Marge Piercy's Woman on the Edge of Time

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In Woman on the Edge of Time, Piercy uses language to create the idea of a climb toward knowledge and the discovery of an unknown truth that will save the present. With the help of Luciente, Connie will rise up from the dystopia, New York, to the utopia, Mattapoisett. Piercy continually alludes traveling north or ascending. “Mariana had been uprooted from a village near Namiquipa, Los Calcinados, and migrated with her family to Texas to work in the fields…When Connie was seven, they moved to Chicago…” (Piercy, 37). Ironically, this ascent toward knowledge and the future is not forward, nor is it linear. Rather, it is circular and backward. Piercy uses the names of her characters as well as the “common” language of Mattapoisett to examine the direction of the future.

Names are emphasized and are of great importance to the novel. Names like Luciente and Orion create a heavenly or cosmic tone of the novel. Luciente is Connie’s guide from the future. She is the light that leads Connie through her ascent to the future. “...

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