The Missing Arm

Ever since we mentioned the importance of Dana’s missing arm in class, I could not help thinking about it. I think it is interesting that this knowledge was not prevalent throughout my reading of the novel. The prologue definitely set the tone of the entire novel, with how eerily calm it was and how straightforward yet mysterious the circumstances were. The fact that she lost her arm should not have been a minor detail, but in my reading it was. I was still in suspense the entire time and I did not think about the time travel paradox. I believed Dana could die at any moment and that her point was to ensure the birth of Hagar. My question is why was the knowledge that she would be safe, or at least relatively so, in the end slip my mind while reading?

We talked about how many things were going on in the novel in class and how many different themes there could be. We touched on a few when we first started reading the book: race, gender, slavery, time travel, intelligence; the list can go on. With all of these working simultaneously it was easy to forget that she would be alive at the end of the novel. The themes and the danger we felt as we read kept us in suspense and allowed the ending to be effective and have us go “Oh yeah, I should have seen this coming” as so many of the books we have read this semester have been like. We knew what would vaguely happen in the end, but for the sake of the story we forgot it and read on not remembering previous knowledge.

The tone also helped me forget about the arm. The prologue was calm and composed. It made it seem like losing an arm was not a big deal, and in the grand scheme of things there could have been much worse things happen to her. Yes, she lost part of herself to history, but she came back with her life and most of her scars would heal. She also had an unique view on history having lived through part of it. We saw this novel through Dana’s eyes which made us feel calm when she did and feel danger and panic when she was threatened. She was our link to the novel and subsequently to the past.