The Heart Goes Last

Midway through the novel, Jocelyn asks Stan: “do you believe in free will?” (268). Her concerns are related to developments in the Positron Project that she is morally and ethically uncomfortable with—namely, that they are using a neurosurgical procedure to effectively force people to fall uncontrollably (in the literal sense of the word) in love. This obvious breach of human rights, consent, and the right to self-determination tips the scales for Jocelyn and makes her willing to bring down a project she played a significant role in creating. While the procedure is the most obvious violation of individual free will, throughout the text Margaret Atwood explores other ways in which the notion of free will might be more illusory than people like to admit. These violations occur on both a macro level (e.g., the large, structural forces that determine the context in which individuals make decisions) and micro level (e.g., the chemical and hormonal factors that often feel out of an individual’s control).

The novel opens with Stan and Charmaine having lost everything and living out of their car. They played no role in the financial crash, nor did any decision they made lead them to this point. Regardless, they seemingly have no way out—jobs simply do not exist, and they cannot afford to travel across the country to where there are jobs. This leads to the first major “decision” they do make, which is to join the Positron Project. However, when starving and scared, the prospect of somewhere to live, a stable job, and three meals a day is hardly a decision at all: The (failed) economic structures around them and the material reality of needing to survive take precedent.

The Positron Project knows this and takes advantage of people’s desperation—they even force them all to spend one final night outside before joining to drive the point home. This all creates the illusion that joining the project is a choice, which leads to happier, more docile members. The lack of choice continues as the story progresses and Stan and Charmaine get caught up in machinations that are well beyond them. They become Jocelyn’s pawns in a plan that is much bigger than they are, and can do nothing about it because they are constantly under the threat of violence in the form of imprisonment or execution. This lack of choice and freedom is driven home by the various spaces they inhabit throughout: the small Honda, the sealed dome of Consilience, the jail cells, and the cramped crate Stan escapes Consilience in.

However, it is not just large structural forces that are in tension with the idea of free will. Charmaine’s affair with Max is framed as being completely out of her control. She acts impulsively in a way that she never has before. Even after she has been caught and knows that Max cannot be trusted, she still cannot help getting “swept away on a tidal wave of treacherous hormones” and fantasizing about him (424). She blames chemistry for never feeling this way about Stan, and admits “[s]he’s never felt she had a lot of choice with love” (564).

Stan behaves in a similar way once he meets Veronica. Despite knowing that she will never be attracted to him, he fantasizes about having sex with her. He chides himself for thinking like a “prehuman sex-crazed baboon” but then rationalizes it and questions whether he should be responsible for his hormones (503). While placing blame on their hormones can be read as an attempt to avoid taking responsibility for their adulterous actions, the question of how much control individuals have over who they are attracted to and how that intersects with the idea of love remains.