Where meaning collapses " : i Alien and the outlawing of the female hero

The article explores the f i l m ’s apparent but prob lem atic fe m in ism , involving the underm ining o f the setting u p o f the m a in character as a heroic a n d liberated w om an a d isso n a n t s tance w hich is considered to be sym ptom atic o f a fundam en ta l contradiction in the positioning o f wom an in relation to culture a n d language. Kristeva’s views on subjectivity a nd the abject are explored a n d applied. The silen c in g o f the vo ice o f the (h u )m a n is exp lored in th e co n tex t o f linguistic em pow erm en t a nd disem pow erm ent. A postscript on Thelm a and L o u ise is added to underline a nd confirm the double hind in which the fem a le hero fin d s herself.

1.The relegation of the feminine Much has been written about Alien in the thirteen years since its first release.A possible reason is the film's apparent but problematic feminism; in attempting to explicate it, critics have defined Alien as "stunningly egalitarian", "a breakthrough in cinematic sexual politics", "the dernier cri of the masculine principle"^ -and yet it has also been considered no more than an "idyllic reconstruction of a radical feminist humanism" which in fact "reasserts a m ale d o m in an ce th a t will w eaken and stab ilize th e fem ale and m ake h er safe for patriarchy" (Kavanagh, 1990:80;Byers, 1989:86).The debate tends to turn on a sequence tow ards the end of the film in which R ipley, th e c e n tra l fem ale c h a ra c te r, is seen undressing.The representation of her body as object of male desire seem s to belie the film's apparent project of setting her up as a heroic and liberated woman.This is further complicated by the the source o f A lien ' s horror -a womb-like alien spacecraft and an evil com puter nam ed "M other" -being characterised as fem inine.I shall contend th at the film 's dissonance is sym ptom atic of a fundam ental co n tradiction in the positioning of women in relation to culture and language: if the symbolic is located in the patriarchal order, ruled by the law of the father, then the power o f the fem ale is found in some place outside of this order, most obviously in the presymbolic dom ain of the mother.It follows then that where the woman is liberated from patriarchy, she is also excluded from the use of (symbolic) language.Identification with the primitive pow er of the m aternal leads to collusion in patriarchy's relegation of the feminine to the margins of culture, and precludes the possibility of fem ale power within that rejected -and rejecting -order.Alien locates the fem inine both with a m onstrous th re a t to the sym bolic and with the agent of the m o n ster's d efeat.T he film a ttrib u te s a double, and hence self-negating, valency to feminine power which resembles the ambivalence of the feminist search for a position in relation to the symbolic that does not also have to be a position of silence.

The monstrous-feminine in horror films
In her article "H orror and the M onstrous-Fem inine: An Im aginary Abjection", Barbara Creed (1986:44-70) examines feminine em pow erm ent outside the symbolic in her attem pt to explain the frequent association of monstrousness with the maternal in horror films.She suggests that this association is 'imaginary' in both senses of the word: in Lacanian terms, entry into the symbolic is preceded and potentially threatened by the undifferentiation of the m aternal dyad; it is here, outside the symbolic, in what Lacan calls the imaginary, that the monstrous-fem inine resides.At the same time.C reed (1986:70) suggests that such a definition of fem ale power -as negative and as prelinguistic -is an "attem pt to shore up the symbolic order by constructing the fem inine as an imaginary 'o th e r' which must be repressed and controlled in o rd er to pro tect the social order" (em phasis m ine -CB).C reed, in o th er w ords, concludes th at asso ciatin g the m o th e r with the m o n ster is a patriarchal ideological project for controlling women.But in A lien it is the monstrousfem inine which is controlled by a woman, Ripley.I suggest that the film problem atises C reed's assum ption by enacting the th reat of the m aternal in linguistic terms: as I shall point out, what is most threatened in the film is the language of men, and the point where it is most threatened is also the point where women appear to gain the power of subjectivity and speech.But this power can only be used to re-establish the patriarchal symbolic.It is this aspect of the film I wish to explore: in Alien, women are given an imaginary (in both senses of the word) position from which to speak.
It is useful to follow C reed in basing my analysis on Julia Kristeva's psychoanalytic theory of subjectivity and abjection.

Julia Kristeva: Subjectivity and abjection
According to Kristeva, the subject maintains its fragile wholeness within the symbolic order by rejecting the abject, th a t which both th re a te n s and, in being excluded, defines the subject.The threat of the abject is manifested in the subject's loathing for what is vomited or excreted, for blood, for what evinces death.Kristeva (1982:2) describes the abject as the "jettisoned object" which is "radically excluded and draws me tow ard th e place where m eaning collapses"."Jettisoned objects" reveal the frailty o f the subject by defining the lim its o f w hat is considered 'hum an' as a result of having been made to traverse these limits.In being rejected, then, the abject points both to the existence of such limits and to their ineluctable encroachm ent; abjection consigns waste, the evidence of death, to "the other side of the border, the place where I am not and which permits me to be", while each extrication of the living rem ainder of the body from those borders brings it closer to the condition of the corpse, "the most sickening of w astes,... a border that has encroached upon everything" (Kristeva, 1982:3).
A t the sam e tim e, "the place w here m eaning collapses" does not only refer forward to death.It also connects the loss of subjectivity in death with an ea rlie r 'place', where, preceding entry into the symbolic, the subject has not yet been formed.This place is the imaginary, or what Kristeva calls the cliora, a fluid and yet womb-like maternal space which underlies and potentially undermines the stability of the symbolic, the paternal structure.
Alien may be seen as the mapping of an exploration of such an imaginary 'place ';Kristeva (1982;18) describes the 'aesth etic task ' o f exploring the abject as "a descent into the foundations o f the symbolic construct", "retracing the fragile limits of the speaking being, closest to its dawn, to the bottomless 'primacy' constituted by primal repression".In Alien, the space travellers' visit to the planet, and the subsequent invasion of their ship by an alien creature, mark a descent more temporal than spatial; the alien comes from a place with an atm osphere that Ash, the science officer, describes as 'prim ordial'.^The terrifying 'space' of the film (its publicity slogan: "In space, no-one can h ear you scream") is implicitly the abyss co n taining all th a t has been relin q u ish ed on th e su b ject's first entry into the patriarchal symbolic.'*At the structural centre of the film, a meal is interrupted when one of the male diners gives birth.H is body is burst open by the violent em ergence o f an alien creatu re from his thoracic cavity.The scene has been described as "one of the most horrifying ... ever filmed" (Scanlon & G ross, 1979: u n p ag in ated ).T h e double b irth /d e a th is graphically and convincingly depicted.But perhaps the scene's profoundly shocking effect results as much from the specific im plications of its various elem ents as from the gory vividness of their depiction: the scene enacts the culm ination of abjection, the carrying out of a profound threat to the male subject and to the symbolic order itself.R eactions to the first studio viewing of the rough cut of the film, while contingent, are an appropriate dem onstration of the scene's effect.Eating and seeing are disturbed: O n an obvious level, elem ents of the alien 's birth connect it with the hum an subject's rejection of the abject, of that which it finds repulsive.While eating, Kane begins to cough and retch as if choking on his food, or vomiting.A crew mate comments; "The food ain't that bad!"A scene in which a diner vomits at table would be repulsive to the spectator, for the abject would be exposed.The force of the scene, however, like the act of vomiting itself, would be conservative, a reconstitution of the body, or the subject, by the expulsion of 'bad food'.

The jettisoned object
The birth scene is not conservative, however: the alien em erges by bursting through the wall of the m an's chest, revealing the inside of his body, physically ruptured rath er than reconstituted.The new-born creature utters a cry and slithers off, leaving Kane dead on the table, surrounded by the debris of the meal.Abjection is inverted, for the expulsion of the alien makes of the human body a corpse; it is the alien and not the hum an which then "extricates itself, as being alive, from [the abject, the] border" of th at corpse (Kristeva, 1982:3).A little later, K ane's body is disposed of by being ejected from the ship.H e has become, hterally, the 'jettisoned object'.
W hat was ostensibly the film 's subject has been transform ed into the em bodim ent of the abject.With this transform ation comes the disruption of language.N ot only are the body and identity of the subject ruptured, literally silencing him, but so too is the symbolic order in which that subject is constituted.The alien 's birth is characterised by a num ber of inversions.It is non-genital, associated with the digestive tract rather than with the organs of human reproduction, and with the upper rather than the lower half of the body.5Most significant, though, is the inversion of gender in the scene.The birth might be likened to 'norm al' human parturition, the child's initial separation from the m other's body beginning a process which culm inates in its entry into the symbolic, the m om ent which necessitates, particularly for the male subject, rejection of the m other and hence associates the m aternal with the abject.Yet in Alien, a man gives birth, he is tended by m ale 'midwives' (Dallas and Parker), and Lambert and Ripley, the women, stand and watch.^Outside the margins defined by abjection, what is human is endangered, and what is most human, according to androcentric human culture, is man.
A possible result of endangering the symbolic, though, is the disruption of its basis, the binary system that makes possible the distinction between hum an and non-human, or man and woman.T he structure o f Alien, which can be schem atised in a way th at reveals its sym metry and represen ts its descent into and return from the "limits of the symbolic", facilitates the blurring of such distinctions.T he film 's action, fram ed by sleep, can be likened to a dream , a descent into the unconscious (K ane actually refers to the A lien's attack as "a horrible dream ").But there are two dream ers.T he film begins with the apparent awakening of Kane.The use of double exposure as he rises -he appears to leave his own body -suggests that it is not normal waking Hfe that he enters.A t the end, it is Ripley, the woman, who goes back to sleep.The male subject does not survive the dream intact: Kane's death -the alien's birth -is the fulcrum about which the film's movement in relation to 'the abject' turns.At this point, the patriarchal symbolic is most threatened; a man is silenced by his encounter with the archaic.Kane, although established as the male subject, is characterised neith er as particularly 'm anly' -socially au thoritative -or as 'm acho' -physically powerful (D allas and Parker, respectively, seem to conform to these stereotypes).Kane, rather, is fragile, childlike, perhaps even androgynous.For much of the film, he is alm ost naked, always in white.H e does not b ear the conventional signs of masculinity.Similarly, Ripley is not stereotypically feminine.It is as if, with the descent into the presymbolic, gender distinctions are further blurred: Kane becomes increasingly vulnerable while Ripley gets stronger.It is possible to see K ane/R ipley as the composite, and so perfectly androgynous, v ic tim /h e ro o f A lien , as a d re a m e r lib erated from the confines of symbolic consciousness, and so -briefly -from its oppositional definitions.
Significantly, for Ripley the dream is about ascendancy; for Kane, it is a nightmare ending in death.This difference is based on the initial distinction betw een the m asculine and fem inine (w aking) subjects' position in relatio n to the sym bolic: A lien explores the forgotten matriarchy which precedes and underlies the structures erected to establish man's identity.The disconcerting instability of such a foundation is captured in R oger Dadoun's description of the pre-Oedipal maternal: T h e m o th e r a s a s p a tio -te m p o ra l fo rm is dissolved.S h e is no lo n g e r th e re , n o lo n g e r p re s e n t o r clearly d elin eated .S he sim ply m arks a tim e before, a previous state w hich is n ev er n am ed ; an d sh e is th a t in w hich everything b eco m cs engulfed ... (D ad o u n , 1989:41).
The monstrous in Alien, as I have indicated, is maternal.On the planet, the alien hatches from an egg, implying the existence of some huge female creature, one who is never seen.T he hum ans' ship, N ostrom o, ( 'o u r m an'), is co n tro lled by M other, a com puter who n urtures the A lien at the cost of hum an life.T hese figures are m anifestations o f the encompassing presence and power of the presymbolic maternal.As the foundation which underlies and can underm ine the construct of the symbolic, she is the 'place where meaning collapses'.
If, as Creed (1986:62) has stressed, this negative 'reconstruction' of the generative archaic m other -potentially the positive "woman as the source of all life" -is a result of the film's "patriarchal signifying practices", then the function of the horror film's cathartic exploration of the abject is the re-establishment of patriarchy.If, as Kristeva puts it, the "aesthetic task" is descent, then the "central ideological project of the popular horror film".C reed's analysis implies, is the return, the escape: The fem ale signifies the negative, the monstrous, what the film unearths only in order to repress once more.The paradox of Alien is that the only crew m em ber to survive the havoc of the m aternal and finally expel the alien, ensuring the film's conservative return to the order of the father, is a woman.If the horror film functions to reaffirm the symbolic in the face of threats from all that is aligned with the (pre-signifying) universe of the m other, then what is the role of woman, as character, or as spectator/critic?W here, on the horror film's curve of descent and resurrection, does the woman find a place? 5. R eassertion of male dominance?This is the problem which underlies the often contradictory fem inist readings of the film.T he scene in which Ripley undresses is, as I have pointed out, the site of much critical anxiety.T hom as B. Byers (1989:69), for instance, finds th e seq u en ce a misogynistic "reassertion of ... male domination".In C reed's view, Ripley's naked body is constructed as a "reassuring and pleasurable sign", acting to neutralise the negative signification -but also the threat -attached to the monstrous maternal (Creed, 1986:69).
While the scene does appear to reassert patriarchal dominance, it is a symptom rather than a cause of the the restitution o f the symbolic o rd er which, once m ore in pow er, returns woman to her position as object of the desiring m ale gaze.C reed's reading reveals the position of that gaze; when the symbolic order is restored, the female body becomes once more that which in its reification flatters the threatened phallocentric eye.Creed (1986:68) contends that the scene does not underm ine R ipley's "role as a successful heroine" (my em phasis -CB).D oes C reed mean that R ipley's survival in the face o f the m onstrous m aternal makes her 'successful' in feminist terms, simply because she is a strong woman?O r is it the film 's discourse, which C reed has already p ositioned as p atriarch al, which 'succeeds'?If so, the cam era's exploration of Ripley's body indeed affirms her position as the 'heroine' (the distressed and desired damsel fortunate enough to escape the monster), rather than as the agent of succes.s, the hero.TTie problem, then, lies in the film's uneasy conjunction of two forms of fem ale power.In locating both the subversive and the conservative within the fem inine.Alien discloses its ambivalence about woman's position in relation to the boundaries of abjection -and so to the margins of the symbolic.Jam es H. K avanagh (1990:73) explains this am biv alen ce by suggesting th a t th e film in ten tio n ally disguises its hum anism -e sse n tia list and p o litically co n serv ativ e -as "powerful, progressive and justifying feminism".T he ho rro r film, to the exten t th at it conforms to C reed 's analysis, is inevitably and explicitly hum anist, its concern being the hum an's reassuring defeat of the non-human.I would argue that what Kavanagh calls the film's "schizophrenia" stem s not from a deliberate attem pt to conceal its hum anism but from its unsurprising inability to position the powerful fem inine on both sides of horror's traditio nal b attle lines at once, an inability which reveals the fundam ental paradox of women's relationship to patriarchal culture.In an order based on binary oppositions, she is torn betw een contradictory poles; as hum an rath er than alien, and fem inine rath er than masculine, she is both 'm an' and not-man.To em brace fully the power bestowed by one position is to relinquish that of the other.A lien's double em pow erm ent of the feminine resem bles what M argaret H omans, in a different context -one I shall return to -calls a "self-cancelling project" (1986:36).
A close analysis of A lien 's rep resen tatio n of language, o f the symbolic and w hat both underlies and threatens it, reveals the film's en trapm ent in this paradox.T he tripartite structure of my analysis follows the p attern of the film's exploration of the abject: I first exam ine its regression to the realm of the m aternal, then its positioning o f the feminine within this realm, and end with the film's conventional but problem atic restoration of the symbolic, an ending which reveals y4/;en's failure to find a conclusion which can reassert the h u m an w ith o u t u n d e rm in in g th e fem in in e.As 1 shall d e m o n s tra te , th e film can compensate for the abjection of Kane's body only by making an object of Ripley's.In doing so, the film conservatively bears -and at the same time, unwittingly, radically bares -the project of patriarchal culture: silencing the female.A lien's disruption of the symbolic is made explicit in its representation o f language and specifically o f the mouth, the site of speech.The descent to the presymbolic is associated with a shift in the function of the mouth; it is as if the film presents a regression to what Freud called the "oral phase" o f sexual developm ent, the earliest p eriod, in which the mouth is the locus of nutrition and eroticism.Laplanche and Pontalis (1973:287)  Fittingly, then, the birth scene takes place at the dinner table.The crew is being fed by M other, who appears to provide everything.(They have no control over what is fed to them ; as Ripley is to discover, this extends from distasteful food to lethally dangerous m isinform ation.)D ialogue during the scene is not easily intelligible.M ore than one person speaks at the sam e time, and the noise of eating and the hum of machinery -the sounds of the bodies of M other and 'children' feeding and being fed -seem to drown out speech.T he conversation, when it can be m ade out, is a b o u t food -predom inantly com plaints about the nu trition provided by M other.O ne exchange m akes explicit the location of (specifically m ale) sexuality with the oral: Lam bert, the second fem ale crew member, comments on the speed at which Parker eats, despite his distaste.H e retorts that he'd "rather be eating something else".It is clear from her coy response that cunnilingus is implied.
T he sounds m ade by Kane as the creature em erges, the 'voice' of the body, seem to be m ore clearly articulated than verbal language.Gagging, Kane is effectively gagged.A spoon is put in his m outh, not to feed him, b u t w edged in to stop him from biting his tongue.It is too late; his tongue has become redundant, as, at this point, have all human 'tongues'.The newborn alien utters a cry, just conceivably a distorted version of 'm am a'in this place, the alien speaks -and then vanishes.The scene ends with a long silence; in the face of the horror, human language fails completely.
The shift in the oral function which culm inates in this silence is introduced with K ane's im pregnation, the first 'oral rape' of the film.Kane alone explores the deepest recess of the alien craft, a damp organic chamber filled with eggs.A creature hatches from one and attacks him, covering his face and penetrating his mouth with a phallic organ, which later proves to have insem inated him.As explorer, looking into the depths of the m aternal, Kane is m ade the object of sexual p enetration, is blinded and silenced.^T he narrative falters with the loss of its central subject: as soon as Kane's face is covered, there is a cut to a long ex terio r shot o f th e alien ship on th e d eso la te p lan et, a shot w ith no hum an reference point.The rescue of Kane is not recorded.The interior of the ship cannot be seen once he is unconscious.This disturbance of the visual is another symptom of the alien's threat.The subject's entry into the symbolic order is m arked by seeing, by the distinguishing power of the gaze.The reconnaissance of the alien p lan et is hindered by the failure of both visual and verbal com m unication.The crew on the ship and the three who en te r the alien craft keep in contact by means of video cameras and microphones.Shots of the planet from the logically non-hum an angle of an om niscient narrating cam era -the view o f a landscape devoid of humans -are accompanied by organic noise, breathing, a heartbeat.Prior to the symbolic is the vocalisation of the m aternal body.H ere, the hum an point of view is obscured and disrupted: the cam era (both fictional and actual) fails, and so does the speech needed to explain it.Dallas, the ship's com m ander, the man expected to stand for control, reason, order, has his voice obscured by interference.He tries to com m unicate with the science officer, saying: "Ash, as you can see, there the rest is unintelligible.Ash cannot see, and neither he nor we can hear what it is that he cannot see.
The birth scene completes this disruption of the subject 'eye' when revulsion at the sight of the creature bursting through K ane's body makes some spectators look away, cover their faces, close their eyes.As C reed (1986:64) puts it, the "suturing processes" which position the viewer of a horror film as seeing subject can be "momentarily undone while the horrific image on the screen challenges the viewer to run the risk of continuing to look".
A fter Kane's death, there seems to be a hiatus in the film, an interval before the narrative is re-established.TTiis is more than just a period of recovery after the climactic birth scene, I would contend.A t the nadir of the descent, subjectivity is fragmented among the surviv ing crew mem bers, leading to a loss o f audience sympathy and a fault, a weak spot, in the narrative structure.Alien's capacity to threaten the symbolic extends, then, to the narrative that frames it, and even to the signifying practices of its medium.®The second half of the film narrates the crew's attem pts to hunt out and destroy the ahen, which is concealed som ewhere on the ship, and the deaths of the crew m em bers as they fail.The exploded subject is gradually narrow ed down once m ore and reconstituted, as Ripley.9 7. The Tjitch' speaks: placing the fem ale voice The symbolic language which is traditionally the domain and possession of men is threaten ed with dissolution.A t its expense, the alien, creature of the m aternal, has been born.If, as M argaret H om ans (1986) puts it, patriarchy positions woman with the "silent o b je c t..., the dead mother", then the resurgence of the m aternal has its corollary in the linguistic ascendance of the women.
L am bert is presented as brittle and hysterical, a stereotypical 'weak w om an' contrasted w ith the strength and rationality of R ipley.She is the first to speak in the film, and, characteristically, she complains: "I am cold."H er words are ignored.She is the last to die, and h er scream s, heard by Ripley, seem to sum up the film 's reduction of hum an language to the primitive: they are utterly bestial.To this extent, like Dallas, B rett and P arker, L am bert is a hum an stereotype, defined by the symbolic and destroyed by what threatens it.Yet, on the planet, rebuked by Dallas, the comm ander, for complaining, she defends her language, retorting, "I like whining." This assertion reveals one aspect o f fem ale power: the positive re-evaluation of what patriarchy considers negative, what is seen as the weakly feminine use of speech.Ripley's linguistic pow er is the kind m ore commonly accepted as feminist: her speech reveals a co n fid en t ratio n ality usually asso ciated with the m asculine.Significantly, this, like L am bert's whining, leads to objections from the m ale crew m em bers.T he woman who commands symbolic power is abnormal, and conceived as a threat to the masculine subject.
To this extent, Ripley is positioned as opposed to the 'men', who try to revert her language to L am bert's controllable inarticulacy.An early scene in the film suggests th at this may, superficially at least, be quite easily done.D uring the descent to the planet, Ripley is stopped by Parker and Brett, who are repairing damage to the ship.A valve emits a noisy blast of steam , obscuring dialogue.The m en ask Ripley about getting paid overtim e. Ripley knows -and so is implicitly empowered in -the law of the company that pays them.She says: "You're guaranteed by law to get a share."P arker expresses his resentm ent by pretending not to h ear or u n derstand her.H e keeps rep eatin g "W hat?" and laughing.When she leaves, he turns off the valve, the sudden quiet revealing that he has deliberately disrupted -or at least refused to facilitate -their communication.H e laughs and calls her "Some bitch!" C alling R ipley a "bitch" plays an im p o rta n t p a rt in estab lish in g h e r p o sitio n in the alignments of human and non-human.Kavanagh (1990:77) points out that Ripley's naming of the alien and the com puter reveals the connection betw een the two non-humans: she calls the creature a "son of a bitch", and when the com puter refuses to obey her, she shouts "Mother, you bitch!"This also seems to indicate her opposition to both: replacing Kane and guiding the film's return from the depths of the presymbolic, she needs to connect the alien and the com puter which protects it with the archaic m aternal, defining h er 'enemy', perhaps.Except -and Kavanagh does not m ention this -Ripley is also called a "bitch".She cannot be extricated from her identity with the mother.
T hat her power is coupled with th at of the m aternal, at the sam e tim e as opposing it, is evident in R ipley's first strong assertion of linguistic pow er: it coincides w ith K ane's silencing.Because Kane and Dallas are exploring the planet, Ripley, as third officer, takes control of the Nostromo.The absence of the men leaves her in command.Kane is brought back with the creature attached to his face and Ripley has to decide w hether or not to allow him on board.She is ruthless, refusing to break quarantine rules and perm it entry to w hat is unknown.She insists on trying to c ap tu re th e alien in ratio n a l -sym boliclanguage, saying: "I need a clear definition".K avanagh (1990:79) suggests th at Ripley seems inhum an at this point, "making a decision on scientific, theoretically antihum anist grounds".This positioning is significant in that Ripley, as 'bitch', is aligned with the non human.Paradoxically, though, her assertiveness is hum anist in intention: to exclude not Kane, but the alien.H er growing command of the symbolic is dependent on its threatened condition; nonetheless, her power is used to defend it against the non-human.But Ripley is, for now, refused her 'definition'.Ash opens the airlock w ithout her permission, letting K ane and the alien on b o ard .T he co m p u ter M other, synthetic m an ifestatio n o f the m aternal, has to ensure that the offspring of the alien m other gains entry, and uses her 'son', Ash, a robot and the ship's science officer, to do so.Like the alien, Ash is called a "son of a bitch" (by P arker, on discovering th at he is a ro bo t and so not hum an).The relationship betw een the synthetic non-humans and language is a complex one: logically, the representatives of science might be expected to be directly opposed to the organic nonhum an's disruption of language.Products o f hum an reason, they seem at the furthest rem ove from the presym bolic.T he film, though, p resen ts the language o f science as o p p o sed to th a t o f th e h u m an sym bolic.W hen R ip ley c o n fro n ts A sh a b o u t his disobedience, he delib erately uses scientific jarg o n to avoid answ ering h er questions.Further, M other's betrayal of the crew is dependent both on the concealm ent of her orders in a binary code which only Ash can understand, and on the illusion that the com puter is m ore human than synthetic, that it is benevolent and m aternal.Early in the film, Dallas, the commander, tries to find out why the craft has been re-routed.H e types a message into the computer: "What's the story.M other?"The irony is revealed later; M other's 'story' is a lie, and her human 'children' are expendable.The alien, as organic creature and as Ash the robot, is her true child.Later, when Dallas asks M other to help him destroy the alien, she refuses, repeating only: "Does not compute." Ripley decodes M other's language, making it intelligible to the human.In doing so, she discovers that the human has been betrayed, that mother and monster are connected.The woman is empowered in the realm of the m aternal, but uses that pow er to defend 'man'.D eterm ined to destroy the alien, Ripley programmes the computer to blow up the ship.At this point.M other begins to speak, in a human, fem ale voice.All she can utter in human speech, though, is the countdown to her own destruction.W hen Ripley changes her mind and trie s to rev erse h er o rd e r, M o th er ignores h er com pletely.R ipley atta c k s the computer, shouting: "Mother, you bitch!".She manages to escape before the explosion in a space capsule, ejecting herself from M other's craft.In an enactm ent of the Oedipal crisis, she breaks away from the maternal.The body of the spaceship explodes as Ripley leaves it.
T he alien 's ru p tu rin g of K ane's body is echoed in R ipley's 'b irth ' from M other.The m aternal is fragmented, dissolved in space, abjected.
Ripley restores order by destroying the malevolently inhuman mother.W hen she finds that the alien has in fact stowed away on her escape craft, she dispatches him reasonably easily.T he h ero o f the film, she has succeeded -w here all men failed -in carrying out the 'ideological project' of the horror film: she has ensured the retu rn from the abject, the reconstitution of the symbolic, of meaning.In shouting "you bitch" at M other, she may be said to have brought about what C reed (1988:65) calls "the conventional ending of the horror narrative in which the monster is usually 'nam ed' and destroyed", in which the abject is once more repressed.In the above quotation M argaret Hom ans is writing about Elizabeth G askell's struggle to position herself in relation to her writing of a commentary on W ordsworth's poems.The "contradictory aims" are to write, and yet to perceive herself as at one with nature, which is the object of his writing.Ripley's role as cham pion of the symbolic o rd er at the end of Alien is a similarly self-cancelling project: she is silenced in the same way as the maternal body is.She is the agent of the destruction of her own power; in ensuring the ascent from the abject, she commits herself to going back to sleep, her dream of power ended.Giving birth, Kane bears the alien.In rescuing language from the place where meaning collapses, Ripley bears the human, which seems inescabably to be the "word of her own silencing".Kristeva (1982:3) uses the image of giving birth in her description of the role of abjection in the constitution of the subject: Kristeva, like Ripley, and lii<e the female spectator of the film, is a daughter.Kristeva does not make explicit the differences between the 'becoming' of the subject 'I' of the daughter and that of the son.Because first person pronouns are not gendered, their reference when she uses them is am biguous.But can K risteva, as a w om an as well as a w riter, be the subject of her own discourse?Is th e 'I' giving b irth th e subject constructing itself by expelling the abject?O r is this I -not 'I' -the m other, violated -abjected -by the escape of the new 'I'?And the newborn 'myself -not myself: is this the newly constituted subject, or that which is vomited, expelled with revulsion?
A m an, securely co n stitu ted w ithin the laws o f th e p a tria rc h al symbolic, escapes this ambiguity.He cannot give birth.His expulsion of the abject unambiguously reaffirms the speaking 'I'.But in A lien, a man is m ade to give birth, becom ing w hat is abject.The constitution of the symbolic 'I' is fundam entally th reaten ed , and K risteva's m etaphors becom e lite ra l in the im aginary realm of th e m o th er.K ane en acts "the p ro cess of becoming another at the expense of [his] own death": the man gives way both to the alien, the 'son of a bitch' born out of his body, and to the woman, whose power is connected with the dissolution of his own.R ipley's pow er, how ever, en su re s th e re sto ra tio n o f the ruptured symbolic -and male -body.To this end, the pattern of forced oral insemination and subsequent birth is repeated in the second half of the film, with significant variations.This time, Ripley is the victim.
T he second oral rape takes place when Ripley, having decoded M other's m essages, is attacked by Ash.She has become the enemy of the maternal, and he avenges M other and the alien by forcing her to confront the implications of defending the symbolic.In a scene which both encapsulates and com plicates the film's regressive disorientation of the oral function.Ash rolls up a m agazine and p en e tra te s Ripley's m outh with it.It is a pinup magazine.A shot of Ripley's head, pushed back on the counter surface, juxtaposes her, choking on the paper which fills her mouth, with the cover girl on a magazine propped up behind her: the woman is scantily dressed and in a sexually suggestive pose.A part from that, she resembles Ripley.
W here Kane was penetrated with the flesh of the alien, Ripley is raped with the material of hum an language, m aterial associated explicitly with the construction of women as sexual objects.By forcing on Ripley the consequences of defending the symbolic.Ash predicts the end of the film: she will be undressed, gazed upon and silenced.In the realm of the m a te rn a l, the m ale gives b irth : th e g e n d e re d body is c u t lo o se from its sym bolic signification.As language is forced back into Ripley's mouth, the literal and the figurative phalluses of patriarchy again become one.
Ripley finally receives the 'clear definition' she has dem anded.Ash describes the alienand so himself -as hum an(e), even endangering the rest of the crew by going back to rescue her cat.The shift from non-hum an to human may also be seen as a return to conventionally feminine forms of behaviour, as her almost sentimental concern for her pet suggests.

TTie (re-inscribing?) striptease
This shift culminates in the film's last sequences, in which Ripley, having separated herself from the non-hum an m aternal, prepares to go back to bed.The controversial scene in which she undresses is made to resemble a striptease: each garm ent she removes seems to be the last, only to present a more revealing one beneath it.Byers's (1989:86-87) analysis of the sequence m akes a significant point; not only does the apparent voyeurism of the scene "re-establish [Ripley] as the other", it also "put[s] back in her traditional (non)place the fem ale spectator who may mistakenly have begun to think that she could be the subject of the viewing experience".Identification with Ripley as fem ale hero may be a liberatory experience for the fem ale spectator, but when Ripley is reinscribed within the symbolic, retu rn ed to h er role as object of th e desiring look, the fem ale view er is confounded, dislocated.Kane's death resulted in the horrified refusal to look (particularly, perhaps, on the part of male viewers); now Ripley's nudity refuses the female spectator a point of view.By implication, she, like Ripley, is returned to the role of object, the silenced position both symbolised and enforced by Ash's pinup magazine.
This conservative shift in Ripley's role has im portant implications for the alien, too.It is concealed on the capsule with her, and its appearance alm ost immediately after the 'strip tease' suggests that it has been watching her.Sharing the phallocentric gaze of the camera, the alien may be said to become a 'man', this contrasting with its construction as apparently androgynous w ithin the realm of the m aternal, the long but hollow 'tongue' it uses for killing its victims resembling both male and female genitalia.Now, as it watches Ripley (at this point, as she climbs into a spacesuit, the cam era angle is from below, revealing her cro tch ), th e 'to n g u e ' is exten d ed slowly.T h e m ovem ent, n o t seen b efo re, and not associated with immediate violent contact, strongly suggests male desire.The effect of this gendered response is also to make the creature less alien.In becoming 'm an', it becomes human, now positioned, like Ripley, within the binary oppositions of the symbolic.At the end of the film the creature is no longer alien, no longer appallingly amorphous, half-seen and constantly mutating, but visible, and disappointingly humanoid.At the mom ent he is ejected from the craft, he is nothing but a man in a m onster suit.The m aternal has been abjected and the non-hum an has been dom esticated.T he final threat to Ripley of both Ash and the alien creature, both 'sons of bitches', is that posed to woman by man rather than to hum an by non-human.In 'defeating' Ash and the alien, Ripley makes them men and herself their female victim.
Ripley ejects the creature from the ship.It is not seen to be destroyed, though.The abject is reinstated as that which is outside the symbolic o rd er and continues to challenge it.R ipley's escape from the exploding ship and h er expulsion of the creature are the two 'births' which follow her oral rape as the alie n 's birth followed K ane's.The first, like conventional birth, restores the role of abjection to the fem inine m aternal; the second seem s to carry out the conservative act of vomiting, of reconstituting the borders of the subject.
Ripley's return to a feminine position within the symbolic is evinced by changes in her use of language.H er final attack on the creature is not characterised by her earlier rational speech.H er mumbling gradually gives way to the childlike and incantatory repetition of one word: "Lucky, lucky, lucky ..." By im plication, her escape is fortuitous, not of her own agency.A t the mom ent of blasting the creature out of the capsule, and so of closing off once more the borders of the symbolic, her language collapses altogether into a scream.
Ripley records her last message, a log report in which she returns to her original rank "third officer" and hopes "with a little luck" to be rescued.H aving "signed o ff , she lowers her eyes, picks up her cat -that other dom esticated alien -and goes back to sleep.The last shot of Ripley, reclining in the transparent sleeping com partm ent, dressed in white, hands folded (and, it appears, wearing lipstick for the first tim e in the film), strongly resem bles Disney's Snow White in her glass coffin.She is sleeping because the wicked witch's plan to kill her has failed.She will be wakened by the kiss of the handsome prince and will go off to be his wife.Like the fairytale heroine, Ripley sleeps.H er dream o f power, which she will rem em b er as a nightm are -as K an e's nightm are -is ended, and she w aits to be wakened into the human world.
Juliet Mitchell presents one of the conclusions of both Freud's and Engels's accounts of the origins of human society: the freedom o f women precedes history, civilization, humanity.This implies that the female is potentially powerful and threatening to patriarchal culture.For the female reader/spectator, this m eans that only when man is rendered speechless in an imaginary reversal of the origins of culture, can woman find a tem porary and abnorm al place to assert her voice.The feminist theorist must try to find an alternative reading of culture to that which the male analysts and, following them, this film and the many others like it, provide.
Julia K risteva's theory of abjection can be used to explain the horrifying elem ents of an alien's birth from a m an's body, but it is where her fram ew ork becom es fragile and her theory unclear -where the meanings of 'I' and 'myself become ambiguous -that Kristeva's writing unwittingly, it seems, reveals the horror of the film's happy ending.In the domain of the presym bolic m aternal, a w om an may gain access to a pow er usually denied her.H ere, in the imaginary world of the horror film, she seem s to find a voice that is heroic.But when she has succeeded in restoring the order of the 're a l' world, she can -mustwash off the blood and be quiet.The final paradox is th at only when she is cleaned and quietened can she .speakor write in a language considered hum an and intelligible.
O n e v is ito r ch o k e d on his b e e r.A n o th e r knoci<ed o v e r a p la te o f s a n d w ic h e s w h e n h e lu rc h e d T h e n a m e o f th e c r a f t is th e N o s tr o m o , an a llu s io n w h ich m a k e s it te m p tin g to s e e k o th e r c o n n e c tio n s w ith C o n ra d 's w ork.K u rtz's "the h o rro r!" ex p resses th e ab je c tio n fo u n d in H eart o f D a rkness, a n o th e r pla ce w h ere m e an in g m ight b e said to collapse.P e rh a p s th e film rev erses th e m e ta p h o r in M a rlo w 's d e s c rip tio n o f th e e x p lo re rs in o rd e r to rev eal th e in terch an g e ab ility o f u n e x p lo r e d /r e p r e s s e d p ast tim e an d d is ta n t fu tu re s p ace: they a re " w a n d e re rs o n p re h isto ric e a rth , o n an e a rth that w o re th e aspect o f an unknow n planet" (C o n rad , 1974:95).4 I w ould arg u e that th e scream , and o th e r bodily noises w hose u tte ra n c e an d intelligibility m ay b e said to p re c e d e th e sym bolic, a re all that can b e 'h e a rd ' in th e realm o f th e alien.violently in his chair.Y et a n o th e r ... w as seen to b e p e e rin g th ro u g h his fin g ers, w h ich w e re o fte n covering his face (S canlon & G ro ss, 1979).

5
T h e a lie n 's b ir th is re m in is c e n t o f th e b irth o f R a b e la is 's G a rg a n lu a , d e s c r ib e d b y B a k h tin (1968:226) as an exam ple o f th e ca rn iv ale sq u e g ro te sq u e .T h e g ia n t is co n ceiv ed in his m o th e r's w o m b, b u t is b o rn th ro u g h h e r e a r.A s in th e B a k h lin ia n c o n c e p tio n o f th e g r o te s q u e , b o d ily in v e rsio n sig n ifies a "sym bolic Inversion," a tra n sg re s s io n o f th e law s o f th e sy m b o lic, th e law s w hich co n stru ct m e an in g (S tallybrass & W hite, 1986:18).W hile this m ay be seen sim ply as indicative o f th e helplessness o f w o m en in a m o m en t o f crisis, it d o e s a lso e m p h a s is e th a t th e y a r e n o t involved in th is kind o f b ir th .A p p ro p ria te ly , L a m b e rt, in itia lly e s ta b lis h e d as th e s te re o ty p ic a l 'w eak w o m a n ', is s p la s h e d w ith b lo o d , m a rk in g h e r p e rh a p s as th e o n e w ho w ould, in th e n o rm a l o r d e r o f th in g s, b e giving b irth .R ip ley is alm o st c o m pletely a b sen t from th e scene.
T h e h o rro r film brings ab o u t a c o n fro n tatio n w ith th e a b j e c t... in o r d e r ... to eject th e ab ject an d r e d raw th e b o u n d a rie s b etw e en th e hum an and non -h u m an ... th e h o rro r film w orks to se p a ra te o u t th esym bolic o rd e r from all th a t th re a te n s its stability, p a rtic u la rly th e m o th e r a n d all th a t h e r universe signifies(C reed , 1986:53).
6. Speechless with horror: silencing the (hu)man I h e a r d -h i m -i t -t h i s v o ic e -o th e r v o ic e s -a ll o f th e m w ere so little m o re th a n v o ic e s -... im p alp ab le, lik e th e dy in g v ib ra tio n o f o n e im m e n s e ja b b e r , silly, a tro c io u s , so rd id , sav ag e, o r sim ply m e an , w itho u t any kind o f sense (C o n rad , H eart o f D arkness, 1974:115).
describe the oral phase: T h e first stage o f libidinal developm ent: sexual p le asu re at this p erio d is b o u n d p red o m in an tly to th a t excitation o f th e o ra l cavity and lips w hich accom panies feeding ... th e lo v e-relatio n sh ip to th e m o th er ... is m a rk ed by th e m eanings o f eating and being eaten.

'
A fte r his a p p a re n t recovery, w hile th e alie n is g esta tin g , K an e is as k e d a b o u t th e ra p e .A ll h e re m e m b e rs is "a h o rrib le d re a m ab o u t sm othering".T h a t th e "sm othering", th a t w hich h as filled his m o u th an d covered his eyes, should b e a r w ithin it th e w ord m o th er, is a p p ro p riate, * T h e alien is indirectly p re se n te d as a th re a t to w riting, too.A tte m p ts to rem o v e it a rc h in d e red by th e fact th a t it has acid for blood.W h e n so m e is spilt, D allas ex am in es it by p ro b in g it w ith a pen.T h e acid co rro d e s th e tip o f th e pen, m a k in g it useless.

(
W ]o m e n 's p la c e in la n g u ag e, fro m th e p e rs p e c tiv e o f a n a n d ro c e n tric ... tr a d itio n , ... is w ith th e literal, th e silent object o f rep resen tatio n , th e d ea d m o t h e r ... (H o m an s, 1986:32).

T h e o
rd e r o f th e d ea th s is lelhng: ih e first victim after K ane is D allas, th e c o m m a n d e r o f th e ship, co n v e n tio n al site o f h u m a n au th o rity .L ike K an e's, his d ea th is explicitly re la te d to th e loss o f a seein g subject.H e is carrying a video cam era, m o n ito red by th e o th e rs; w hen th e c re a lu rc attack s him , th e screen g o es blank.Q u ite w hat h ap p e n e d is never estab lish ed .N ext to d ie is B re tt, o ne o f th e tw o technicians.H is relatio n sh ip to th e sym bolic is p ro b le m a tiz e d by his u se o f language, fo r h e is excessively laconic: virtually all he ever says is "Right".P ark er, th e black tech n ician , is physically stro n g and p otentially violent, Ihe m o st en th u siastic b u t least ra tio n a l ab o u t killing th e alien.T h e last is L a m b ert, w ho has b ee n c o n stru c ted as th e w eak, in a rtic u late w om an.It is as if th e a lie n fir s t k ills th o s e w h o a r c m o st 'h u m a n ', in te r m s o f th e ir c e n tr a lity to p a tr ia r c h a l d isco urse.

8.
The word of her own silencing: Restoring the symbolic B ut b e c a u sc such a p ro je ct is ultim ately self-cancelling -w hal she is b e a rin g h e re is th e w ord o f h er ow n silencing -w hat ap p e a rs ... is n o t so m uch a com prom ise as a te n sio n b etw e en tw o co n trad icto ry aim s .... (H o m an s, 1 9 ^:3 6 )

I
ex p e l m y se lf, I spit m y s e lf o ut, I ab ject m y s e lf w ithin th e s a m e m o tio n th ro u g h w h ich ' I ' claim to e s ta b lis h m y s e l f ... "I" am in th e p ro c e s s o f b e c o m in g an o th e r a t th e e x p e n se o f m y ow n d e a th .D u rin g th a t c o u rs e in w hich '1 ' b e c o m e , I give b irth to m yself am id th e v io len ce o f so b s, o f vom it (em p h ases in original).
th e p erfec t organism .[It's] a survivor, u n clo u d ed by conscience, re m o rse , o r delusion.so f m o r a lity ... I c a n 't lie to you ab o u t your chances ... TTie definition places Ripley on the side of morality, of the symbolic o rd er which, in order to retain her humanity, she has to fight to restore.H er move away from the powerful yet inhum an ro le o f 'b itc h ' begins h ere.K avanagh (1990:79) p o in ts o u t th at, a fte r h er seem ingly rem o rseless ra tio n a lity e a rlie r in th e film , she now b eco m es excessively W hat it in fact means is what Alien dem onstrates: like the m aternal, the oral, the abject, the freedom of women is what is superseded, replaced, and excluded by the form ation of what is human.W hat the analysts of the origins of culture agree on, according to Mitchell (1974:336), is that in th e in d iv id u a l,... 'th e w orld hi.storical d e fe a t' o f th e fe m a le ta k e s p la ce w ith th e g irl's ... en try into th e reso lu tio n o f h e r O e d ip u s com plex -h e r ac cep ta n ce o f h e r in fe rio r, fem in in e p lace in p a tria rc h a l society.