16 pages • 32 minutes read
Mary RuefleThe Hand
Fiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1996A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Themes
Seasonal Change & Spring
Ruefle uses a theme of seasonal change in “The Hand” to signify a coming change for the student observing it. As the robin, a signal of spring and a symbol of rebirth or change, sits on an overhanging branch and ruffles its feathers as the student watches, the student absorbs its message that something new on the horizon. In the closing line, we learn what that message is: “spring is in the air” (Line 18).
Many cultures celebrate spring as freedom from the oppression and bleakness of winter, and cultural and religious holidays like Passover, Holi, Nowruz, and Easter confirm the perseverance of renewal and rebirth. With the warmer temperatures of spring come a new environment, with more sun and more active wildlife. Mating season for many birds and animals brings new life. New leaves begin to grow on trees, and new grass and flowers begin to show.
This sensation of the natural world’s cycle as a liberation echoes the experiences of the student in their stultifying classroom. We do not know exactly what is to come for the student in the coming spring, but watching the robin and daydreaming about flight helps the student escape the deadening and uninformative lesson. Despite, or because of, knowing the answer to the teacher’s question, the student has disconnected that voice of authority and is instead searching for deeper knowledge and meaning elsewhere.
The Natural World
In “The Hand,” the natural world offers connection to history and the past, and also to liberation and the future. While ignoring the teacher’s lesson, bored by a rote question, “You raise the top of your desk / and take out an apple” (Lines 8-9). This apple is a piece of nature that has been tamed and brought indoors. The product of human cultivation, the fruit is the result of centuries of agriculture—a way of domesticating and repurposing the natural world to fit human needs. In this way, the apple links to the student to the long chain of predecessors who have made it possible, a history of people working within the cycles of nature. The apple is also a cultural symbol, most closely associated with the biblical tree of the knowledge of good and evil from the Book of Genesis in the Old Testament—a temptation that Eve and Adam could not resist. In the poem, the student also cannot resist the lure of a snack, and in reaching for it, the student experiences their own version of a loss of innocence and gaining of deeper, more profound knowledge than the classroom or teacher can impart.
Another element of the natural in the poem is a bird that catches that student’s wandering attention: “Outside the window, on an overhanging branch, /a robin is ruffling its feathers” (Lines 16-17). Unlike the student, forced into a performance of scholarship despite already knowing the lesson, being bored by the stupidity of everyone around them, and a greater fascination with studying their fingers, the robin does not need to do something that is against its nature. Rather, it obeys instinct, preening its feathers in preparation for attracting a mate during the spring. For the student, the bird is a model of freedom—and a hopeful sign that their own escape is coming soon.
Knowledge
In “The Hand,” the student knows the answer to the teacher’s question but refuses to raise their hand in class. Similarly withholding, the poem does not share with readers what the question is. What do these poetic decisions mean?
Instead of raising their hand and sharing the answer, “You raise the top of your desk / and take out an apple” (Lines 6-8). This biblical symbol of knowledge, a reference to the tale of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden, is at odds with the supposed learning that is meant to be taking place in the classroom. Rather than ingesting knowledge from the teacher, the student is reaching for something hidden and possibly forbidden—a private piece of understanding that differs from or even contradicts the rote learning taking place within the school.
Ignoring the taught lesson, the student instead focuses on scientific observation, marveling at “some essential beauty in [their] fingers” (Line 12) insinuating that the teacher’s question has nothing to do with the core essence of things. Through the window, the student observes “on an overhanging branch, / a robin is ruffling its feathers / and spring is in the air” (Lines 16-18). The student is learning about real life, the natural cycle, and the world outside the confines of the classroom, pursuing their own research.
