Masculinity And Femininity In The Hand By Colette

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The title “The Hand” by Colette is very straight forward and blunt. The story is about a young newlywed couple over the course of a night. Although the man was fast asleep through most of the story, the young wife stays awake and vividly aware of her husband’s unconscious movements. This story uses symbolism as a crucial necessity to demonstrate the exploration of masculinity and femininity from the young wife’s point of view. If the reader lacks the concept of symbolism, they only see a short story about a young women judging her husband’s hand. From my understanding of the story, the true focus is the wife’s comparison and discovery of masculinity and femininity. Colette personifies masculinity as the husband’s hand and femininity as different shades of pink mentioned repeatedly throughout the story. Colette begins her symbolism with several different shades of pink within …show more content…
The first trait she takes notice of is the size. She thinks to herself, “It's so big! It really is bigger than my whole head." This symbolizes the fact that men are both larger than women in body and mind. Once she takes note of the size she starts examining the hand closer, describing, “the powerful knuckles and the veins engorged by the pressure on the arm.”
Then, alarmingly, the hand startles awake and preforms a dance, as if unattached to the rest of the body. As a car screeches by, the hand moves and prepares to defend itself and show its strength against the opponent, ready to fight if necessary. During this act, the man remains in a solid state of slumber.
The girl’s horror ends as she decides to give herself to the beast and accept masculinity as part of her life. Colette describes this action as, “she concealed her fear, bravely subdued herself, and, beginning her life of duplicity, of resignation, and of a lowly, delicate diplomacy, she leaned over and humbly kissed the monstrous
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