The Minoritarian’s Nomadic Subjects In Lois Bujold’s “Vorkosigan Saga”

Lois Mc Master Bujold’s(1949-)“Vorkosigan Saga” established her reputation in the science fiction field,which embody Bujold’s concern about the subjectivity of women,the disabled and clones.Bujold and her works have primarily been studied from the perspectives of disability,feminism,and new historicism in the Western academia,whereas there are few relevant studies in China.This thesis tries to analyze the nomadic subjects of the “minoritarians” in “Vorkosigan Saga”.The Italian philosopher Rosi Braidotti proposes the post-human “becoming-minoritarian”.In her view,“the minoritarian” is all “the subjects in the process” that are “stripped of its old genderized,racialized,normalized straitjacket”.The three types of “minoritarians” in“Vorkosigan Saga”—women,disabled people and clones—attempt to resist the coercion of the predominant norms,liberate themselves from any established jurisdictions and strive for an egalitarian-centered becoming nomadic subject.The first chapter focuses on how Elena as a woman becomes the nomadic subject.According to Braidotti,women have long been regarded by patriarchy as irrational and so denied of equal rights.Against the oppression of patriarchal social restraints,Elena refuses to be an “angel in the house”.She challenges the unfair definition of women’s inability to join the army,moves away from her birthplace,and becomes a new self.She escapes the social bondage and pursues her military ambitions in space and decides her own marriage,thus transforming herself into a nomadic subject no longer constrained by convention.The second chapter examines how the disabled people,represented by Miles,refuse to be ostracized and overturns the orthodox thought of “disability as uselessness”.Miles realizes his military ambitions in his way of becoming.And with empathy,the key to nomadic becoming,to seeks equal rights for the disabled community to gain political recognition as a nomadic subject with a complete self.The third chapter is about the nomadic subject of Mark as the clone.The becoming of the nomadic subject is driven by the desire for change.While the clones are denied subjectivity as a victim of the brain surgery operation of the powerhouse,Mark rejects his clone identity,refuses to be a “mirror”of the progenitor and desires to be himself.He goes from being a nameless clone to becoming Lord Mark of Barrayar,eventually escapes from the rigid jurisdiction of clones not being regarded as full human beings and constructs subjects that are undefined and free.In “Vorkosigan Saga”,Lois Bujold presents the aspirations and efforts of the marginalized groups in the post-human era for equality,freedom and self-worth.Through her concern for the underprivileged,Bujold shows that difference does not mean weakness,nor do external definitions should stifle an individual’s desire for self-identity;everyone is capable of becoming his or her own nomadic subject.