Looking in the Mirror: Biological Sisterhood, Doubleness, and the Body in Krissy Kneen’s Steeplechase

Abstract

Biological sisters share genetics and are born (often) in the same womb, therefore encouraging a sense of similitude. When a sister looks at her sister, then, she sees not ‘Other’ but simply ‘mine’, or, as Toni McNaron suggests, a sister is “someone who is both ourselves and very much not ourselves—a special kind of double” (7). Through close textual analysis, this paper examines how the doubleness of biological sisterhood encourages the understanding of a sister’s body as simultaneously ‘self’ and ‘other’ within Steeplechase (2011) by Krissy Kneen. Steeplechase explores the relationship between estranged, middleaged sisters Bec and Emily as they reunite at the opening of Emily’s art exhibition in Beijing. The relationship between Bec and Emily demonstrates that by understanding a sister’s body as simultaneously ‘self’ and ‘other’, sisters in literary fiction are able to challenge and disrupt the established boundaries of the body. This paper explores the unique perspective that biological sisterhood offers to reading the female body in literary fiction. This paper also argues that interrogating the corporeal bond between sisters can contribute to dismantling the predominant literary representations of biological sisters as rivals or as an idealizing metaphor, and can reveal deeper complexities of fictional biological sisterhood.