49 pages 1 hour read

Margaret Atwood

The Heart Goes Last

Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2015

A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.

Symbols & Motifs

Posidollars

Once they decide to sign up for the Positron Project and live their lives in Consilience, Stan and Charmaine are given a stipend of posidollars. These posidollars can be spent at any stores in Consilience, or to order things from the corporate online catalogue. Consilience is a corporate-run town, and in this way, it is more of a product meant to extract maximum profit than an actual community. The posidollars play an important role in this process, symbolizing corporate rule and exploitation. It is established several times throughout the novel how profitable the project is, yet none of that profit trickles down to the people producing it, because they are paid in a currency that has no value outside of Consilience.

This serves a dual purpose. First, it is a means of social control, as it ensures all members of Consilience remain poor unless they stay in town—while they are not allowed to leave anyway, limiting their access to resources provides further incentive. Second, it creates a market with no competition and over which they have complete control. It allows them to effectively create an economic system in which they pay everyone in a fake currency that has no real value, to buy goods that they produce, while keeping all the real profit for themselves.

Related Titles

By Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood

Alias Grace

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Backdrop Addresses Cowboy

Margaret Atwood

Backdrop Addresses Cowboy

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Cat's Eye

Margaret Atwood

Cat's Eye

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Death By Landscape

Margaret Atwood

Death By Landscape

Margaret Atwood

STUDY + TEACHING GUIDE

logo

Hag-Seed

Margaret Atwood

Hag-Seed: William Shakespeare's The Tempest Retold

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Happy Endings

Margaret Atwood

Happy Endings

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing

Margaret Atwood

Helen of Troy Does Countertop Dancing

Margaret Atwood

Plot Summary

logo

Lady Oracle

Margaret Atwood

Lady Oracle

Margaret Atwood

Plot Summary

logo

Life Before Man

Margaret Atwood

Life Before Man

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

MaddAddam

Margaret Atwood

MaddAddam

Margaret Atwood

Plot Summary

logo

Rape Fantasies

Margaret Atwood

Rape Fantasies

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

Stone Mattress

Margaret Atwood

Stone Mattress

Margaret Atwood

Plot Summary

logo

Surfacing

Margaret Atwood

Surfacing

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

The Blind Assassin

Margaret Atwood

The Blind Assassin

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

The Circle Game

Margaret Atwood

The Circle Game

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

The Edible Woman

Margaret Atwood

The Edible Woman

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid's Tale

Margaret Atwood

Study Guide

logo

The Landlady

Margaret Atwood

The Landlady

Margaret Atwood