Megan’s Reviews > I Who Have Never Known Men > Status Update

i think the narrator is more human then she believes bc even without knowing man, she wants to go out with the same dignity as the one male prisoner. she sees herself in him, and what is that if not (kinda) knowing man? what is humanity if not experiencing a culture created by a community? as she experienced the outside world, she came to many of the same conclusions and beliefs that the other women held

the sentence “i must be lacking in certain experiences that make a person human” is so interesting because are our experiences what provide us with humanity? is it innate? a mix of both or none of the above?

it also seems to me that the other 39 women have built their identities around men: they believe motherhood is the most important thing they can do but the protagonist (who has never known men) is set apart bc she has never had a man her life to build her identity around

“perhaps, when someone has experienced a day-to-day life that makes sense, they can never be accustomed to strangeness. that is something that i, who have only experienced absurdity, can only suppose.”

i feel like this is the basis of the book, including the title - this protagonist has never known anything and fears nothing (bc how can she know outside of imminent danger if society has never conditioned her)

the narrator is a girl who’s grown up in captivity and so far the story is set up in way where she explores social norms and culture from an outsider’s perspective, questioning things like hierarchy and the power of knowledge/secrets