Stylistic Elements in When She Woke

There are a lot of interesting and unique aspects to When She Woke and style is definitely one of them. When She Woke is told in third person limited omniscient point of view. This means that we can only see a single character’s thoughts. This single character is the one that the reader really gets to understand, and in When She Woke, this character is Hannah. As a result of knowing Hannah’s thoughts, we can form a deeper connection with her and are able to understand why she does what she does. We are able to learn about her past and how it has impacted her. One of the most important of these moments is when she first meets Reverend Dale and we learn how “his voice was so sonorous and compelling”(16) and “traveled through her like a hot liquid, warming and calming her fear”(16-17). She also thinks “he looked younger than she expected”(17). Without having this insight into Hannah’s mind we would have been able to see what she was thinking about Aidan or understood her attraction to him. Having the story told this way allows us to gain knowledge about Hannah that we will need later in the novel.

Another important stylistic piece of When She Woke is that it is a more modern take on The Scarlet Letter by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Hillary Jordan, the author of When She Woke, explains that she used the Scarlet Letter as a model for her own story. As a result, there are many different parallels, connections, and allusions between the two novels. If you have already read The Scarlet Letter then these connections are very clear and help to show the meaning and importance of different parts of the novel. These similarities also help with characterization since the ties between the main characters are so strong. In The Scarlet Letter a girl named Hester Prynne commits adultery with a minister named Arthur Dimmesdale and becomes pregnant. In When She Woke, Hannah Payne also forms a secret relationship with a minister and becomes pregnant with a child. In both cases these women are caught for their crimes but do not give away the name of the father of their child. As a result, they both have to face a longer punishment period. In Hannah’s case, she has to stand strong while the judge asks if she knows that she is “‘adding six years to your sentence’”(11)? The silence of these women shows how they are both very brave and care about protecting their loved ones. Another similarity is that Hester and Hannah both name their children Pearl. Hannah does have an abortion, but is later forced to create a doll to represent her child while she is at the Straight Path Center. They want her to do this so that she can ask for its forgiveness. During this exercise she ends up stating, “‘this is my daughter, Pearl’”(131). Lastly, a similarity between Arthur and Aidan is that they both only end up confessing to their crimes during one of their sermons near the end of the book. This shows that both of them are a bit cowardly, but manage to admit to their behavior. Another quick similarity between the two books is something that you may have already noticed just from reading the beginning of my post. This is that the names Hillary Jordan chose for her characters in When She Woke, have the same initials as the original characters in The Scarlet Letter. The initials HP fit with Hannah Payne and Hester Prynne, and both Aidan Dale and Arthur Dimmesdale have the initials AD.

The organization to When She Woke is another piece of the book that is interesting. The story is split into five different parts, and the titles of each of these parts connect to The Scarlet Letter. Part one is titled “The Scaffold,” part two is called “Penitence,” part three is called “The Magic Circle,” part four is titled “The Wilderness,” and part five is called “Transfiguration.” In The Scarlet Letter a scaffold (a raised wooden platform used for the public execution of criminals) is a big part of the story. Hester and her daughter Pearl stand alone on the scaffold and are publicly humiliated for her crime. Hester has to deal with the burden of her punishments all by herself. This is a fitting title for the first section of When She Woke because this is when Hannah is convicted of her crimes. She has to stand in front of a judge and council and face her punishment alone. Aidan “hadn’t come to the trial, but he’d appeared via vidlink at her sentencing hearing”(10). Neither Aidan nor Arthur stood admitted their sins and joined their lovers in the punishment. The “Penitence” section of When She Woke is focused on Hannah’s time at the Straight Path Center. This is where Hannah was supposed to admit her sins and find her way back to God, but Hannah never ends up finishing her time there. The people who run the center are very cruel and strict to the women, and because of this Hannah leaves. The one thing that she does before she goes is stands up for her beliefs. She asks the workers, “‘do you honestly think God would approve of what you just did’”(142)? In The Scarlet Letter Hester also never really repents and ends up living a fine life. The section titled “The Magic Circle” is a reference to the magic circle that Hawthorne describes surrounding Hester and Pearl throughout The Scarlet Letter. This circle could represent a number of things, but one is the crime and shame that they are trapped with. In this section of When She Woke Hannah is finally on her own. She is facing the world all by herself and comes across a variety of situations where she is treated poorly because of her red skin. She is called a bitch, two boys catcall her, and she is told by a storeowner to “move along, before I call the cops”(151). The fourth section of the novel, “The Wilderness,” has a very fitting title. In The Scarlet Letter the wilderness was a place where society's rules did not apply. It was a place of honesty and escape for Hester and Arthur. They could meet in the woods without fear. This section of the novel in When She Woke was all about escaping societies rules and finding a place where they do not apply. Hannah joins the resistance and begins to travel to Canada where she can be free from the society’s laws. The last section of When She Woke, titled “The Transfiguration,” shows Hannah meeting Aidan one last time and then successfully driving up to Canada where she is safe. In this section we see that Hannah no longer needs Aidan Dale. She has been strengthened by the many trials that she has been put through, and is a strong self-sufficient woman. When she wakes up in her new safe house “she was herself”(341). This is what happens to Hester in The Scarlet Letter as well. Hester has gone through a lot of suffering, but has made her way through it and came out on the other side as a better person and her true self. Finally, these women have a satisfying life.

Another unique part of the organization in When She Woke is that all of the chapters within the five sections of the novel have no name or number. The chapter stops on one page, and then a new chapter begins on the next page, but there is no chapter name or number to distract you. This allows for a nice continuous flow of the story, while also making sure that there are some breaks. This way the story is very connected while also providing you with good stopping points. The book also goes in chronological order so it is very easy to follow. The only exception to this is in the first section of the novel, which is told in multiple flashbacks. Each chapter in this section begins in the present and shifts into one of Hannah’s flashbacks. These flashbacks tell the story of what led up to Hannah being in prison. They describe what she was like when she was younger, her relationship with Aidan, and really just help us understand Hannah and her situation a lot better. We learn about how Hannah always “yearned for something indefinably more”(14) and how “the more she suppressed her true nature, the stronger it burst forth”(14). These flashbacks give us the foundation that we need to understand the rest of the story.

Colors are also a very important stylistic piece in When She Woke. Colors are used throughout the novel to signify different crimes that people have committed, but they have some other meanings as well. Red is used to symbolize passion and intense emotion. Hannah is one of the most expressive and feeling characters in the novel and her being red exemplifies these characteristics. Another point in the novel where red can be seen as a color of extreme emotion is when Cole is forcing Hannah to leave his and Becca’s house. Hannah confronts him about hitting Becca, and his face is described as “turning a dark, ugly red”(159). Cole is furious at Hannah his red face portrays the emotions boiling within him. White is also another color used as a symbol in the novel. White represents a blank slate and things unknown. This can be seen when Hannah is driving to her new unknown life in Canada. It begins to snow and she is described as driving “into whiteness: cold, stark, alien, beautiful”(336). Hillary Jordan also uses a variety of other literary techniques to create images and help the reader better understand how characters are feeling. One example of this is when Hannah and her father see each other for the first time since she has become a Chrome. Hannah’s approaches him “... carefully, like a bird she was afraid of startling into flight”(70). This simile describes the delicate situation between them and how scared Hannah is that her father will abandon her when he sees her.

I really enjoyed focusing on the stylistic part of the novel because it is something that I usually do not look at. I had fun finding all of the connections between When She Woke and The Scarlet Letter, and I realized that there are I lot more interesting elements in the novel than I noticed the first time. Clearly, When She Woke is chock-full of stylistic elements that help make the story more vivid and meaningful.