Piercy's Gendered Cyborgs: hope, threat and blurred boundaries

Abstract

Marge Piercy's He, She and It (1991) focuses on Yod, a twenty-first century male "cyborg" created by the male scientist, Avram. In the acknowledgments section of the novel, Piercy writes: "Donna Haraway's essay "A Cyborg Manifesto" was extremely suggestive" (He, She, and It, 1991,431; hereafter HS/). Reflecting Haraway's influence, Piercy explores the limitations of gender imposed upon the cyborg figure, while emphasizing the cyborg's potential both for unfaithfulness to its origins as well as for blurring the boundaries between the human and non-human, and masculinity and femininity.