The Short Story The Hand - Essay Example

?[Your full September 18, Part I- Quotations Then she concealed…” This passage has been taken from “The Hand” by Sidonie-Gabrielle Collette. This passage is important to the rest of the story as it signifies the woman’s final decision that she takes regarding her life and her role in the marriage. The story shows her sleeping with her husband, while her body supports his body. She wants relief and to turn off the light, but she is frightened that she might awake her husband. But she knows that she has no choice than to succumb to the animal like characteristics of his hand; that is, her husband. The passage reveals that she accepts this fact, and decides to live the submissive role. 2. “No, dearest Georgiana…” This passage has been taken from Natalie Georgiana’s “The Birthmark”. This passage tells about Aylmer’s discontentment with the little birthmark that Georgiana had on her cheek. He believed that his wife’s beauty was imperfect due to that birthmark. This passage points out the discontentment of man, and also the imperfection of human beings. The perfect beauty of Georgiana’s was made imperfect by way of the birthmark, which implies that only God is perfect, and human beings can never become perfect. This passage also reveals that man is very thankless toward the blessings of God. No matter how much God blesses man with, he is always complaining and looking for faults instead of appreciating positive things. 3. “Live with your head…” This passage is from Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal”. This passage is very significant as it portrays a very important theme: compliance. The grandfather is advising his grandson that the only way he can survive in the white-dominated society is compliance. He should never show open rebellion against the discrimination. He should pretend to be okay with the demeaning racism he would be experiencing in the future life, and should sit back and see what happens. However, the advice of the old man is based upon self-denial. The narrator wishes to be true to his self throughout, but the words of his grandfather echo in his mind and teach him treachery. 4. “She saw the man’s face…”. This passage has been taken from Flannery O’Connor’s “A Good Man Is Hard to Find”. This passage contains the redemption and epiphany the grandmother shows for the first time in the whole story, and this is what makes this passage so significant. She used to live in her own world of selfishness and indifference, where she is not ready to consider the importance and views of others around her. But she comes to realize this just before she is going to die. Her head gets cleared for a moment, and she understands the Misfit and his inner person. But it is too late. In short, the passage is about sudden self-realization of one’s self-centeredness. Part II- Essay Questions Q. 1: Symbol in “The Hand” Colette has not only described the spiritual dominance of the husband in the short story “The Hand”, but has also described how physically dominant was he, by giving special focus on his hands. Hand depicts power, control, masculinity, and aggression. “…powerful knuckles and the veins engorged by the pressure on his arm” (Colette, qtd. in Meyer 241) shows how powerful the hands of the husband are, which basically portrays the height of male dominance. The powerful hands, the hair on the arms, and the wife’s feeling of lying with an animal, all shows the animal-like fierceness and ruthless dominance exhibited by the husband. She thinks of the hands as “apelike”, and calls them “claws”, which strengthens the symbolic meaning of hand. At one point, the wife describes hand as “offended, reared back and tensed up in the shape of a crab and waited, ready for battle” (Colette, qtd. in Meyer 242), which again depicts the animal like ferocity and domination. The man can make his hand defensive when the wife feels disgusted. This shows the level of prowess and cleverness the man possesses, with the help of which he tackles his wife’s attitude. This defensiveness shows his guilt when he knows that he is at fault; yet, he does not hold himself responsible of how the wife feels. At last, the wife kisses the hand, which means that she accepts her husband’s dominance. Hence, hand is a symbol of dominance, power, control, and supremacy in this story. Q. 2: Theme in “The Hand” “The Hand” is a story of a husband and wife. The basic theme of the story revolves around the male chauvinism in the anti-feminist society, and the willful submissiveness of the females. We can sense this when we read that the wife is supporting his husband’s body while he is asleep. She is feeling discomfort, but is afraid to make even a small move because she fears that she might awake her husband. “I’m so heavy…I wish I could get up and turn the light off. But he is sleeping so well….” (Colette, qtd. in Meyer 241). She wants to turn off the light and make her body lighter, but the fear of her husband’s discomfort is far bigger than her wish to relax. The wife has already remained quite submissive to her parents all her life; and now that she is married, she fears changing that submissive role of hers. Change needs courage, and that is what lacks in her personality. Finally, she decides to give in. She decides to submit. The whole novel revolves around this main theme that submissiveness is inculcated in the minds of women since they are born, and that submissiveness remains with them throughout their lives. They are not forced to accept male dominance; instead, they are willing to succumb to their husbands by accepting their own submissiveness. This may be because they feel secure in accepting male dominance, because they feel free of responsibilities and decision-making. Bonus Question Going through the literary fiction was very interesting to me, and I came to know about many aspects of human life and the society. I read about gender and racial discrimination, man’s dissatisfaction with God’s blessings, and man’s self-centeredness. References Meyer, Michael. “The Hand”. The Compact Bedford Introduction to Literature. Boston: Macmillan, 2008. Read More