ABSTRACT
The title of this anthology, Where N o M a n Has Gone Before, in no way describes the dystopian societies depicted by Charlotte Haldane and Katherine Burdekin, for their fictional worlds are men's worlds, ruled by men for men. The women in these worlds have been reduced to their biological function and it is this alone that gives them a social identity. In both novels the women are minor characters and comply with the dominant ideology. They are depicted by silence rather than sound and only exist in so far as they internalise male desire and imagine themselves as men imagine them to be. The women of Haldane's world have been elevated to a pure and intensely 'feminine' level; those of Burdekin's world have been devalued into 'unwomen'. At opposite poles, neither the former nor the latter have the possibility of asserting themselves, of becoming fully developed human beings. In this essay, I shall attempt to decipher their silence in order to make clear the political message that both Haldane and Burdekin - by adopting the voice of Cassandra - try to put over.
