Utopia and the Mestiza Consciousness

A Postcolonial Feminist Perspective of Woman on the Edge of Time

Abstract

This article aims to revisit the utopian feminist novel Woman on the Edge of Time (1976), by Marge Piercy, through a postcolonial feminist perspective. Many feminists from the 1970s used the science fiction genre as a revisionist act to criticize patriarchal discourse. About four decades later, a new revisionist look is necessary. Therefore, my analysis takes into consideration Gloria Anzaldúa's affirmation that the future belongs to the Mestiza. My argument discusses how the protagonist, Consuelo Ramos, finds herself in a subaltern position for the oppressions she is subjected to and this marginalized condition is what makes it possible for her to reach the Coatlicue state and travel to the future. When she travels through territories separated not by geography, but by time, the novel represents what this Mestiza's future could be.