In Woman on the edge of Time, by Marge Piercy, a middle aged Chicana woman from New York finds out that she a can communicate with the future. She finds herself able to be in more than one time. She is, as far as we know, the first to be able to do this. There were others, but they all closed themselves off, thinking themselves insane when the voices from the future began to speak. Connies connection was probably simpler because of the similarities between the world in which she lived now (in the mental hospital) and the world of the future.
The societal systems of the two worlds are very similar. If you exclude the doctors of the mental hospital, all are equal. Each ward can be a different village, with different cultures and governmental systems. Connie moves from ward to ward in her time as she moves from town to town in Lucientes time. In each ward (as in each village) she learns something new. In the first, she gives up and accepts. In the second she survives and struggles to keep her sanity. In the third she learns the necessity of the fight. Each ward has something new to experience.
In each village, she learns a new idea/concept/truth about the way her world (outside the hospital) really is instead of how she sees it. In the mental ward, there is no economic system. Sure, money exists, but it doesnt come from inside the ward. It is an alien thing; a luxury as are all of the others. The wards that Connie lives in are all filled with their own luxuries. In one, you find card tables and cards, puzzles and chairs. In another ward there are separate rooms and bathrooms with doors, all of which are shared by the general public (the patients).
There is no special treatment. Who ever wants to use the cards or the puzzles can. Almost like the dresses/costumes that are rented from the library in Mattapoisett time. There, we use bicycles as we find them. Any bike not in use, I can use. (p 364). If the cards arent being used buy someone else, you have every right to use them. People are just as free. Relationships in the future are a bit more open than those that Connie has had. Friendship is the important basis of all relationships of the future, whereas in Connies outside world, all of hers are bred of necessity or convenience.
In the ward, however, Connie describes relationships that are similar to those of the future. Sometimes, they are “serious” relationships. But when they all boil down to their basic parts, all are friends and all work to keep themselves alive, much like the villages do for their members. If there is any strife, all of the members of the village/ward feel the tension and work together, each in their own way, to ease it. The ward is so full of the equality of its members, that race and gender seem not to matter in the least.
Alice Bluebottom is a black woman, but we dont find that out until near the end of the novel. There is no enmity between any of the members of the ward, be they white, black, chicano, indian, whatever. In Lucientes time, racism is erased. There is no distinction between the races. Connie also has a hard time differentiating between male and female in the future. There is so small a gender gap that pronouns have disappeared. People use the words per, person and perself rather than he or she, himself or herself. Connies ward and time only use the words he, she, himself, herself, etc. cause this is their vocabulary.
Connie is one of the only people who has managed to communicate, much less move, between the worlds freely. Is this because she is stronger than most catchers? Is this because she, being in a mental hospital, has more time to practice? Her experience in life and the life that she lives are nearly parallel to those of the future. I think that she is so good at what she does because for her it is like a fish being put in an aquarium. It doesnt notice that it is in different water. To the fish, it never changed.
