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Being a Servant to a King
"The Hand" is an intriguing story of a newlywed couple just beginning their fairy tale journey together. As the loving couple lay together one evening, the wife adoringly inspects her prince charming. She adores and admires him, and is well pleased with his physical beauty. It is at this point that she notices something awful about him. It is in plain sight, it is frightening, and monstrous. How could she have missed this thing? What else had she overlooked or missed? This is the reality and dilemma that Sidonie Colette addresses in her short story, "The Hand". In the "The Hand" the young wife is a dynamic character because she goes from being completely in love with her husband to feeling completely submissive to him.
The young wife in "The Hand" is a dynamic character because through a series of observations during the course of one night, the wife begins to transition. The young wife starts the transition from a woman that has given herself so completely to her new husband that she can see no blemish, into a woman that feels threatened and intimidated by a physical feature that had once brought her joy and pleasure.
Sidonie Colette opens "The Hand" with a newlywed couple that is attempting to sleep. The reader is immediately made aware of two things; one is the complete devotion this young wife has for her husband, and the second is the dominating hand of her husband. The complete devotion this young wife has for her husband is made aware in the first paragraph. Colette allows the reader to know that this young woman is fascinated with her husband and all of his features "He had fallen asleep on his young wife's shoulder, and she proudly bore the weight of the man's head…" (8). Colette uses the thoughts of the young wife to allow the reader to know the mindset of this young woman. Colette also uses the wife's thoughts in order to leave clues for the reader to understand that this relationship is more about domination than love. "He had slipped his big arm under the small of her slim, adolescent back, and his strong hand lay on the sheet…" (8). The use of words here, such as "big arm", and "small of her slim, adolescent back" suggests the very idea that the husband is dominating and the wife is submissive.
The reader is lead to believe that the young woman is naïve, submissive, and is completely blinded by her love for husband. She cannot see who he truly is. However, it is not until the middle of the story that this young wife begins to change her opinion, and ultimately her feelings, for her husband "And I've kissed that hand!...How horrible! Haven't I ever looked at it?" (). This statement by the author gives the reader the opportunity to see that this once young and naïve wife is now beginning to transform into a woman who sees her husband for who he truly is, and not who she wants him to be.
Colette leaves other important clues in order for the reader to know that the young wife is beginning to change. For example, one passage reads "…so the hand suddenly took on a vile, apelike appearance" (). The hand taking on an "apelike appearance" leads the reader to believe that the young woman is finally beginning to see her husband as a strong and dominating force in their relationship. Another clue is the use of the word "Oh". The use of the word "Oh" is an important clue because it is used as an injector into the thoughts of the young wife. The word "Oh" is used as a clear indicator that the wife is beginning to get over the complete blindness she has for the relationship, and to start to visualize her life within the relationship. She recognizes that her reality will be "…beginning her life of duplicity, or resignation, and of a lowly, delicate diplomacy…" ().
As the story progresses, the author uses a series of animal metaphors in order to show the transition to terror that grips the wife. Starting with the non-threatening "…Blue curtains … instead of apricot-pink…" (8) as symbolic of male and female, then continuing with phrases such as "…As if I were lying on some animal" ();"Vile, apelike appearance" (); "…lowered its claws, became a pliant beast…" (); "…methodical pleasure of a strangler" (); "…ghastly thumb…" (). This series of increasing intensely terrifying descriptions show the changes that take place in the young wife's mind. It is as though the wife has secretly witnessed her husband transition from a man into a werewolf and back again into a man. By the end of the story, the wife knows that no matter how passive the husband may appear at that moment, the werewolf is just below the surface and barely out of sight. Her mission would be to do all possible to ensure that the werewolf stayed below the surface.
"The Hand" is a story, which symbolizes submission and domination. Colette takes a naïve wife, who was blinded by love, and turns her into a woman who now sees her husband as a "dominating king". In the beginning of this story, the young wife thought her marriage and life would be everything she every dreamed of, but it was not until the middle of the night and during breakfast the next morning, that she realized her life would be everything but a fairy tale. "…beginning her life of duplicity, or resignation, and of a lowly, delicate diplomacy, she leaned over and humbly kissed the monstrous hand" (). In the end, the young and naïve woman from the beginning of the story has become a submissive wife, completely aware of her husband's dominance.
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