How important is language in your day-to-day life? Christina Dalcher’s answer: absolutely vital. Dalcher is a linguist who explores the ideal of oppressing women by severely restricting their use of language in her debut novel Vox. In the book, women are restricted to speaking only one hundred words a day and are not allowed to read anything except a heavily edited version of the Bible. In my latest Substack, I explore what the novel shows about the power of language, the nature of tyranny, and the importance of politics, along with comparing it to The Handmaid’s Tale.
