Woman on the Edge of Time

Luciente is a citizen of the future who travels back in time to contact Connie. She is described as slim and androgynous in style and dress, with Indigenous American features, bronze skin, and “long thick black hair” (54). She is a plant geneticist but is skilled at the telepathic skill of “sending” and so is chosen to reach out to Connie. Initially, Connie assumes that she is male because she has many traits that Connie thinks of as masculine: confidence, ease in her body, no interest in patriarchal beauty standards, etc. However, Connie comes to appreciate her as a woman and realizes that she and others in her society are simply free to behave in ways that Connie’s world associates with only one sex. Luciente is thus key to the novel’s aim of Envisioning a Post-Gender Society.

The citizens of Mattapoisett do not have nuclear family structures, but Luciente has mothered two children: Innocente (renamed Hawk) and Dawn. She is lovers, or “sweetfriends,” with Bee, Jackrabbit, and Diana. Luciente is stubborn, steady, and practical, and her pragmatism helps her care for many people. In this, she reminds Connie of her grandmother, a woman who ensured that “[e]veryone would be fed, everybody would be comforted, everyone would be healed, to each would be given a piece of herself” (244). Luciente exhibits deep compassion for those she loves, including Connie. Like the others in Mattapoisett, Luciente’s eventual fate is unknown. Connie loses contact with her when Luciente and Dawn are together on a snowy day, and she does not see them again.

Connie meets many residents of Mattapoisett during her visits there. One important person is Bee, Luciente’s lover. Connie describes him as a “a big-boned, well-muscled man with some fat around his midriff” who moves “with the majesty and calm of a big ship” (106). Bee and Luciente have been lovers for 12 years, and he works at the brooder, preparing embryos. Just as Connie is surprised at “male” traits in Luciente, she is shocked when Bee cries, thinking that it is a sign of weakness. However, she comes to see that his gentleness and sensitivity are not derided but considered assets in his culture. When Connie and Bee have sex, she admits that he reminds her of Claud—or a version of Claud who could exist in a world without racism and poverty.

Another important resident of Mattapoisett is Jackrabbit. Like his name, Jackrabbit is quick, almost flighty, and full of good humor. He is young and handsome: “He had a lot of very curly light brown hair and he wore the sleeves of his pale blue work shirt rolled up to expose several bracelets of hand-worked silver and turquoise on each wiry arm” (79). Initially, Jackrabbit struggles to come to full maturity. He works as an artist making videos, but he worries that he needs to be less restless. With the help of others, he decides that he is ready to parent. However, to do so, he must first complete his turn in the defense forces. He is killed there, and his death shakes Luciente and Connie. After his death, the council agrees that they will use his genetic material again, which consoles Luciente. Jackrabbit’s carefree nature and eventual death underscore the reality of the war that Mattapoisett faces. Though it is a more advanced society than Connie’s and seems utopian, it is still under threat.

Dolly is Connie’s niece—the daughter of her older brother, Luis. Dolly is young and beautiful but naive. She has a young daughter, Nita, and lives with her boyfriend, Geraldo. He used to be a drug dealer and now is a pimp, trafficking Dolly and three other girls to earn money. Dolly hopes that he will marry her if she has his child, saying, “A man respects you more if you have his baby” (37). This is a traditional view of gender and family, and it does not serve Dolly or the women around her well. She represents the extreme of patriarchal femininity; she is so dependent and subservient that she cannot break free, even when her partner is harming her or her daughter. Dolly excuses Geraldo’s behavior, including his abuse of her, and sides with him when he has Connie committed. She tells Connie, “He is my man. What can I do?” (20-21). Dolly sees herself as helpless, dependent on Geraldo or another man. After she breaks up with Geraldo, she takes up with a new pimp called Vic and begins using drugs to stay thin. She is passive throughout the story, hoping for a rescue that never comes. Her given name means “sorrow,” which indicates her fate; however, she chooses to go by “Dolly,” thereby connecting to Piercy’s motif of dolls as emblems of helpless femininity.