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- Title
Born to Be Bron: Destiny and "Destinerrance" in Samuel R. Delany's "Trouble on Triton."
- Authors
Pearson, Wendy Gay
- Abstract
Presents literary criticism of Bron Helstrom, the protagonist of Samuel R. Delany's "Trouble on Triton" (1976), articulates an ideology of masculinity that is deeply at odds with his society and that his friend, Lawrence, labels a "logical perversion." Deploying Derrida's concept of destinerrance (the notion of arriving at the wrong place, or reaching the right place only by going wrong), this article argues that Delany's complex investigation of questions of gender, sexuality, and race in "Triton" exposes the extent to which such ideologies depend on irrational self-justification and outright duplicity. Bron is caught in the tensions among destiny, destination, and destinerrance; this, quite ironically, makes him in many ways the most utopian character in this ambiguously heterotopian world. Bron has a blueprint for a better society, even if that blueprint is rooted in a nostalgic fantasy of an antiquated realm of sexual hierarchy. However, because "Triton's" heterotopian narrative and locale cannot be wholly dissociated from the concept of utopia, the novel also demonstrates that, since utopia is more of a critical concept than a realizable destination, contemporary utopics have no choice but to deal with their inherent destinerrance. Whether male or (after his chosen gender reassigment) female, Bron's only possible destination is nowhere at all.
- Subjects
TROUBLE on Triton (Book); DELANY, Samuel R., 1942-; MASCULINITY in literature; UTOPIAS in literature
- Publication
Science Fiction Studies, 2009, Vol 36, Issue 3, p461
- ISSN
0091-7729
- Publication type
Literary Criticism