Final thoughts on Woman On The Edge Of Tme

 

     Woman on the Edge of Time is a futuristic novel of fiction written by Marge Piercy, which tells the story of Connie Ramos, a Chicano woman in her mid-thirties with an unfortunate past, struggles between regaining her life as she knew it, and resisting a brain control operation. The brain control operation will allow doctors “to electrically trigger almost every mood and emotion-the fight-or-flight reaction, euphoria, calm, pleasure, pain, and terror” (Piercy). Her resistance finally works, but I think Connie should have had the surgery to prevent her past tragedies from dominating her existence, and unforeseen tragedies from happening.
     Just having being released from a commitment at Bellevue Hospital under the condition of weekly aftercare visits, Connie is ready to conquer New York City. Drug and alcohol abuse, after several tragic events is the reason Connie landed in Bellevue. One of the events was Connie’s blind African-American boyfriend being killed by the police, and another event would see Connie charged with child abuse, which would result in the loss of her daughter Angelina, to adoption.
     The novel begins with Connie’s world being encroached by her niece Dolly and her boyfriend Geraldo, who also doubles as Dolly’s pimp. Connie hates Geraldo, who is abusive to both Connie and Dolly, who constantly defends his actions. Mental issues are definitely present with Connie seemingly unable to release the pain that lingers from her daughter’s adoption, and boyfriend’s murder. She becomes more delusional, when looking at girls; she begins to wonder if her daughter Angelina resembles any of them, and also thinks about the past, with Angelina’s father, Eddie. More evidence is when Connie says “In a way I’ve always had three names inside me. Consuelo, my given name. Consuelo’s a Mexican woman, a servant of servants, silent as clay. The woman who suffers. Who bears and endures. Then I’m Connie, who managed to get two years of college-till Consuelo got pregnant. Connie got decent jobs from time to time and fought welfare for a little extra money for Angie. She got me on a bus when I had to leave Chicago. But it was her who married Eddie, she thought it was smart. Then I’m Conchita, the low-down drunken mean part of me who gets by in jail, in the bughouse, who loves no good men, who hurt my daughter” (Piercy). These multiple names and personalities have left Connie with a past that have imprisoned her.  Connie also starts to communicate mentally with an ambiguous being from the year 2137, which refers to himself as Luciente, who Connie would later discover has breasts and is indeed female. In Luciente’s community gender does not matter, and each child has a total of three mothers, and is raised collectively by the community. The evidence continues to grow.
     After attacking her niece and her niece’s boyfriend/pimp, Connie finds herself back in Bellevue, thanks to Geraldo. Connie would abuse another patient, and then escape where she would spend several nights in the woods before being captured and returned to the institution. Upon her return, Connie starts to play the system by not taking her medication and telling counselors that her condition is improving. Doctors have slated Connie for an operation that will implant electrodes into her brain; these electrodes will control her emotions. Connie, frightened, knew that there was no way she would let them operate on her. The doctors had a signed permission slip from her brother giving them the go ahead with the surgery, Connie had other plans. In an action as surprising as Jirel’s fatal kiss in the Black God’s Kiss, by C.L. Moore, in which Guillaume, the unruly conqueror once stated to Jirel “I’ll wager your mouth is sweeter than your words” before she set out to hell and back to find a terrible weapon to be used against him. Guillaume could not have been more wrong and the wager would have certainly been lost, as her mouth proved to be fatal, with a long anticipated final kiss.  Connie slips poison in the coffee pot to kill the doctors, thus find a way out of the operation. In Connie’s mind this is all apart of a continuing war, and with this act she had finally won. Jirel, like Connie was consciously aware of her fatal actions, but was unable to fully understand the severity, until it was too late.
     With the poisonings, Connie’s tragic resume will continue to expand, as will her mental issues. If she would have had the surgery, she would have had a chance!




                                                  References
Moore, C.L. The black god’s kiss. Retrieved October 8, 2011 from CUNY text.
Piercy, M. 1976. Woman on the edge of time. Retrieved October 8, 2011 from
     CUNY text. Ballantine Books