Intertexts

Becoming American; Evolution and Performance in Edith Wharton’s The Custom of the Country John Brimi S O U T H D A K O T A S C H O O L O F M I N E S & T E C H N O L O G Y American cellular biologist Lynn Margulis and science journalist Dorion Sagan’s view of life processes is underlined by their comment in What is Life?, “Life on Earth is more like averb. It repairs, maintains, recreates, and outdoes itself’ (22). This idea is pitched at asomewhat different, but relat¬ ed, level by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, who tvrite, “[W]e areconstitutedinlanguageinacontinuousbecomingthatwebringforth with others” (234-35). What relates the biological creation of life to the dis¬ cursive production of identity is the concept of autopoiesis that Margulis and Sagan borrow from Maturana and Varela. Defined by Margulis and Sagan as “life’s continuous production of itself’ (23), autopoiesis suggests that life can be regarded as not astate of bein^, but rather of becoming. The image of life as becoming is indeed powerful, for Margulis and Sagan’s deploymentofautopoiesischallengesthetraditionalportrayalofD^wnian evolutionassupportingacompetitiveindividualism.Thatautopoieticsys¬ tems,moreover,deferanynotionofadiscreteself-identityconnectsthemto JudithButler’sargumentinBodiesThatMatterthatperformativityconsti¬ tutes subject formation, where no self exists before or beyond performance. ThisconnectionbetweenMargulisandSaganandButlerissignificant,I propose, because it allows us better to understand how the social material¬ ization of performance in the United States in the early twentieth century becomesinformedbyashiftfromnaturaltoculturalreadingsofevolution. Anticipating Margulis and Sagan’s critique of competitive individualism, EdithWharton’s1913novel.TheCustomoftheCountry,suggeststhateco¬ nomic,social,andpoliticalchangeschallengethevalidityofnaturalselec¬ tion. Andratherthanendorsingabiologicallydeterminedidentity,Wharton elaborates aself-destabilizing narrative of performance that mimics anation alwaysinastateofbecoming,whichdisclosesanxietiesaboutnationalciti¬ zenshipandbelonging.'Inwhatfollows,Ifirstofferatheoreticalanalysisof theconnectionsbetweenevolutionandperformance,beforediscussinghow, in The Custom of the Country, Wharton’s understanding of debates among evolutionary theorists, such as Charles Darwin, Herbert Spencer, andAlfred Russel Wallace, shapes her investigation of how social environments shape performative identities.^ httertexts, Vol. 9, No. 12005 ©TexasTech University Press I N T E R T E X T S 4 4 I I Margulis and Sagan’s rereading of evolution emphasizes Darwin’s idea that life forms are interconnected. In What is Life?, they refer to the final passage of the Origin of Species, where Darwin describes life as “an entangled bank,” containing amultitude of “elaborately constructed forms, so different from each other, and dependent on each other in so complex amanner” (Origin 489). From here, Margulis and Sagan propose that “individuality, always in flux, is relative” (110). And if life is so entangled, then the belief in acom¬ petitive struggle is undermined, or at least, complicated. They comment that living beings “are no more inherently bloodthirsty, competitive, and carniv¬ orous than they are peaceful, cooperative, and languid” (192). That natural conditions in no way demand that competitive individualism take prime place in the discourse of evolution supports their proposal to rethink the neo-Darwinist approach to natural selection. Evolution occurs, they posit, chiefly through the acquisition and exchange of genomes by organisms in symbiotic, not competitive, relationships. Their embrace of British geo¬ chemist James Lovelock’s Gaia hypothesis, which depicts the Earth’s bios¬ phere as asingle, self-regulating system, radically expands the perspective from which interlocking symbiotic relationships are viewed. They write, “Gaia is symbiosis seen from space” (156). Thus natural selection is trans¬ formed: “Evolution is no mechanical law but acomplex of processes, sensi¬ tive and symbiogenetic, in part resulting from the choices and actions of evolving organic beings themselves. Natural selection is often said to ‘favor’ this or that trait. But tiie nature that selects is largely alive. Nature is no black box but akind of sentient symphony” (134). While opposed to the idea of aunified, individual self, Margulis and Sagan still argue for some level of self-control. Applying Maturana and Varela’s concept of autopoiesis, they contend that an organism is connected to its environment; evolutionary development is not random, but directed according to the “internal teleology of the autopoietic imperative” (184). Life as “continuous production of itself,” as becoming, not being, is what allows for Margulis and Sagan’s argument for goal-directed evolution. As they put it, “Nonhuman beings choose, and all beings influence the lives of others” (180). Such choice does not serve human interests; instead, it...