초록 열기/닫기 버튼
The freedom to create fictitious worlds that science fiction offers has been utilized by numerous women authors to reimagine gender and sexuality throughout the history of the genre. One of the most recent examples in this tradition is Ancillary Justice, a 2013 novel by Ann Leckie. The novel is known for its depiction of a futuristic civilization where the idea of gender is unknown and its entirely ungendered cast of characters, all of whom are denoted by feminine nouns and pronouns. This article locates Ancillary Justice within the tradition of women’s science fiction that envisions alternative concepts and structures of gender and sexuality and examines the significance of its “genderless” world and narration. By imagining a society without gender binary and describing from the insider’s perspective Ancillary Justice continues and contributes to the legacy of women’s science fiction that challenges the patriarchal norms by presenting alternatives. Furthermore, its ungendered characters, including the narrator, reveals the readers’ dependence on the rigid gender binary and invites them to imagine human identities and interactions without it. On the other hand, the genderlessness of the society without gender prevents the narrative from addressing gender issues directly, while the action-oriented conventional narrative structure carries the risk of undermining the radical imagination of the novel.
