'Catherine Legrand is perched on the fence. Her panties tear on a nail. Snap! Catherine Legrand climbs down again and runs cautiously, yelling 'thumbs'. Good grief. No one saw anything. She cannot keep playing without panties, even if the others don't know it.'
     – Monique Wittig, L'Opoponax, 1964 (personal translation).

Played during the Backloggd’s Game of the Week (25th Jul. – 31st Jul., 2023).

Monique Wittig has always rejected the idea of writing 'committed literature'. She resented the term because it obscured the real implications of literature and the manipulation of language: 'Every new work is, by its very form, a threat to older ones. Moreover, the way in which language is worked is guided by a preoccupation with expressing a point of view' [1]. In other words, literature is constantly 'committed' because it interacts with previous texts and interprets language according to the situated point of view of its author, regardless of their intentions. Wittig has always been acutely aware of how language is bound up with its social context. In The Straight Mind and Other Essays (1992), she presents an incisive overview, emphasising the extent to which language serves to cement social domination [2].

     Language and gender, the individual and the world

To counteract these phenomena, Wittig sought to refine her use of personal pronouns. In L'Opoponax (1964) she deliberately uses the French 'on'. Often considered colloquial and not very persuasive, 'on' is preferred by Wittig because its gender is indefinite. Throughout L'Opoponax, a story of childhood before the weight of gender is fully felt, Wittig attempts to construct an experience in which the division of the world into two sexes does not exist. Wittig's masterstroke is not to succumb to the impersonality of the pronoun 'on', but to point out that it is deliberately used by clearly defined and named characters, such as Catherine Legrand. The girl is always referred to by her first name and surname, as if to mimic the severity of the school name list. The contrast between these two elements creates a subversive discourse on gender through the plasticity of language.

non-binary deals with similar issues, exploring the impact of gendered words and experiences on individuals. The player follows the story of two characters who do not conform to gender expectations from an early age. They harbour deep doubts about their identity, which are gradually dissolving, and struggle to find their place in the world. The title shines in its ability to highlight the violence of language, even in seemingly innocuous sentences. Every remark seems to be a targeted attack on Luca or Erica: the player experiences this feeling vicariously, as they are forced to focus on dodging the projectiles. In this moment, the speech is almost secondary and escapes the player. The violence of the imposed gender must be fought psychologically before trying to rationalise what someone else is saying. non-binary sensitively dramatises the alienation caused by language.

     Breaking out of the shackles of gender?

The idea is so effective that it is a little unfortunate that it is not taken to its ultimate conclusion. While the game is a coming-out story for both characters, non-binary refuses to radically transform language. Although the use of the neutral pronoun emerges towards the end, the solution is practically individual and has little to do with systemic structures, despite the title's emphasis on the way Erica struggles to fit in with Chloe's community [3]. Influenced by Wittig's political thought, some lesbians saw themselves as a separate gender because they refused to associate with men. For them, the dissolution of their gender meant voluntary exile and the creation of a new community. non-binary does not adopt such a condemnatory stance, but instead shows modest hesitations and embarrassed fumblings; by the end of the two stories, the game radiates a certain pride, but also carries an air of sadness.

There is something particularly restrained about non-binary, which is more about problems than solutions. Despite a renewed confidence in their gender non-conformity, Luca and Erica still see the gendered forms of language and the world around them as a kind of tragic inevitability. Wittig's literature is more fiery and vehement. In a way, non-binary is closer to the literature of Nathalie Sarraute – and especially Enfance (1983) – whose scrambling of masculine and feminine serves only to palliate the oppression of language and its unbearable reality. Luca and Erica are just two of many stories that express an ontological malaise around gender, where self-loathing intersects with a latent hatred of the world around them. How strong and fragile they are.

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[1] Françoise Armengaud, 'La contestation des conventions du discours chez Nathalie Sarraute et chez Monique Wittig', in Nouvelles Questions Féministes, vol. 19, no. 1, 1998, p. 38 : 'Toute œuvre nouvelle par sa forme constitue une menace pour les formes anciennes. De surcroît, la forme selon laquelle est travaillé le langage est orientée par le souci de l'expression d'un point de vue'.
[2] More specifically, Wittig argues that language is ideally constructed as an equitable social contract, but that the intrusion of interlocutors and the first-person pronoun entraps language in patterns of domination: 'As soon as there is a locutor in discourse, as soon as there is an 'I', gender manifests itself. [...] The locutor intervenes, in the order of the pronouns, without mediation, in its proper sex – that is, when the locutor is a sociological women. One knows that, in French, with je ('I'), one must mark the gender as soon as one uses it in relation to past participles and adjectives. [...] Gender is the enforcement of sex in language, working in the same way as the declaration of sex in civil status' (Monique Wittig, The Straight Mind and Other Essays, Beacon Press, Boston, 1992, p. 79).
[3] If the exclusionary portrayal of lesbians can be explained by the genuine frustration of the queer community, sometimes included, sometimes rejected, the game seems very blunt on this issue, almost forgetting that lesbian communities are also founded by trans women. non-binary thus draws a rather harsh and almost surprising opposition between non-binarity and homosexuality/lesbianism.