Woman On The Edge Of Time Quotes

When you were to be one of the innocent people who are unfortunately captured by some horrifying alliens whose only purpose is to hurt you and destroy you, it is natural to assume that the first thing you would want to do is to try to escape from them and the last thing you would want to do is to make a scene, attract their attention, and get yourself killed for it. However, that is what exactly what Connie, the main character in the novel Woman on the Edge of Time by Marge Piercy, does in the end when she gave up escaping from the dehumanizing mental institution but instead poisons the doctors there. As a poor, Latino, working class women who already faces a destitute life even before she is unjustly detained by the mental institution, Connie is aware of the oppression that is thrust upon her and refuses to take her fate as miserable as it is.

“them”. In a war, since either people on your side or people on their side will have to die, a required intention is to kill and destroy the enemy on other side. As Luciente points out, “the enemy is few but determined…now they have the power to exterminate us and we to exterminate them” (291-292). After being forced to undergo brain operations and witnessing other patients being destroyed one by one, Connie finally identifies her enemies: she comes to the realization that the doctors have and will keep harming her and all the other patients if they are not stopped. For the fisrt time, instead of being angry with herself, she feels angry and even furious toward those “who had pushed her back and tranquilized her and punished her and condemned her”, and “the war raged outside her body now, outside her skull” (367). They are determined to exterminate her, so she has to be determined to exterminate them, too. A war has been declared by the enemy, so she has to fight back with her