Wächter, Cornelia

Complicity can be conceived of as a matter of aligning with orientation. This can be a case of a secondary agent aligning with the orientation of a primary agent; or it can be a case of an individual aligning with the collective orientation of a group. Thomas Docherty usefully distinguishes between the morally neutral compliance on the one hand and complicity on the other hand, with the latter denoting that alignment entails harm. Speculative fiction can help us estimate the likely consequences of collective orientations and hence distinguish between complicity and compliance. By imaginatively assuming the direction the collective has taken and thinking through the corollaries of this orientation, trying to assess where this will leave, it renders such orientation visible. It can, moreover, help to render visible the processes and means of keeping people in line with collective orientations. It is only when these processes are visible that resistance becomes possible. The present chapter is concerned with Katherine Burdekin’s (Murray Constantine’s) Proud Man (1934), The End of This Day’s Business (written in 1935), and Swastika Night (1937) – works which illustrates ways in which fiction can perform a radical unfolding in the sense of rendering naturalised constructions of reality visible and thus contestable. What makes her work – and especially Proud Man and The End of This Day’s Business – especially valuable to the study of complicity is the degree to which Burdekin narratively reflects upon the affective dimensions of complicit enfoldings into a socially constructed reality.  

Burdekin was one of many authors speculating what the rising fascism at the time would entail. Few authors, however, have focussed specifically on the gendered implications of fascism. Burdekin unveils and unmasks gendered ideology to a degree that is not only outstanding for her time but still striking today. In all three novels, a queer figure – a figure who is precisely not aligned with the collective orientation – is at the very heart of the challenge to the established order. This character unmasks the corollaries of the collective orientation and renders alternatives to the socially constructed reality visible, thus opening up a space for resistance.