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Chapter 8
Themes
Key
LitCharts assigns a color and icon to each theme in Vox, which you can use to track the themes throughout the work.
Action, Complacency, and Resistance
Language, Communication, and Power
Children, Indoctrination, and Acclimatization
Control, Religion, and Gender Essentialism
Choice and Personal Fulfillment
Summary
Analysis
Jean is watching TV. The president is giving a speech, but Jean is more interested in watching the president’s wife, Anna Myers, who stands behind him. She’s gorgeous and modeled swimsuits and lingerie before she married the president. Now she never smiles and wears long dresses and headscarves. She’s severely depressed: Patrick has told Jean about how Anna lives in a “prison,” where three Secret Service men watch her at all times and constantly check her rooms for anything she might use to try to kill herself. Jean switches the channel to golf and then, Olivia King knocks on the door, asking with gestures for a cup of sugar. Jean lets her in, annoyed at how Olivia looks disapprovingly at Jean’s robe and the dirty dishes—but Olivia then smiles at Jean’s counter.
While Jean is filled with anger and resentment due to her oppression, Anna Myers presents another potential result of restricting women’s autonomy: suicidal ideation as a response to one’s powerlessness. This further challenges the government’s assertion that all women would be better off if they were to adhere to the same, traditional lifestyle. In fact, women are individuals with different values, interests, and priorities—it doesn’t work to force all women to adhere to one lifestyle or set of values. It’s impossible to tell if Olivia is smiling at the counter because she’s somewhat supportive of Jean’s outburst, or because she’s happy that Jean can’t speak more today.
Themes
Olivia’s smile causes Jean to remember how, two years ago, Olivia came over to ask for some sugar and sat down to watch the talk show Jean had on. Jackie was on, wearing a red pantsuit and arguing with two women in pastels about whether women should really have to obey their husbands. The women came prepared with statistics, claiming they proved that things are way worse now than they were decades ago. Jackie wasn’t able to successfully argue that their statistics were skewed. Olivia found the pastel women’s argument compelling and concerning.
