Women Talking

Like dreams, stories and storytelling are recurring motifs in the novel. Many of the women’s experiences and explanations come in the form of stories. Ona tells August a story of a squirrel and a rabbit when he asks why the women want someone to record their meetings, and August recounts the same story at the end of the novel when he finally understands its meaning—that August’s purpose in taking the minutes was simply for him to take them and thus remain alive. Agata tells a story of a rottweiler owned by Dueck, a cruel member of the colony, and a mother raccoon. After the man uses the dog to kill some of the raccoon’s babies, the raccoon kills the dog and leaves the dead carcass for its sadistic owner to find. On the day the women leave, August describes the rising sun as a central character in their story, as it adds to the urgency of their departure. Finally, August dreams of telling his students stories of Ona, using her memory as a beacon of hope and an extinguisher of cruelty. These stories serve as cautionary tales, symbolic messages, and memories that carry weight and instruction. They also allow the women to communicate, a language only decipherable by the other women that allows them to survive and subvert the men’s control.

Animals are prominent symbols in the novel, from Greta’s team of horses (a symbol of independence and agency) to the horse August steals (a brief commandeering of power). Animals also recur in stories and dreams—e.g., Ona’s squirrel and rabbit, as well as a giant pig that pins her to a wall. More broadly, the women use animals to describe how they are treated in the colony, sometimes quite literally: The women’s attackers use an animal anesthetic on their victims, and Salome suspects the medicine she procures for her three-year-old daughter to be intended for animals. In response to such treatment, the women proclaim more than once that they are not the animals the men treat them as, and they turn the dehumanization back on the men as they contemplate what course of action to pursue. Greta notes that since the women have been preyed upon like animals, they might as well respond like animals, while Agata points out that at times typically passive animals will turn and fight.

By giving the women the means first to name their ill treatment and then to claim their autonomy, the animal motif illustrates The Violent and Repressive Nature of Patriarchy and the women’s journey beyond it to empowerment. Rising from the status of nonhuman animals, they become the architects of a future where they and their daughters will be treated as full human beings.