Vox by Christina Dalcher
Vox is a Handmaid's Tale-esque story that emphasizes the power of language and the relevance of politics.
This article is not a review (click here to see why). It contains spoilers.
Context
Dr. Jean McClellan is an expert in neurolinguistics who, like all women in her society, is only allowed to speak one hundred words a day and is not allowed to read except the heavily edited “women’s Bible” that she doesn’t believe a word of. It wasn’t always this way. She grew up, studied, and embarked on groundbreaking research in a United States much like ours.
But then the “Pure” conservative Christians took over and imposed “traditional gender roles” on the entire country—along with a heavy dose of oppression for everyone. In this new world, women only work outside the home if they are in one of the many labor camps. Heavy-handed censors allow precious little entertainment. Children are indoctrinated in school, with girls being taught only basic arithmetic, Christian theology, and home skills such as sewing and cooking. The most important public figure is a priest. Nobody is allowed to leave. And most strikingly, all women and girls are fitted with metal cuffs that give them electric shocks if they say more than one hundred words per day.
So Jean, like many other women who had previously worked outside their homes, has been staying at home for the past year with not quite enough to do caring for her four school-aged children. A life-changing opportunity arrives when she is asked to rejoin her old team to create a cure for the president’s brother, who has suffered an accident causing him cognitive damage in the area of the brain she specialized in. She has a choice: help the regime she despises in exchange for a short period of being able to speak freely and engage in her life’s work, or refuse and continue to waste away in a life of baking from memory (cookbooks aren’t allowed) and picking her kids up from school.
Main Ideas
“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn't mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”
Oppressive regimes are aggressive regimes.
Language is powerful.
“Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you”
Woven throughout the story are Jean’s memories of the time before, especially her time in college. Her roommate was Jackie Juarez, an outspoken feminist who went from attending marches and passing out pamphlets to appearing on national TV to argue her case. Jackie was alarmed by the shrinking percentage of women in national politics, by the efforts to limit abortion access, and by the growing influence of Reverend Carl, leader of the Pure. She tried to get Jean to join her in her myriad efforts to sway public opinion, but was rarely successful. Jean was too focused on her studies and, later, her boyfriend (who became her husband). “Think about what you need to do to stay free,” Jackie warned Jean the last time they spoke (16). “Well, doing more than fuck all might have been a good place to start,” reflects Jean bitterly, years later (20).
The ancient Athenian politician Pericles is often misquoted as having said, “Just because you do not take an interest in politics doesn’t mean politics won’t take an interest in you.”1 The political arena can be nasty, petty, and unprincipled, and many people understandably would rather focus on building their own lives and relationships. But a government, fundamentally, is the only agency in a country legally allowed to initiate the use of force, and it can only act by using force. Laws aren’t like strategies that corporations develop—plans to guide the voluntary, collaborative work of a large group of people. Rather, they’re rules that will be enforced, if necessary, at the point of a gun. This is exactly what happened in Vox—when the new Pure president took office, he put new laws into effect, and those who resisted were beaten, tased, or put in forced labor camps. And this is the way authoritarian regimes the world over, from the Nazis to the Chinese Communist Party, have worked: build up cultural support, then use force to get the rest of the population to submit.
Naturally, we have to balance the other priorities in our life with politics. If you don’t work in politics, there are many things in your life that may be more important than politics. Those who live their whole lives in the political arena tend to see even the slightest change as an omen of impending doom, as Jackie does in Vox. But if you pay no attention to politics, you might miss the canary in the coal mine, and not do anything when your liberty is in real danger, as Jean does. With this lesson in mind, there’s good reason for us, to some extent at least, to remember to “watch the watchers.”2
Oppressive regimes are aggressive regimes
Another lesson from real life that’s echoed in the novel is the foreign policy of tyrants. Jean soon realizes that her work isn’t as innocent as curing a powerful man from a dreadful accident; it will be developed into a weapon that would give the American government more power than nuclear bombs ever did. Why develop such an awful thing? Those who seek power domestically—whether out of a fanatical belief that their ideas are right and everyone who doesn’t accept them is evil, and/or out of a demented lust for control over others—eventually also seek power over more subjects. Jean reflects that the president is “a very visible man, one who enjoys being on television and who has tasted the power that comes with millions of blind followers but still wants more” (306). The same is true of such warmongers as Adolf Hitler, Vladimir Putin, and Xi Xinping.
Wars can be more complicated than one country attempting to seize territory it has no right to, but in the case of many tyrants, it isn’t. Whatever their stated justification—“Lebensraum” or “global communism” or “reunifying the motherland”—the actual cause is the same: the demented conviction that one person or group has the right to bend others to his/their will by force.3 It shouldn’t be surprising, therefore, that after establishing a domestic tyranny, the next step for many authoritarian regimes is to try to expand their domain, and this is exactly what the Pure do in Vox.
Language is powerful
Christina Dalcher is a linguist, which explains the centrality of language to the plot. And it shows the power of language from an unusual angle. 1984 and other dystopias (from Anthem to The Giver) include clear illustrations of language being manipulated to influence people’s thoughts. But language being severely limited is a less common idea and an effective one. It’s emphasized, for example, when Jean’s young daughter is rewarded for being silent all day. How can an oppressed minority organize, learn, persuade others of their ideas, or advocate for their own needs if they can barely talk and can’t read or write? (Sign language can help a little, but not much, because the government installed security cameras in public places and in homes to guard against its use.) How can a young person develop her mind if she’s incentivized to not speak?
It’s this last question that’s truly scary, because of the vital function language plays in complex thinking. Words are labels for concepts, which are mental units that condense all the information we know about some category of thing (whether more concrete, such as “cat,” or more abstract, such as “career”) into one useable idea. Without such condensation (and labels to use them), our thinking is stunted, necessarily limited to the objects and people we can directly observe. How would you think about justice, or love, or neurons, or atoms, if you couldn’t use words? Complex thinking requires language, as does communication, which enables not only collaboration but also connection. By severely limiting the use of language, Dalcher shows how half the population could be brought to its knees.
Comparison to The Handmaid’s Tale
Vox is in some ways strikingly similar to the classic dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale; my copy features a reviewer calling it “a petrifying reimagining of The Handmaid’s Tale” on the cover. Dalcher’s author’s note does not indicate this was intentional, though her love of dystopian literature strongly suggests she’s read it, and one scene in the novel may even be a nod to it (in the scene, Jackie brings home a novel and tells Jean to read it, and that “everyone’s talking about it.” Jean reads the back cover and objects, “This would never happen. Ever. Women wouldn’t put up with it;” 119). The similarities run deep: the subjugation of women by a fanatical religious organization that had cultural currency before taking over by force, the strict control over sex and clothing, the shadowy rebellion, the prohibition against reading, the outspoken best friend from college who’s broken down by the regime, the public trials to intimidate the populace into obedience, the government-sponsored whorehouse for the powerful, the desperate concern the protagonist has for her daughter.
But there are also many differences, most importantly in the plot. The last third of Vox is a thriller with the protagonist helping develop and carry out a rebellion insurgency, whereas The Handmaid’s Tale only hints at such a powerful rebellion. The writing styles are also notably different; Dalcher’s down-to-earth style makes her character feel like Jean might live next door, whereas Atwood’s disjointed, drifting style shows the mental deterioration of her protagonist. Finally, Vox focuses on the power and importance of language to an individual and a culture, whereas The Handmaid’s Tale focuses on how vital self-esteem is for living.
Conclusion
Vox shows the importance of language to thought, relationships, and society, along with the importance of safeguarding one’s liberty by paying attention to politics through a fast-paced story with a relatable protagonist.
According to Thucydides’s transcript of the oration this comes from, which was a funerary speech given to honor those who died in the Peloponnesian War, the actual quote is “Him that does not meddle in state affairs—not indolent, but good for nothing.” Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, translated by William Smith, (London: Jones & Co, 1831) 66.
This phrase originated in a satirical poem by Juvenal (“Satire VI,| lines 347–348), though there it refers to marital infidelity. More commonly today, it is used to refer to the need to keep an eye on those in positions of power. Despite it often being attributed to Plato, the line does not appear in The Republic, though it has been used to summarize Plato’s concerns about the guardians of the city, who would wield great power (in Plato’s ideal city-state) and therefore needed to be carefully educated. The line is quoted by 19th-century British philosopher John Stuart Mill in his Considerations on Representative Government. It is also the title of a Star Trek: The Next Generation episode, which deals with the consequences of the crew violating the Prime Directive (not to interact with civilizations that have not yet developed space-faring technology). See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quis_custodiet_ipsos_custodes%3F; https://www.gutenberg.org/files/5669/5669-h/5669-h.htm.
Hitler and the Nazis claimed the German Volk needed more space (“Lebensraum” literally translates to “living room”); communist ideology claims that their movement should be an international one, because economic classes transcend national borders; Putin claims Russia and Ukraine are historically and ethnically the same nation; see Vladimir Putin, “On the Historical Unity of Russians and Ukrainians,” 2022, https://www.legal-tools.org/doc/tt382m/.