Elements of Fiction in “The Hand”

            The Hand, written by Sidonie-Gabrielle Colette, is a short story about the situation and perspective of a young wife in a two week long marriage. This piece starts off with the couple lying in bed, the husband is sound asleep and the wife is awake and thinking. Throughout the story we live through a series of thoughts and worries with the young wife as she watches her husband. All worries stem from after admiring her peaceful, perfect, new husband dream, she watches his hand go through motions that startle her and draw her thoughts to darker places. Her husband’s dreams cause his hand to do almost monstrous, terrifying movements and the wife is suddenly afraid of the drastic change her life has gone through and the man that she is just now realizing she will have to submit to for the rest of her life. Colette uses elements of fiction to create and refine her story. Character, setting, point of view, symbolism and theme are all used to give the audience a way to identify with the wife and to empathize with her fluctuating emotions.

Character is a person presented in a dramatic or narrative work, and characterization is the process by which a writer makes that character seem real to the reader (1622). Colette builds up the character of the new wife by taking us through the thoughts of someone who is experiencing quick changes due to an almost spontaneous conjugal arrangement. In the beginning of the story, the wife is too happy to sleep and is proud to bear the weight of her husband’s sleeping head on her shoulder (240). The wife is portrayed as someone who is wrapped up in the novelty of the new marriage and who, with an obvious degree of naivety and curiosity, doesn’t really realize quite yet what she has gotten into. The audience reads that she tightens her left arm around her husband’s neck with the charming authority exercised by weak creatures (241). Shortly after this scene, does his hand come to life. Another example of characterization in this story is portrayed in the actions of the dreamer’s hand. The hand, disturbed by a bad dream, appears to respond to a startling discovery and slowly draws itself in, grabbing a fistful of the sheet, digging into it with its curved fingers, and squeezing with the methodical pleasure of a strangler (241, 242). Here we see that the actions of the hand give it life and personality, and a reason to startle the wife.