s self-identification with
the passionate artist and lover (227, 228), aligning herself with not only Nabokov’s
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Humbert and Thomas Mann’s Aschenbach, but also Dante Alighieri, Shakespeare, Lord
Byron, and Chopin (228). And readings that explore Isadora’s “aggressive” (Dworkin 2)
and passionate sexuality (Hogeland 625; Rosen 204) are noteworthy as they tie Fear of
Flying to various theoretical discussions circulating around the time of its publication,
during which time, feminist theorists such as Andrea Dworkin were questioning the net
benefit or detriment of women displaying “aggressive” sexual attitudes, raising Isadora
Wing as a lightning rod for feminist discourses regarding sex (Dworkin 2).
And, indeed, a number of readings of Fear of Flying seek to directly, or
indirectly, relate Isadora Wing to her historic moment, “[t]he women’s movement of the
1960s and ′70s, the so-called ‘second wave’ of feminism,” and tease-out what kind, if
any, of feminism Isadora displays (“feminism”). Arlyn Diamond, for example, cryptically
severs ties between Isadora to contemporary feminism, making use of a chronological
reference, stating that Isadora has, but “disguises … with contemporary rhetoric”
(Diamond 21), “her fifties consciousness” (21), by which Diamond seems to mean a
“consciousness” (21) pervaded by “sexual anxiety and obsession” (22) in lieu of
professional concerns (Diamond 23). Similar readings by Timothy Aubry essentially see
Isadora’s feminism challenged by her “obsession with and emotional dependence upon
men” (Aubry 424), a quality echoed by other critics (Spaldo 198, 204-205; Tompkins
145) and Isadora herself, the latter stating within Fear of Flying, “I had been a feminist
all my life … but the big problem was how to make your feminism jibe with your
unappeasable hunger for male bodies” (Jong, Fear of Flying 125; Jong qtd. in Spaldo
198). Paying attention to the nuances of the feminist movement, Lisa Marie Hogeland