The Heart Goes Last

“‘Those things like losing the house, and, and...those things have happened to a lot of people. To most people.’

‘But not to everyone,’ Stan would say. ‘Not to fucking everyone.’

Not to rich people.”

A central tenet of the novel’s critique of The Pitfalls of Capitalism and wealth inequality is that they lead to a segregated society, where the same rules and consequences do not apply to people with large amounts of money. Stan’s contempt for the rich stems from the fact that he lost everything in a financial crash he had nothing to do with, despite the fact that he worked hard and lived a modest life.

“Oh no, Charmaine said. Oh no, I couldn’t! Though she’d had a tiny flash of excitement, like peering in through a window and seeing another version of herself inside, leading a second life; a more raucous and rewarding second life.”

This passage is the first suggestion that Charmaine is less innocent and prudish than she projects, and that she is less-than-satisfied with the current state of her sex life. She has to reject Sandi and Veronica’s offer to become a sex worker to maintain her image, but the fact she is momentarily excited by the idea of sex work reveals she has a desire to be somebody else and live a different life. It also foreshadows The Tension Between Love and Passion that will jeopardize Charmaine and Stan’s life and marriage in Consilience.

“Come here. Don’t think you can hide. Look at me. You’re a bad girl, aren’t you? No was the wrong answer to that, but so was Yes.

Stop that noise. Shut up, I said shut up! You don’t even know what hurt is.

Forget those sad things, honey, Grandma Win would say. Let’s make popcorn. Look, I picked some flowers.”

This passage is one of several memory fragments that suggest Charmaine suffered some kind of traumatic abuse as a child. Her grandma’s response provides an origin for her relentless—often borderline delusional—optimism and self-deception, as she has taught herself to ignore things that are wrong by focusing on something else. It may also suggest a reason for her put-together appearance is to hide that there might be something wrong. 

“Having two lives means there’s always something different to look forward to. It’s like having a vacation every month. But which life is the vacation and which is the work? Charmaine hardly knows.”

Charmaine’s inability to discern “which is the work” reveals the true power of the Consilience system. Forcing everyone to spend half their time in a literal prison makes life outside of the prison seem freer than it really is, considering everyone is forced to work an assigned job and undergo constant surveillance. However, they are also forced to work while in prison, so while the change every month is “like having a vacation,” both destinations are actually work.

“Anything inside this non-house, inside this nothing space, a space that doesn’t exist, between these two people with no real names. Oh anything. Already she’s abject.”

With Max, Charmaine is free to be whoever she wants. The “nothing space,” the “people with no real names,” are all a part of a blank canvas for her to create a version of herself that she cannot be with Stan because of the roles and expectations they have built for one another. This freedom is ultimately as attractive to her as the idea of Max himself.

“He closes his eyes, sees himself as one of those dorky video-game hero princes of his childhood, slashing his questing way through swamps full of tentacled man-eating plants, annihilating giant leeches, hacking through the poison brambles to the iron castle where Jasmine lies asleep, guarded by a dragon, the dragon of Max, and shortly to be awakened by a kiss, the kiss of Stan.”

Stan’s fantasies about Jasmine are shaped by traditional (and toxic) ideas of masculinity, and by the lack of control and agency he feels in his real life that leave him feeling emasculated. He does not just build Jasmine up as an object of sexual desire; instead, he makes her into a helpless princess that is in need of rescuing, which in turn allows him to see himself as some kind of hero that actually has power and control.

“What [Max] doesn’t know is that in a way it’s always both at once: whichever one she’s with, the other one is there with her as well, invisible, partaking, though at an unconscious level. Unconscious to him but conscious to her, because she holds them both in her consciousness, so carefully, like fragile meringues, or uncooked eggs, or baby birds.”

Charmaine needs both Max and Stan in her life to balance The Tension Between Love and Passion, as they both fulfill different needs, but also because each of them requires the other to be what they are. Max is desirable to Charmaine because he represents what Stan is not: He is physically attractive, spontaneous, passionate, and perhaps most importantly, has no real knowledge of who Charmaine is or what she is “supposed” to be like. On the other hand, Stan is dependable, known, and has a shared history of experiences with Charmaine that makes him comfortable and safe, whereas Max is capricious, unreliable, and flighty.

“Would Doris Day’s life have been different if she’d called herself Doris Night? Would she have worn black lace, dyed her hair red, sung torch songs? What about Stan’s own life? Would he be thinner and fitter if his name were Phil, like Jocelyn’s cheating dipstick of a husband?”

There are multiple points where the text explores the notion of determinism and how it intersects with individual agency. Stan’s rumination on Doris Day and how her name relates to her image and identity is both superficially philosophical and absurd—not just because Doris Day is a stage name. While there are plenty of real examples where Stan has had little choice in life (e.g., the financial crash that ultimately led to them signing up for the Positron Project), believing that he could potentially be “thinner and fitter” if he had a different name underscores his tendency to avoid taking responsibility and looking inward.

“The chat takes place in the Chat Room beside the front checkout counter. Aurora is pleased to be able to tell Charmaine that she will have her cards and codes restored to her—or not restored; confirmed.”

Aurora’s preference for the word “confirmed” rather than “restored” demonstrates the way they use language in Consilience to disguise or frame what is happening. Confirming, rather than restoring, Charmaine’s ID cards and codes makes it seem like they had never actually been taken away from her. It also attempts to conceal the fact that they have complete control over her, and that the investigation was not about checking her identity, but rather, keeping her in prison while Jocelyn enacted her plan.

“Positron Prison will not be the comfortable and familiar haven of friends and neighbours that they have helped to nourish. Regrettably, it will become a less trusting and open place, because that is what happens in a crisis—people must be on guard, they must be sharper, they must be harder.”

Atwood highlights a classic play from the authoritarian playbook: using a (manufactured) crisis as justification for increased control, loss of individual freedoms and safety, and otherwise illegal activities. The framing of the crisis also encourages an “us versus them” mentality—what was once a comfortable place for friends and neighbors can no longer be because of outside invaders.

“She wasn’t herself with Max, she was some other person—some slutty blonde she wouldn’t speak to if they were standing in a checkout line together. If that other Charmaine tried to strike up a conversation with her she’d turn away as if she hadn’t heard, because you’re known by the company you keep and that other Charmaine is bad company. But that Charmaine has been banished, and she herself—the real Charmaine—has been restored to good standing, and she has to keep it that way no matter what.”

Charmaine has internalized misogynistic ideas about female sexuality, which is part of the reason she repressed her desires before meeting Max and experiences The Tension Between Love and Passion so acutely. Since she has built her image and identity around the idea of conservative femininity, it is easier for her to rationalize her feelings for Max as belonging to another person entirely rather than to acknowledge and accept that they came from her.

“Considering that the whole point of Consilience is for things to run smoothly, with happy citizens, or are they inmates? Both, to be honest. Because citizens were always a bit like inmates and inmates were always a bit like citizens, so Consilience and Positron have only made it official.”

The idea of inmates and citizens being alike ties into the text's exploration of the tension that can exist between freedom and safety, invoking The Illusion of Free Will. Most communities provide structure, predictability, and safety through the rules and expectations that govern them. In this way, being a citizen means trading certain liberties for the security of community. The irony here is that it is the threat of prison—with its even more restrictive rules and limitations—that is generally used as a means of ensuring citizens abide the law.

“He shouldn’t have let himself be caged in here, walled off from freedom. But what does freedom mean anymore? And who had caged him and walled him off? He’d done it himself. So many small choices. The reduction of himself to a series of numbers, stored by others, controlled by others. He should have left the disintegrating cities, fled the pinched, cramped life on offer there. Broken out of the electronic net, thrown away all the passwords, gone forth to range over the land, a gaunt wolf howling at midnight.”

In a rare instance of actual self-reflection, Stan admits some fault in landing in the dire circumstances in which he finds himself. However, while he blames himself because he cannot figure out who “caged him,” the fact that he cannot identify who, what, or where things went wrong is a sign that he has been the victim of structures much bigger than himself, once more reflecting The Illusion of Free Will.

“Tell her you’ve seen the videos. Repeat back to her the things she says on them. Turn her into a handful of soggy tissue. Wipe your boots on her: there would be some satisfaction in that. Not to mention the fact that she murdered you. She’ll be your slave, she’ll never dare say no to you, she’ll wait on you hand and foot.”

Stan’s desire to have Charmaine “be his slave” undermines the idea that he really loves her. Rather, what he really wants is someone subjected to him, which cycles back to his desire for power and control. Later in the text, this becomes a reality when he thinks she has undergone the neurosurgical procedure.

“And on the other side of that woman is Max. Charmaine can feel a thin filament of superheated air stretching between them, like the inside of an old light bulb: incandescent. He feels it too. He must feel it.”

Atwood captures the chemical-like omni-awareness that comes with intense attraction by playing on the double meaning of “incandescent”: incandescent lightbulbs emit light through a heated element, but the word can also mean strong, passionate emotion. This passage also comes after Charmaine knows Max cannot be trusted and has told herself she no longer wants him, underscoring the power (and potential dangers) this kind of chemical attraction has over rational thinking.

“‘This is the honeymoon suite,’ says Budge. ‘Or one of them. Where the customized individuals first meet their...their...’

‘Their owners,’ says Veronica with a precious-metal laugh.”

Having had the neurosurgical procedure that causes complete devotion to someone else, Veronica is in a position to cut through the marketing and euphemistic corporate-speak to call it what it is. Regardless of how happy the subject is, they have been turned into the property of the other person. Veronica equates individuals who have this procedure with enslaved people who have been robbed of self-determination.

“Men don’t like to think about makeup, they like to think everything about you is genuine. Unless of course they want to think you’re a slut and everything about you is fake.”

Atwood highlights the contradictory nature of male desire. On top of wanting two contradictory things (genuineness and fakeness), this also intersects with the possibilibots and the neurosurgical procedure. The possibilibots are completely fake, but the designers and engineers are constantly seeking ways to make them feel more real, whereas the subjects that undergo the neurosurgical procedure are real, but the feelings and devotion they experience are not genuine.

“Stan, Stan, he tells himself. This is a mission you’re on. Can you stop thinking like a pre-human sex-crazed baboon for maybe just one minute? It’s his hormones, it must be his hormones. Is he responsible for his hormones?”

As the text considers issues of agency and The Illusion of Free Will, one avenue it explores is at the individual, chemical level. At numerous points, Atwood depicts characters at the mercy of their biology, making choices they know they should not make, but seemingly incapable of resisting. While Stan frames such urges as “pre-human” and below him, they nonetheless shape many of the decisions he makes just as much as the larger structural forces in the novel.

“The film ends. Charmaine feels dizzy. ‘He’s going to have sex with her?’ She feels strangely protective of her fabricated self.”

Charmaine feels protective of her “fabricated self” because the entire process represents a violation of her consent. Without her knowledge or permission, Ed has taken footage and photographs of her, used those to have a surprisingly realistic replica made, and then plans to have sex with it because he cannot have the real thing.

“UR-ELF is making a profit, says Pete, but only because they keep the overheads low. It’s a close-to-the-bone operation: the champagne does not flow, the caviar is not spread.”

In a novel that lambasts corporate greed and depicts numerous ways in which the pursuit of profit ignores moral and ethical considerations, UR-ELF provides one example of business that is both ethical and more sustainable. While they do not achieve the absurd amounts of wealth that the Positron Project projects, by seeking modest profits they are able to keep everyone fed and housed without causing long-term societal harm. With these measures, UR-ELF sidesteps The Pitfalls of Capitalism.

“This is like one of those love potions in the old fairy-tale books at Grandma Win’s, thinks Charmaine. The kind where you get imprisoned by a toad prince. In those stories you always got the true love back at the end, as long as you had a magic silver dress or something.”

Atwood highlights the lack of agency that most female characters have at the ending of traditional fairy-tale stories. She then goes on to invert and satirize this type of ending in The Heart Goes Last: Charmaine thinks she has gotten her true love back after undergoing the neurosurgical procedure, only to have it ripped away and replaced with uncertainty—but also, crucially, freedom to choose—when Jocelyn reveals the truth. 

“He might throw her to the floor and start ripping off her buttons, the way Max used to, but with Max she wanted him to do that, whereas with Ed it would be a very different thing, it would be awkward and quite frankly creepy. Keep your freaking hands off my darn buttons! That’s what she would say.”

Atwood illustrates how important context is for any discussion of consent. While Charmaine not only consents, but actively desires the rough, physical sex she was having with Max, when she considers the same thing with Ed, it repulses her. This passage also alludes to The Tension Between Love and Passion that Charmaine must continue to navigate.

“She does have a lingering doubt. Does loving Stan really count if she can’t help it? Is it right that the happiness of her married life should be due not to any special efforts on her part but to a brain operation she didn’t even agree to have? No, it doesn’t seem right. But it feels right. That’s what she can’t get over—how right it feels.”

Charmaine’s difficulty in coming to terms with her relationship with Stan after believing she has had the neurosurgical procedure begins to point out the contradictory beliefs many people hold about love—how it is supposed to happen, and how it is supposed to feel. On the one hand, it feels “right” and she is happy. On the other hand, she does not feel like she has earned it because it is the result of a procedure she did not even choose. She later contradicts this sentiment when she learns the truth and is upset that her love is not actually helpless.