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.