The Heart Goes Last

The nascent apocalyptic environment that Stan and Charmaine navigate at the start of the novel establishes the text’s thematic interest in wealth inequality, in particular The Pitfalls of Capitalism. They end up living in their car despite the fact they “weren’t big spenders,” had decent, seemingly stable jobs, and were hardworking (22). They wear clothes they barely wash, eat food they scrounge from dumpsters, and spend most of their hours seeking employment in a job market that has long since vanished. At night, they live in constant fear of violence from people more desperate than they are as they struggle to sleep in the cramped space of their small car. All this reflects real-world anxieties about economic precarity, an increasing wealth gap, access to home ownership, and how poor, working-class, and middle-class people are powerless to do anything about it.

This is evident not only in the lack of options Stan and Charmaine have (there are no jobs for Stan to apply to and they cannot afford to travel west where most businesses moved), but also in the financial crash that changes their lives overnight. While the exact reasons for the crash appear unknown, it is some combination of “gigantic Ponzi schemes” and that “[s]omeone had lied, someone had cheated, someone had shorted the market, someone had inflated the currency” (23). From Stan’s and Charmaine’s perspective, it does not matter why—their entire lives have been upended because of decisions that other people made.

The idea of an intrinsically linked town and prison invokes the concept of the prison-industrial complex: a phrase used to describe how the ever-increasing expansion of the prison population is used to support sectors of the economy. This is achieved through the jobs created by building and maintaining the prison, but also by exploiting the inmates as a source of labor so cheap it would be illegal under any other circumstances. This system is propped up by a justice system in which innocent people charged with a crime plead guilty because it is both cheaper and safer since it leads to reduced sentences. In this way, with Consilience and Positron, Margaret Atwood takes these ideas to their extreme logical conclusion and depicts a prison-based society that is economically self-sufficient and completely detached from crime and guilt.

The introduction of Consilience and the Positron Project also brings with it questions about safety and The Illusion of Free Will. Initially, Stan and Charmaine are more than happy to sign up for the project despite having to spend every other month in the prison. It means exchanging their cramped Honda for a three-bedroom house, but most importantly, getting off the dangerous streets and knowing from where they will get their next meal. The fact that they get to “choose” to enter Consilience also sets The Heart Goes Last apart from many other dystopian stories such as George Orwell’s 1984 (1984), Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), and even Atwood’s other speculative fiction. While it superficially begs the question of how much freedom should people be willing to give up for security, the text is more concerned with how this decision intersects with the notion of free will. Having already foregrounded the degree to which Stan and Charmaine have been victims of structural forces much larger than they are, the “choice” to join the Positron Project is actually no choice at all, because the alternative is an inevitable death from violence, starvation, or succumbing to the elements.

The opening chapters spend a lot of time establishing the tensions that exist in Stan and Charmaine’s relationship, including The Tension Between Love and Passion. The stress of living precariously and the cramped quarters of their car exacerbate differences in their personalities. Rather than balancing out Stan’s realistic pessimism, Charmaine’s relentless positivity simply gets on his nerves. The disconnect is evident in their sex life as well, as Charmaine is simply not that interested and avoids doing things like reassuringly touching Stan’s hand because he might get the wrong idea. While some of these issues stem from their tough circumstances, the cracks run deeper than that, and the use of free indirect speech allows Atwood to explore this by jumping between the two characters’ inner thoughts and feelings.

When Veronica and Sandi suggest that Charmaine could start working with them, she instinctively rejects their offer. However, the idea of sex work excites her because it represents such a stark departure from the life she lives. This desire for a different life—and to be a different person—becomes a reality when she meets Max, who is so alluring to her precisely because he represents a blank slate. They use fake names and deliberately avoid talking about their lives, meaning Charmaine can create an entirely new version of herself that exists in her brief and infrequent moments with Max. As Jasmine, she feels liberated to do and say things she cannot with Stan. Ironically, when Stan discovers the existence of Jasmine, he becomes obsessed because she exudes an overt sexuality that he desires but does not get from Charmaine. What emerges from this is that their main reason for being unhappy and sexually dissatisfied has less to do with physical chemistry than that they both rigidly adhere to the prescribed roles they have ascribed to one another.