Moments before beginning the module I had set aside a novel for my Jewish-Canadian literature class: Glen Rotchin’s The Rent Collector. Unbeknownst to me at that moment was that I had just put down a textual representation of reproductive politics. The Rent Collector follows the life of an orthodox Jew whose life is anchored by his religion. Gershon Stein struggles to maintain stability in his life without stepping outside the bounds of his faith; Gershon’s inability to perform his various roles (businessman, son, husband, father, etc.) render him a failure. Where does the reproductive narrative fit into Gershon’s story? Well, as I said, he is represented as a failure in virtually every aspect of his life, particularly as a husband. Gershon’s wife wants a third child: she connects their single beds at night, wears a fresh nightgown and sits up, waiting for her husband to ‘perform his obligation’. But Gershon, for whatever reason, does not comply with his wife’s wishes. Their marriage falls apart, solely because he fails to comply with his wife’s wishes to have another child.
Why does his wife begin to resent him for not wanting a third child? They already have two young daughters, barely grown, and she has her hands full (something she makes very clear throughout the novel), so why push so hard for another child? The reproductive narrative in this text represents the purpose of womanhood in terms of procreation: by not having more children, his wife feels as though her husband is taking away her one and only purpose on earth. This is a novel written and published in the twenty-first century, not back in the Victorian period and, yet, there is that antiquated notion of femininity and reproductive value. The novel’s representation of the reproductive narrative is romanticized. Reproduction is described as a mystical blend of spirituality and biology. The female as a reproductive being yearns to carry a child in order to feel connected to God and become personally empowered:
Having children was more than a Commandment from God. A desire for babies flowed through her body with the force of chemistry. This was His gift. At a certain time of the month, Ruhama felt the onset of an overwhelming, irresistible power. The veins in her arms and arteries of her legs channeled energy. The whole of her flesh was a receptacle into which the Divine poured forth. Divinity circulated, coursed through her body and took shape to form His image. A baby. As long as Gershon abstained Ruhama felt incomplete. (Rotchin 76)
The reproductive narrative as depicted in the above passage defines reproduction as an intrinsic, physiological need – an uncontrollable “desire for babies” which is both “overwhelming [and] irresistible”(76). I found this passage resonated with the module in offering a fictional reproductive narrative in a contemporary text and, in doing so, defining the worth, value and purpose of a woman in terms of reproduction.
As the module demonstrates, unraveling the tightly wound ideology in which reproduction and marriage are unified as though inextricable is difficult to do. What exacerbates the concepts of proper reproduction and proper marriage is that they are not being told once, by one particular group: they are being retold and the tale is multi-voiced. The constant retelling of the same constructed narrative is what makes it so difficult to transgress, even we can see through the fiction. Reading the reproductive narrative in The Rent Collector, I felt that the restricted female figure – as a procreator – was a dangerous narrative, but yet it appears in all types of films and texts and the story endures because it continues to be told.
Another thing that really caught my attention as I went through the module was the slide with the tabloid magazines featuring the stars of the reality show Teen Mom. It’s interesting because as soon as I got started on the module I kept thinking of this show, and then there it was and for obvious reasons, as it is a prime example of a teen-pregnancy narrative represented in popular culture. Documenting the difficulties and dangers of teen pregnancy, the show certainly has constructed a frightening narrative. Or, has it? The interesting thing about this show in the context of popular culture is that it has, to an extent, glamorized teen pregnancy. The teenage girls plastered on these celebrity tabloid magazines, followed by paparazzi and featuring in their own reality TV series has a dual effect: if the show is supposed to caution teens to be safe and thus avoid teen pregnancy, does it not simultaneously offer an opportunity for teen moms to capitalize on doing precisely that which it cautions against?
Rotchin, Glen. The Rent Collector: A Novel. Montréal, Québec: Esplanade, 2005. Print.