Hillary Jordan’s WHEN SHE WOKE (Algonquin, 2011) is timely in its publication as a reminder of all that is at stake in the continued fight to protect choice in the abortion debate. The book is promoted as a futuristic version of Hawthorne’s THE SCARLET LETTER, and could just as easily be described as another branch on the tree of feminist dystopian literature, a la Atwood’s THE HANDMAID’S TALE. WHEN SHE WOKE is a polemic about the dangers of religion mixing with government, and the resultant reversal of ROE V. WADE.
The story opens as Hannah Payne awakens in a holding cell, where she finds herself a bright red color. Hannah has been “chromed.” Chroming is the religious state’s answer to the problem of prisons. It is the process by which the convicted (yellow for misdemeanors, red for murder and blue for child molestation) are pigmented so that they may be released to society after a short confinement period. This confinement is televised, like a reality program. After the confinement, the “chromes” as they are referred to in the society, are released and must find some way to support their lives. Of course, many families shun their newly hued relatives so as to avoid further harassment by and embarrassment within the community.
Hannah has been chromed because she was caught after she procured an abortion. She sought an abortion in an effort to protect the identity of the baby’s father, the rock star minister, Aiden Dale, who is married. Abortion has become a crime because a venereal disease that caused infertility in women swept through the world. To assure survival of the human race, abortion is outlawed. It is in this way that the book is likeTHE HANDMAID’S TALE versus THE SCARLET LETTER.
We follow Hannah as she finds who remains supportive and who does not, once she is released from her prison stay. She befriends a fellow “red” and they attempt to escape the fate of their skin color. The world is a dangerous place for female reds, as they are all pigmented for seeking abortions. We glimpse at what life might be like if abortion were criminalized through WHEN SHE WOKE. It is a scary world, indeed.
There are halfway houses touted as religious safe-havens. The one in which Hannah finds herself is run by a sadistic couple who merely use religious terminology to mete out bizarre punishment. Women begin the program by stripping naked. They are then brought before a crowd of the other program residents. They are forced to describe their stories to the mistress of the house in a manner that is mentally torturous. More anguish is inflicted as the women are forced to create dolls and name them in an effort to supposedly eradicate the evil of their murderous selves.
Hannah escapes the program with a fellow “red,” Kayla. Their freedom is short-lived as the society in which they live includes a vigilante group bent on killing criminals. Their doomed fate is interrupted by a protective group, one in which female reds are transported north to Canada on a re-imagined underground railroad. There are instances of deception along the way. The wayward son of a prominent feminist sells red women for prostitution, as revenge for the abandonment he felt as a child. Hannah and Kayla face many challenges along the path to freedom, and encounter or seek side trips to resolve other issues.
As a warning for a future in which women lose the right to control their bodies, WHEN SHE WOKE is a solid contribution to the cannon of literature that cautions us against allowing religion to become government, for government to be able and actively monitoring all citizens, and for a future in which our reactions to plagues or violence lead us to lose our rational minds and submit to irrational tactics to seemingly solve our inability to comprehend or live with ambiguity. There are some areas in which the novel might have contributed more solidly to general dystopian literature, rather than concentrating on the feminist branch of the genre. For example, learning more about a future society in which citizens are pigmented to signify their crimes so that prisons can be eliminated is a topic that deserves more than mere mention. One cannot help but wonder about a society that claims godliness as its basis yet the murder of “blue” child molesters is never investigated as a crime. One cannot help but also wonder about other reds, male murderers or female murderers, not just those who seek abortion or provide it. We never encounter a red female who has not had an abortion.
We can essentially “close” the abortion and religion as government issues the book raises. Yes, we get the author’s point that religion as government is frightening to those of us who put personal liberty and secular rule above any religious beliefs we might hold. We clearly understand the author’s position on abortion and choice. I don’t want these comments to make the book seem formulaic. The story itself is compelling, and even with the tiny annoyances, such as the literary convention in so many fiction books wherein a person easily finds clothes that fit when they must change what they’re wearing, mostly because the harrowing situation in which the protagonist finds him or herself causes weight loss, and allows for even large clothes to of course easily be adjusted to their thin body.
Regardless of these details, wherein I wanted further exploration of this frightening view of a possible future lacking a right to an abortion or more information about a society that sought alternative means to prisons, even a prospect as gruesome as “chroming,” these desires merely indicate my appreciation of the book itself. While some critics have written the book off as one that book groups or feminist classes might read and argue about where abortion rights are concerned, I think there is a lot more for conversation and consideration within the book. Possibly, it is better that Jordan does not give us more details about the chroming of criminals, for we can take just this premise and think about it long after the book is closed. In fact, I plan to suggest WHEN SHE WOKE to my own book group not so much as to discuss the abortion issue as to seek other opinions and thoughts about the principles behind chroming, and whether that might ever be considered constitutional, or how it could come to be legal.
I continue to think about Hannah’s view of feminism as something vile, as discussed on pages 206-207 of the book. It seems in this dystopian future, the religious government manages to continue to defame feminism and feminists. I want to explore more of that. I also want to consider the character who becomes a part of the underground railroad meant to save women who’ve sought abortions, and who betrays the group as revenge for his feminist mother’s actions. It seems, too, that in this future, mothers are reviled for not focusing enough on their children. These are small details in WHEN SHE WOKE, yet they are the thoughts that remain with me and upon which I continue to reflect.
First published http://www.hercircleezine.com/2011/12/01/when-she-woke/
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