An Invitation to My Rhetorical Dinner Party

An Invitation to My Rhetorical Dinner Party


I know I am consumed with my research when I dream about it. Warning: I have strange dreams. Now that I warned you, I give you my rhetorical dinner party that seeped from my unconscious last night. It happens to take place in the UCF English Department’s insane-asylum green conference room.

Deborah Sampson and Herman Mann are holding a party in honor of the release of The Female Review and Sampson posthumously becoming the first American woman to receive a military pension. Keep in mind the space-time continuum does not seem to operate in this reality.

Simone de Beauvoir arrives first.

Baeuvoir: Congratulations Deborah! Oh, and Herman almost wrote about war and included a woman. Next, time try and focus on the action Herman.

Sampson: Thank you very much. The finger foods are over there. I had Subway cater the party because I my husband always did the cooking.

Michel Foucault arrives next.

Foucault: I am so proud of you Deborah. Also, thanks for seeing my point that discourse has the potential to resist the power. Now, ever other early American female author will be jumping to insert resistance into their text. Ha! But what is an author anyway? Oh, I have an idea. Do you have a pen and a piece of paper?

He runs off to the corner to write.

Mann: Deborah, what did he mean that you wrote resistance into the text?

Sampson: Oh, don’t worry Herman; I made some last minute edits before it was printed...Your name is still on it.

Mary Russo arrives:

Russo: Deborah or should I say Robert? I have to congratulate you for using masquerade in a productive manner for women. I mean enough with the Lady Skimmington, right?

Sampson: Well, I did not shave my legs today so I guess Robert works too. Oh, Simone is over at the punch. You should go say hi.

Mann calls as she walks away: Mary I still think “gross,” I mean grotesque women are pretty. I don’t mind a little unruly bra strap, wrinkle or muffin top. Ouch!

Sampson punches Mann.

Helene Cixous runs in the door and yells: I am woman and I have arrived! Hi Deborah, It is so good to see you again. I do have to say though your feminism is not as awesome as second-wave French feminism, there is potential; welcome to the club. Next time you write, try and release yourself from this awful patriarchal discourse. Actually, you need to speak. Speak as a woman, with your body and it will be explosive!

Sampson: I speaking tour sounds like a great idea. Thank you!

Cixous joins the ongoing debate over the punch bowl about the best feminist authors by screaming, “Joyce, Joyce, Joyce!”

Mann looks at Sampson: Was the book really that bad?

Sampson: It gets the job done. Men won’t know to stifle its message because it is not outright resistant and women will read around all of your fluff and learn that a woman can be educated, become a soldier, be just as good as one of the guys, protect herself against an Indian attack, marry a woman, and even save other women from the violence of men.

Mann: I thought the book was just to get people to not jail you for cross-dressing and help you get your pension?

Sampson: I told you I made a few edits.

Mann: Oh.

Louis Althusser and Freud walk in.

Sampson: Who invited them?

Mann: I have friends too.

Freud hands Sampson a plant: I brought you this because I figured you don’t like flowers and I wasen’t sure what would make up for the fact that you lack a phallus. Hi Herman. Good to see you.

Sampson: I still have my sword and it is quite sharp, thank you!

Althusser: We should go get some punch. (Whispers) Sorry.

Sampson: Thanks for everything Herman. I really don’t think you know what your male name will do for my story.

Mann: Well, I now have ideas about a speaking tour…

A cocktail wiener flies across the room and hits Freud in the head.

Cixous: I am not castrated!

Althusser: Ok everyone, just calm down let’s not waste the food. (He recognizes Cixous and throws a Hawaiian roll at her.)

Cixous: What was that for?

Althusser: You are destroying literature with your hysteria. It must make sense, the laws of consequence must apply and Joyce is just bad.

A food fight ensues.

Sampson fires her rifle and pieces of the ceiling sprinkle down.

Sampson: OK everyone you better get along or this is going to be a long night because not even half of the guests have arrived.

***THE END (I wake up and have to write this dream down)***