Death in Her Hands
Death in Her Hands : Magda’s Killer Standing for a Broken Marriage
Life has a way of testing you, people don’t always end up being where they thought they would be. You can do everything right and still not be satisfied. You can choose to devote your life to a partner who you might end up having resentment for. In Death in her Hand by Ottessa Moshfegh, it appears we follow Vesta Gool on one of her morning hikes, where she finds a note that reads:
“Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here was her body.”
She creates this narrative about a girl who only exists in her imagination, however as we continue to pursue this hunt, we learn more about Vesta’s life. We learn that just a year prior to her moving cities, getting a new dog, and finding this note, she lost her husband and is when she realized she lost herself as well (like most breakups). I believe Magda is supposed to represent her life and how she sees herself, and Magda's killer is her views on her husband and the impact her marriage had on her. Throughout the book we see Vesta create this story of a girl who has no control of her own life, and ends up being murdered by a man who seemed too “sure of himself”.
From the very start when Vesta gets a hold of the note, she establishes that it must have been a man who killed her,
“ …so I felt I could safely presume that the writer of the note, this me, this character, the I of the story, must be male. He seemed very sure of himself, indeed.”
As she’s analysing the note and breaking down each line, she establishes that the killer must be a male because of the confidence in the writer's tone. That still does not explain why it would mean male behavior to Vesta. What about the assertiveness of the note gives male?
“How arrogant to think people are all so gullible. I wasn’t. We were not all idiots. We weren’t all lemmings, sheep, fools, like Walter always said all people were.”
Walter Gool. The first thing we learn about this man is his view on all people. We learn that Vesta and Walter's marriage wasn’t as honorable as she’d hoped. Walter was a very well known German epistemologist who became a professor and looked down on most people he interacted with, especially with Vesta.
“Everytime I complained to him, he merely pointed out that reality was a perception, and that my perception was inherently flawed because I didn’t have the same education as him”pg223
Not only was this man unfaithful, which can cause endless insecurity in a woman, he belittled her knowledge and her capability to do anything. We hear Vesta saying things like “I can hear Walter now” and proceeds to say she isn’t brave enough, smart enough, strong enough to do whatever it is she's dealing with. “I’d be reading on the couch,and he’d simply walk past, drop his coat on the back of the couch, nearly hitting me in the head, No ‘good evening Vest’ or ‘How are you?’ Nothing.” Vesta obviously started feeling alone way before her husband's passing and it becomes obvious it cause her to form internal resentment towards her husband. She lived as a devoted wife; to a man who day in and day out disrespected her, but what I know was the most upsetting is that everyone they knew held Walter on a high pedestal without knowing who he really was. She probably felt like she was acting throughout her marriage. Felt alone and unseen by the one person who was supposed to make her feel the world.
“Her name was Magda. Nobody will ever know who killed her. It wasn’t me. Here was her body”
The quote itself shows how Vesta feels about herself. “Nobody will ever know who killed her”, Vesta lost herself to her marriage and the world won’t ever know, not just that she has no voice of her own, but that her husband was the reason ( in her eyes). “It wasn’t me”, she can’t even recognize herself. “Here is her body” just whatever is left of her in a hollow shell. Until Charlie came along.
“I hadn’t realized how lonely I’d been, and then suddenly I wasn’t alone at all. I had a dog. Never again would I be alone, I thought.What a gift to have such a companion, like a child and protector, both, something wiser than me in so many ways, and yet doting, loyal, and affectionate.” Not only does this quote foreshadow the ending of this story, this quote does an excellent job informing the reader how exactly Vesta has felt for the last year in her life, lonely, something that she no longer feels because ,like her marriage ,she seeks true companionship, protection, loyalty and affection. The chapter mostly talks about her feeling towards her dog that seem to mirror a lot of how she feel in her marriage. In a way the responsibility to fill her void shifted from Walter to Charlie. From the start Charlie was who replaced Walter in Vestas life.
It’s really beautifully written. She lets herself spiral over this story she’s created only because she’s grieving her life really, not even her husband’s. Her dog going feral made her feel like an “ignorant little creep whose every existence triggered violence". This was a symbol of how betrayed she felt by her marriage. Here was the dog who was supposed to provide the loyalty her husband never did, and he didn’t even recognize her. When he attacked her and she immediately stabbed him made her feel proud of her “swifty instinct”.
“I saved my own life that night. Nobody else could have done it.”
By: Kaleen Duran