A Martian Odyssey 'And When I Was Miss Dow'

Aliens in science fiction have not only served as a topic of entertainment, but as beings of reflection for people. Questions of intelligence and civilization amongst aliens bring contest to the dominance and achievements of mankind. In the short stories, “A Martian Odyssey” by Stanley Weinbaum and “When I was Miss Dow” by Sonya Dorman, humanity is repeatedly contested through the aliens depicted. Weinbaum’s writing recounts the adventure of astronaut Dick Jarvis where his observations of the grotesque and diverse Martian lifeforms bring into question the limitations and the closedmindedness of humans. In “When I was Miss Dow”, the protagonist integrates into human society through the changing of its originally genderless form to a human woman.

Where Dick Jarvis’s journey was one of external contact and conflict between human and alien, Martha’s path follows the internal conflict of human and alien. Martha realizes through her relations with Dr. Arnold Procter, the inequalities and personal struggles of the multi-gendered reality of humans. Her purpose as an assistant and also supposedly as one of the “joy babies” defines her subservience (Dorman 79). Her role is one where she is essentially being pimped out by the Warden and Uncle to fuel their sulfadiazole addiction (Dorman 79). This role contrasts with the one-gendered society of the Protean where Martha was originally a trained scholar whilst also revealing a similar mechanism of subjugation amongst the Protean. Martha accepts her role due to the dynamics of her society where she states “the Warden has the right to use me in whatever capacity serves us best” (Dorman 79). Despite this, her society is seen as one that lacks the tragedy of human, something Marth exemplifies as “being a poet in the body of a cockroach”. It can implied from this statement that the potential of a human female is wasted in the reality of gender dynamics, whilst her original existence was one of coming for the family bank, studying, becoming warden, and being dumped in the family bank (Dorman 81). In

This is shown specifically through the examination of how gender roles and hierarchies not only define the lives of humans, but also limit them. Because Martha is sent be an assistant to Dr. Proctor and also by essentially a prostitute for the Warden and Uncle, she defines her human existence to that of a woman. Martha’s existence as a person and as a women gets increasingly based on her relationship to the doctor. At first Martha displays superficial self-consciousness through actions such as one when she describes while looking at her koota’s radiograph, “I don’t need to do a thing but stand up straight so the crease at my waist won’t distort my belly button at the center of it all” (Dorman 76). Dorman seems to critique the superficial and unrealistic expectations placed upon women in society by using the lens of Martha, who is experiencing these social pressures firsthand. Martha seems to struggle with the expectations put on her and how her life becomes defined by the doctor. This becomes apparent when she is ignored by the doctor whilst he makes wood carving and she begins suffer a pain between her lungs. Her emotional understanding of the situation is revealed in her statement, “If he doesn’t see me, than am I here?” (Dorman 78). The statement reveals the aspects of gender hierarchy, where