The Heart Goes Last Essay Questions

What role does the concept of greed play in The Heart Goes Last?

Greed plays a significant role in The Heart Goes Last as one of the novel's major themes. When Charmaine and Stan discover the Consilience/Positron project, they are sold the idea that it can address the problems of crime and unemployment by establishing a balanced and interdependent relationship between prison labor and middle-class economic stability. However, it soon becomes clear that Ed is consumed by the relentless pursuit of profit. Driven to madness by his insatiable greed, Ed ventures into morally reprehensible territories, involving the sale of body parts from euthanized prisoners and the abduction of women for the purpose of sexual slavery. In response to Ed's avarice, his cofounder, Jocelyn, orchestrates his downfall and assumes control over the project. However, it becomes apparent that Jocelyn herself is not immune to greed: Instead of dismantling the exploitative venture, she restructures the business, discontinuing the most objectionable sources of revenue while continuing to profit from the exploitation of anyone desperate enough to sign away their life.

In what ways is the novel a comment on the American prison-industrial complex?

In The Heart Goes Last, Margaret Atwood presents a hyperbolic dystopian vision of what might happen if the American prison-industrial complex were taken to its logical conclusion. The term refers to the intricate network of vested interests and profit-driven relationships among governmental entities, private prison corporations, and various industries that profit from incarceration. Atwood paints an exaggerated portrayal of this complex with the Consilience/Positron project, a walled community where residents spend half of their time engaged in prison labor and the other half working different jobs while enjoying comfortable homes. However, unbeknownst to the participants, the entire community functions as a prison-like environment, with their labor generating profits that they themselves never receive. Due to the impossibility of leaving Consilience and the threat of death for non-compliance, the participants find themselves effectively enslaved by the corporation for the duration of their lives. Through this dystopian premise, Atwood sheds light on the real-world issue of the prison-industrial complex, which perpetuates high incarceration rates and exploits labor in a manner described by some critics as modern-day slavery.

What is the significance of the blue teddy bears featured throughout The Heart Goes Last?

The blue teddy bears that Atwood references throughout the novel are significant because they symbolize corrupted innocence. The blue bears enter the story when Charmaine knits them with the belief that they will be given to children in the Consilience/Positron project. However, Stan discovers a disturbing truth after escaping from Positron and awakening in a shipping container filled with these bears—they are being sold in the same box as "kiddybots," child robots popular with pedophiles. Atwood underscores the symbolic importance of the blue bears when Veronica unintentionally forms an emotional attachment to one of them. While this connection grants the former sex worker a semblance of innocence as she becomes enamored with the bear, Stan overhears Veronica engaging in a sexual act with the knitted toy. In this way, the would-be innocent infatuation proves more perverse than Stan had imagined.

Why does Atwood set the end of the book in Las Vegas?

Atwood makes The Heart Goes Last end in Las Vegas because of the city's symbolic significance as the heart of American greed, decadence, vulgarity, and perversion. Although the narrative begins in the economically devastated Rust Belt region, it eventually shifts to a city that thrives on its ability to transform every vice into a lucrative enterprise. Atwood accentuates the perverse nature of Las Vegas by locating within its bounds the Ruby Slippers branch where abductees undergo brain adjustment surgery to become sexual slaves for affluent clients. Through her depiction, Atwood creates a fictionalized version of Las Vegas that exaggerates and amplifies the actual city's reputation as a place to go for wealthy Americans who want to transgress social norms and taboos in a judgment-free space.

What does Consilience/Positron symbolize?

In The Heart Goes Last, the Consilience/Positron project serves as a symbol of economic exploitation. At the outset of the novel, Atwood establishes that the project is founded on the principle of using prison labor to sustain the American economy; by imprisoning individuals and compelling them to manufacture goods, unscrupulous profiteers can maximize their profit margins by effectively enslaving their workforce. The purported aim of the Positron Prison project is to introduce fairness into this system, offering individuals the opportunity to spend half their time as prison laborers and other half enjoying a middle-class lifestyle. However, the vulnerable participants of this experiment surrender their freedom to the project, remaining imprisoned even when residing in Consilience. While they believe they are being granted the chance to lead a pleasant life through honest labor, these impoverished individuals fall victim to economic exploitation: the value they generate all goes to the profit-driven Positron and its investors. Trapped within the project without any means of escape, the workers are coerced into laboring however their owner/employers see fit.