NOTES
1. Mukashi means “long ago” and it is the usual opening phrase of folk tales.
2. Gaiman’s novel American Gods presents Scandinavian shape-shifter and mischief-maker, Loki. Loki is a trickster extraordinaire.
3. Carl Jung, “On the Psychology of the Trickster-Figure” in The Archetypes and the Collective Unconscious, 1959. (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul), 1967, 255–272. Print.
4. In retracing her steps, the monk later approaches the threshold as well, this time meeting the Dream Hunters’ version of familiar guardians and Dreaming characters from Sandman: Cain and Abel, the Gates of Horn and Ivory, the gryphon and the dragon, and the raven Matthew.
5. As has been established previously in The Sandman, the King of Dreams changes aspects in accordance to his viewer. For example, when a kitten seeks him in “The Dream of a Thousand Cats,” he appears as a giant black tomcat. To the kitsune, he appears as a giant fox, but when the monk seeks him, Dream appears as a Japanese man clad in flowing black robes.
6. Keigo Seki, ed., “The Good Fortune Kettle,” Folktales of Japan, 1956–1957. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963, 107–111, 107). Print.
7. “The Fox Wife” in The Yanagita Kunio Guide to the Japanese Folk Tale, 1948, trans. and ed. Fanny Hagin Mayer (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1986), 31–32. Print.
8. Marie-Louise Von Franz, Shadow and Evil in Fairy-Tales, 1974. (Dallas: Spring, 1983), 119: “one must never hurt the helpful animal in fairy tales.”
9. Carl Jung, Symbols of Transformation, 1912, trans. R. F. C. Hull (London: Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1967), 220. Print.
10. See Marie-Louise von Franz’s discussion of the effect that a real woman has on an intellectual man’s anima in The Feminine in Fairy Tales: “A man, especially if very much engaged in mental activities, tends to be a little bit coarse or undifferentiated on the eros side” (2).
11. Stephen Rauch, Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman” and Joseph Campbell: In Search of the Modern Myth (Holicong: Wildside Press, 2003). Print.
12. The hair motif is found in the folk tale “The God of Good Fortune” (Tyler, 63–66): Lord Tadazane “dozed off for a moment and saw a woman walk by him with three feet of her magnificent long hair trailing behind her along the floor.” Tadazane dreams that he grabs her by the hair, then lets her go. “Then he woke up. His hand was gripping a fox’s tail” (Tyler 64).
13. Keigo Seki’s collection, Folktales of Japan (1956–1957), offers a thematic collection of tales and each section features a well-documented and instructive analysis of the motifs found in these sections. This book is an accessible introduction.
WORKS CITED
Bacchilega, Cristina. Postmodern Fairy Tales: Gender and Narrative Strategies. Philadelphia: University of Philadelphia Press, 1997. Print.
Baudrillard, Jean. Simulacra and Simulation. 1981. Trans. Sheila Glaser. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1994. Print.
Borsellino, Mary. “Blue and Pink: Gender in Neil Gaiman’s Work.” The Neil Gaiman Reader, Ed. Darrell Schweitzer. Halicong: Wildside Press, 2007, 51–53, 52. Print.
Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. 1949. Princeton: Bollingen Series 17, Princeton University Press, 1973. Print.
Cooper, J. C. Fairy Tales: Allegories of the Inner Life. 1983. Wellingborough: Aquarian, 1985. Print.
Fliedl, Gottfried. Gustav Klimt. Cologne: Taschen, 1992. Print.
Freud, Sigmund. The Uncanny. 1919. Trans. James Strachey. London: Hogarth, 1971. Print.
_____, and Joseph Breuer. The Interpretation of Dreams. 1900. Trans. James Strachey. 2
vols. London: Hogarth, 1971. Print.
Gaiman, Neil. “Afterword.” The Dream Hunters. New York: Vertigo DC Comics, 1999. Print.
_____, and Yoshitaka Amano. The Dream Hunters. New York: Vertigo DC
Comics, 1999. Print.
Guroian, Vigen. Tending the Heart of Virtue: How Classic Stories Awaken a Child’s Moral Imagination. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1998. Print.
Haase, Donald, ed. Fairy Tales and Feminism: New Approaches. Detroit: Wayne University Press, 2004. Print.
Hagin Mayer, Fanny, ed. and trans. The Yanagita Kunio Guide to the Japanese Folk Tale. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1948. Print.
Hourigan, Margery. Deconstructing the Hero: Literary Theory and Children’s Literature. London: Routledge, 1997. Print.
Marsh, Jan. Pre-Raphaelite Women. 1987. London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1995. Print.
McCabe, Joseph. Hanging Out with the Dream King: Conversations with Neil Gaiman and His Collaborators. Seattle: Fantagraphics, 2004. Print.
Propp, Vladimir. Morphology of the Folktale. Trans. Ariadna Y. Martin and Richard P. Martin. Minnesota: Minnesota University Press, 1983. Print.
Rauch, Stephen. Neil Gaiman’s “The Sandman” and Joseph Campbell: In Search of the Modern Myth. Holicong: Wildside Press, 2003. Print.
Reynolds, Kimberley, ed. Modern Children’s Literature: An Introduction. London: Palgrave, 2005. Print.
Schweitzer, Darrrell, ed. The Neil Gaiman Reader. Holicong: Wildside Press, 2007. Print.
Seki, Keigo, ed. Folktales of Japan. 1956–1957. Trans. Robert J. Adams. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963. Print.
Tyler, Royal, ed. and trans. Japanese Fairy Tales. New York: Pantheon, 1987. Print.
Von Franz, Marie-Louise. An Introduction to the Interpretation of Fairy Tales. 1970. Dallas: Spring, 1982. Print.
_____. Shadow and Evil in Fairy Tales. 1974. Dallas: Spring, 1983. Print.
Wilkie-Stibbs, Christine. The Feminine Subject in Children’s Literature. London: Routledge, 2002. Print.
Zipes, Jack. Fairy Tale as Myth / Myth as Fairy Tale. New York: Routledge, 1994. Print.
_____. Fairy Tales and the Art of Subversion: The Classical Genre for Children and the Process of Civilization. New York: Wildman Press, 1983. Print.
_____. Happily Ever After: Fairy Tales, Children, and the Culture Industry. New York: Routledge, 1997. Print.
ICONOGRAPHY
Klimt, Gustav. Hostile Forces (detail of the Beethoven Friese), 1902. 2.2m × 6.36m. Vienna, Osterreichische Galerie.
_____. The Silver Fishes, 1901–1902. Oil painting, 150 × 46 cm. Soleure, Kunstmuseum.
_____. The Three Ages of Woman, 1905. Oil painting, 178 × 198 cm. Rome, Galleria Nazionale d’Arte Moderna.
“A boy and his box, off to see the universe”
Madness, Power and Sex in “The Doctor’s Wife”
BY EMILY CAPETTINI
In a review of Neil Gaiman’s Doctor Who episode, “The Doctor’s Wife” (14 May 2011), Matt Risley refers to the Doctor/TARDIS relationship as “the most important, but consistently underappreciated relationship underpinning the entire franchise.” The TARDIS (Time And Relative Dimension In Space) is the Doctor’s time machine, space ship, and constant companion. He refers to the ship by the acronym “TARDIS” throughout the series. From 1963 to 1973, the TARDIS is referred to as “it,” and is a vehicle with little to no personality. During “The Time Warrior” (1973), the third doctor calls the TARDIS “old girl,” and this establishes a sex for the TARDIS for the first time. However, the third doctor’s decision to call the TARDIS “old girl” is not strictly indicative of the TARDIS having a specific sex, as he also refers to his roadster as “old girl” (“The Time Monster”). Yet, the tradition continues, and future doctors refer to the TARDIS affectionately as “old girl.” Whether “old girl” is a nickname for the TARDIS indicating a sex or merely the tradition of referring to a ship as female is not confirmed until Gaiman’s 2011 episode, “The Doctor’s Wife.” In this episode, not only does Gaiman establish the TARDIS as female, but he also codes all TARDISes as female. Furthermore, the way in which the Doctor and TARDIS interact throughout the episode changes and enriches the relationship dynamic between them, easily sidestepping and overturning the all-too-familiar science fiction battle-of-the-sexes stereotypes as well as renegotiating concepts
of madness, power, and sex within the relationship dynamic.
To best understand the significance of Gaiman’s coding of the TARDIS as female, it is important to examine more closely the evolution of the TARDIS’s presence in the classic and new series of Doctor Who. The TARDIS is introduced in the first episode of Doctor Who, “An Unearthly Child.” Ian, one of the Doctor’s first companions, upon encountering the TARDIS, states, “Do you feel it? ... It’s alive!” (“An Unearthly Child”). The theme of the living TARDIS reappears throughout the first doctor’s tenure. An additional recurring element is the Doctor’s lack of control over the TARDIS. As one companion says to another when they land in 1066 England, “As a matter of fact, we never know where we’re going to land next” (“The Time Meddler”). Furthermore, the TARDIS keeps its police box form despite a built-in control that is meant to make the ship blend in with its surroundings. In the same episode, another Time Lord asks, “What’s the matter, Doctor? Can’t you repair your camouflage unit?” (“The Time Meddler”). Though the terminology is modernized in 2005 when the Doctor calls it the “chameleon circuit,” the excuse remains: the TARDIS is not in perfect working order. The relationship between the TARDIS and the Doctor hinges on this very fact: the TARDIS does not always run—or behave—the way the Doctor intends. One might even venture to suggest, “it has a mind of its own,” for, as audiences eventually come to learn, she does. Though the TARDIS never does run completely correctly for any doctor, its malfunctioning becomes less prevalent in later stories.
Additionally, at first, the TARDIS is called a ship and does not have a specific sex. Once Jon Pertwee takes over as the third doctor, the TARDIS is called “old girl,” coding her as female. The adventures in the TARDIS, in addition, become more controlled. The fourth doctor also refers to the TARDIS as “old girl,” as well as a “misunderstood, unmanageable old machine” (“The Image of the Fendahl”). However, the TARDIS is not often focused on for longer than these few passing moments. She is not a central character, but rather exists as the plot device by which the Doctor travels, acquires companions, and encounters or solves problems.
Whereas the TARDIS was often a plot device or set in the classic series, she becomes a character in her own right in the new series. In the 2005 episode “Boomtown,” the antagonist, Margaret, attempts an escape plan that would destroy the TARDIS, but is foiled in her attempt not by the Doctor, but by the TARDIS herself (“Boomtown”). The Doctor tells Margaret, “[The TARDIS] is not just any old power source. It’s the TARDIS. My TARDIS. The best ship in the universe.” He further claims that the TARDIS has a heart and is “alive,” telling Margaret that she has “opened its soul” (“Boomtown”). In this episode, the TARDIS is given features equivalent to those of sentient beings. Previous episodes established that the TARDIS is alive and conscious of those around her, but prior to “Boomtown,” the only features of hers that were mentioned were machine-like: the chameleon circuit and the camouflage unit. Establishing that the TARDIS has a soul and heart lessens the distance between the Doctor and the TARDIS; they are not merely man and machine, but both are living and sentient organisms. Furthermore, the TARDIS becomes more relatable and less like a set piece or plot device; in this episode, the TARDIS displays agency—survival—and takes control of the situation, providing the resolution herself. In the new series, the TARDIS continues developing as a creature and sentient being.
Terminology suggestive of species rather than machinery occurs again in the second season in 2006. When the Doctor and Rose are separated from the TARDIS in “The Impossible Planet,” Rose asks the Doctor if he can build a new TARDIS. The Doctor replies: “They were grown, not built. And with my own planet gone ... we’re kind of stuck” (“The Impossible Planet”). The fact that the TARDIS was grown, rather than built, is indicative that she is not merely a machine. In addition, this exchange suggests that the TARDIS is indigenous to Gallifrey, the Doctor’s planet, not unlike vegetation or species that have their origins in specific environments. Thus the concepts that Gaiman uses to enrich the relationship between the Doctor and the TARDIS have a long history within the canon of Doctor Who.
Gaiman’s episode, “The Doctor’s Wife,” plays with these established concepts of the TARDIS as well as drawing inspiration from literature. “The Doctor’s Wife” is a story about the relationship between a pair of travelers trying to escape an unsatisfactory environment. This premise echoes several travel narratives in literature, including C.S. Lewis’s The Horse and His Boy, where the eponymous heroes run away from a cruel master and travel to Narnia. In “The Doctor’s Wife,” there is a similar impetus to flee: the Doctor is unhappy with the societal norms of his home planet. However, the interesting thing about this comparison is not in how Lewis’s and Gaiman’s narratives are similar, but in how Gaiman uses the idea of fleeing travellers as a way to investigate a relationship that was, until this episode, one-way in terms of communication.
“The Doctor’s Wife” begins when a young woman, Idris, is told that she will be given a new soul (“The Doctor’s Wife”). The villain of the episode, House, pulls the “TARDIS matrix herself—a living consciousness” out of the physical structure of the TARDIS, forcing it into Idris’s body and turning her into a human version of the TARDIS (“The Doctor’s Wife”). As House runs away with the ship part of the TARDIS, the Doctor has to rely on the TARDIS herself to problem-solve. Perhaps most telling of the renegotiation of the Doctor/TARDIS relationship is the way in which the TARDIS and the Doctor communicate after not having spoken for almost their entire time together. In their first encounter in the episode, the TARDIS runs up to the Doctor and kisses him, then, when Uncle (another alien inhabitant of House) apologizes for “the mad person” and cautions, “watch out for this one—she bites,” Idris bites the Doctor, commenting: “Biting’s excellent. It’s like kissing, only there’s a winner” (“The Doctor’s Wife”). This moment informs a later conversation when the TARDIS tells the Doctor who she is, and the Doctor insists, “No you’re not, you’re a bitey, mad lady!” (“The Doctor’s Wife”). The use of the word “mad” here is worth noting. In “Women and Madness,” Shoshana Felman provides an overview of the discourse about women and madness, including Luce Irigaray, observing that madness constitutes a woman acting outside of accepted “behavioral norms,” regardless of the norms’ social appeal (7). Indeed, the TARDIS is acting outside of several behavioral norms; for one, she is a space ship and time machine transposed into a woman’s body and biting her pilot. More importantly, however, the TARDIS is talking to the Doctor, which is not something that she has ever been able to do before and is, by this definition and the opinions of the other characters, mad.
The Doctor’s use of the label “mad,” however, is most interesting in this context for, as he told companion Amy before they began their travels, “I am definitely a mad man with a box” (“The Eleventh Hour”). Therefore, the Doctor draws a parallel between the TARDIS and himself, uniting them in their supposed madness. The TARDIS is and has been behaving outside of her social expectations—simply to be a ship under the Doctor’s control and to go where he directs her. The Doctor, too, behaves outside of his social expectations. He abandons life on Gallifrey—including a high political position—that he finds stifling (“The Five Doctors”). Because the TARDIS and the Doctor are very similar in their rejection of Gallifreyan culture, perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the Doctor is “a mad man with a mad box.”
Later in the same conversation, the Doctor expresses possessiveness of the TARDIS, which is perhaps unsurprising, as she has been his ship for nearly 700 years. However, what is surprising is the possessiveness that the TARDIS expresses in regards to the Doctor. When the Doctor recognizes that Idris is in fact the TARDIS, the following conversation occurs:
TARDIS: I was already a museum piece, when you were young, and the first time you touched my console you said...
DOCTOR: I said you were the most beautiful thing I’d ever known.
DOCTOR: I borrowed you.
TARDIS: Borrowing implies the eventual intention to return the thing that was taken. What makes you think I would ever give you back? [“The Doctor’s Wife”].
The fact that the Doctor stole the TARDIS and ran away from Gallifrey is not new information to viewers. Previously, it was assumed that the TARDIS was just something stolen, a passive party, rather than an active participant. Such an assumption of passiveness is an evocation of what Simone de Beauvoir states in The Second Sex: “Hercules, Prometheus, Parsifal ... woman has only a secondary part to play in the destiny of these heroes” (302). Similarly, the TARDIS was only a secondary player to the Doctor, who in the new series is discussed in mythic language, such as “he’s ... the storm in the heart of the sun” (“The Family of Blood”) or “The Oncoming Storm” (“The Parting of the Ways”). Certainly, the TARDIS is responsible for where and when he ends up, but for most of the show’s history, this is a plot device written off as a TARDIS malfunction, chance, or the Doctor’s steering. This conversation, however, rewrites both the concept of the TARDIS as secondary and the moment of the stealing. Because they steal each other, they are equal participants. Furthermore, the TARDIS emphasizes her own agency by stating that it is not “borrowing,” because she had no intention to return the Doctor. This implies that she has control over the situation. She is not a passive party, but is active in this relationship and does not have, as Beauvoir says, a secondary part in the Doctor’s adventures, but a primary one.
Another renegotiation within this same conversation that is worth examining is the way in which the TARDIS anticipates and finishes what the Doctor is going to say. After explaining who she is and commenting, “House eats TARDISes,” the Doctor answers:
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