Many of the events that preceded Vox’s current edicts could be taken from today’s headlines. More interesting, and more provocative, than the storyline of Dalcher’s novel, are the ways she describes the subtlety with which the silencing occurred. Their work, interspersed by McClellan’s family dynamics, is the core of Vox’s plot. But at the same time, they secretly conjure up ways to subvert presidential dictates and the strictures put in place by the political party in power. With her wrist counter temporarily removed (and Sonia’s, too), she rejoins fellow researchers who are equally dismayed by the current governmental edicts. When the government decides it needs Jean’s specialized services for a new research project, Jean agrees. Her husband, a physician with a highly classified government position, is distressed, too, but acquiesces to the new normal in order to save his job. in neurological linguistics but who no longer is allowed to speak, is horrified by the indoctrination of her son. There, the innate superiority of men, taught from the point of view of extreme-right fundamentalism, is ingrained in the minds of pliable teenagers. The oldest McClellan boy, Steven, is enrolled in an AP class that teaches the fundamentals of modern Christian philosophy. Jean’s three sons, in contrast, chatter freely, as does her husband Patrick. Jean McClellan only has a hundred words to communicate with her husband and four children Sonia her daughter, allowed to voice the same number each day, wins a school prize on the days she speaks fewer words than any of her classmates.
Their school days teach them how to sew, how to cook, and how to serve their masters, men. Little girls no longer learn to read or write, either. With every additional word, the jolt strengthens, becoming unbearable if the woman continues talking.Įven little girls must wear wristbands and must circumscribe their words.
Every time a woman exceeds her quota, a wrist counter gives her an electrical zap. That’s right, silenced, each allowed to speak only one hundred words per day. Current political optics have spawned a host of subsequent novels, including Christina Dalcher’s Vox, which imagines a United States where women have been silenced. Margaret Atwood, writing The Handmaid’s Tale, created a template for modern feminist dystopian fiction. Vox, Christina Dalcher’s novel makes use of Atwood’s template for modern feminist dystopian novels, placing it squarely in the United States.
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