From Scientific Utopia to Grotesque Dystopia: Hubris and Hybrids in Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Experimental Subject”
Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Experimental Subject,” published in 2018, is the story of the fictional realization of a most disconcerting scientific utopia: the creation of a human-chimp hybrid. Oates describes with a clinical coldness, tinged with irony, the details of this experiment, which, however gr...
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| Format: | Article ou chapitre numérique |
| Langue: | Anglais |
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Journal of the Short Story in English
2025
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| Accès en ligne: | Accès Université d'Orléans et IFPM |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:jsse_4698 |
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openedition |
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openedition-oai:revues.org:jsse_4698 en https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/4698 2025-08-21T13:24:59Z info:eu-repo/semantics/openAccess article info:eu-repo/semantics/article urn:handle:20.500.13089/14mkw https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ From Scientific Utopia to Grotesque Dystopia: Hubris and Hybrids in Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Experimental Subject” Journal of the Short Story in English Presses universitaires de Rennes info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/1969-6108 info:eu-repo/semantics/reference/issn/0294-0442 URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse Maerten, Stéphanie Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Experimental Subject,” published in 2018, is the story of the fictional realization of a most disconcerting scientific utopia: the creation of a human-chimp hybrid. Oates describes with a clinical coldness, tinged with irony, the details of this experiment, which, however grotesque, is no less plausible. The utopian project then quickly takes a dystopian turn. Yet, onto the dehumanizing language of science, a more humanistic discourse is progressively grafted that takes the story in an unexpected direction, and leads the reader to envision another form of utopia that is equally destabilizing. Oates pushes to the extreme the excesses present in the latent state within a utopian project whose verisimilitude represents the main danger. To do so, she readily transgresses ethical and moral limits, as well as generic and aesthetic ones. La nouvelle de Joyce Carol Oates, “The Experimental Subject,” publiée en 2018, a pour thème la réalisation fictive d’une utopie scientifique des plus déconcertantes : la création d’un hybride homme-chimpanzé. Oates y décrit avec une froideur clinique, teintée d’ironie, les détails de cette expérience, qui, si grotesque soit-elle, n’en est pas moins plausible. Le projet utopique prend alors rapidement une tournure dystopique. Mais sur le langage scientifique, déshumanisant, vient se greffer un discours plus humaniste qui fait prendre au récit une tournure inattendue, et amène le lecteur à entrevoir une autre forme d’utopie tout aussi déstabilisante. Oates pousse à l’extrême les dérives contenues à l’état latent dans un projet utopique dont la vraisemblance représente le principal danger. Pour ce faire, elle transgresse allègrement les limites éthiques et morales, mais également génériques et esthétiques. |
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OpenEdition Journal |
| language |
Anglais |
| format |
Article ou chapitre numérique |
| building |
0/Bibliothèque numérique/ 1/Bibliothèque numérique/OpenEdition Journals/ |
| description |
Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Experimental Subject,” published in 2018, is the story of the fictional realization of a most disconcerting scientific utopia: the creation of a human-chimp hybrid. Oates describes with a clinical coldness, tinged with irony, the details of this experiment, which, however grotesque, is no less plausible. The utopian project then quickly takes a dystopian turn. Yet, onto the dehumanizing language of science, a more humanistic discourse is progressively grafted that takes the story in an unexpected direction, and leads the reader to envision another form of utopia that is equally destabilizing. Oates pushes to the extreme the excesses present in the latent state within a utopian project whose verisimilitude represents the main danger. To do so, she readily transgresses ethical and moral limits, as well as generic and aesthetic ones. |
| author |
Maerten, Stéphanie |
| spellingShingle |
Maerten, Stéphanie From Scientific Utopia to Grotesque Dystopia: Hubris and Hybrids in Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Experimental Subject” |
| author_facet |
Maerten, Stéphanie |
| author_sort |
Maerten, Stéphanie |
| title |
From Scientific Utopia to Grotesque Dystopia: Hubris and Hybrids in Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Experimental Subject” |
| title_short |
From Scientific Utopia to Grotesque Dystopia: Hubris and Hybrids in Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Experimental Subject” |
| title_full |
From Scientific Utopia to Grotesque Dystopia: Hubris and Hybrids in Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Experimental Subject” |
| title_fullStr |
From Scientific Utopia to Grotesque Dystopia: Hubris and Hybrids in Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Experimental Subject” |
| title_full_unstemmed |
From Scientific Utopia to Grotesque Dystopia: Hubris and Hybrids in Joyce Carol Oates’s “The Experimental Subject” |
| title_sort |
from scientific utopia to grotesque dystopia: hubris and hybrids in joyce carol oates’s “the experimental subject” |
| publisher |
Journal of the Short Story in English |
| publishDate |
2025 |
| container_title |
URI:https://journals.openedition.org/jsse |
| url |
https://ezproxy.univ-orleans.fr/login?url=https://journals.openedition.org/jsse/4698 |
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1877291967758467072 |