Why is the setting of The Hand Colette significant?

Answer 1

First comes love, then comes marriage, then comes…? What interested me about Colette's story is the symbolism of a husband's hand. Used in this way, it disguises the literal interpretation of marriage, possibly becoming a mockery. Colette allows for the broader interpretation of marriage. She brings meaning beyond a conventional description of marriage, but not as a necessary institution. In the course of being together, does love justify a marriage? Colette answers this in a great way by making the husband's hand more of a symbolic instrument. Her story could be describing power and dominance, becoming Colette's central theme to the meaning of the story.

'The Hand' describes a newlywed couple, mostly exploring what a very young woman is feeling as she becomes aware of her new marriage. She lies beside her husband, in cozy but strangely different surroundings than in what she grew up. While he sleeps, she draws in her mind the details that are shaping and outlining their estranged marriage. There were details, missed or ignored; but now reveal the real man she married and whom she knows little of. Her fears pronounce awareness about her husband's hand: strong and in a disconnect way; it belongs to a man who exercises authority, possibly unjustly and oppressively. Colette's subtle use of the hand is beyond anatomical: it is the terminal part of the human arm used for holding and grasping, an instrument used for the good of humanity but also used to act out harshly and cruelly.

Could Colette be disguising an accurate interpretation of love and marriage between two people: intending to live together more for sexuality, forsaking principles of domestic partnership? First, comes love, then comes marriage, and then comes… a mockery? 'The Hand' will show you the way.