Language is a way of constructing knowledge, and at the same time it constitutes a power network that exists within this knowledge and its interrelationships. In other words, once you master the language, you have power. Under this premise, Alice's linguistics expert status is very intriguing. Because from the historical context, the only people who can manipulate language, speak, and write are men, and women can only be the objects to be portrayed, written, and viewed, that is, the landscape of male gaze or voyeurism. Women who become passive objects lose their ego under the constraints of power, and then rely on men to try to regain their existence, but they never have, and will never have the subject of themselves. The existence of Alice undoubtedly reverses this power scheme. She is so talented that she not only familiarizes with language, but also understands Xiezhong's questions more thoroughly, studying it, deciphering it, and manipulating language with language, as if giving a man a hard blow. In addition, she can make full use of this power to make it a self-fulfilling existence and establish a unique position.
Virginia Woolf (1882-1941) once ironically referred to men’s long-standing monopoly on knowledge and academic research in the book "My Room". She not only invented a male-centered highest school "Oxbridge" (Oxbridge, a complex of Oxford and Cambridge universities), to criticize women's rejection of academic halls, but also created Shakespeare’s sister and questioned the possession of heaven. Why can't women who share their talents become writers like Shakespeare and stay in history? Looking back at Alice, in addition to mastering the knowledge of language, she stepped into a male-dominated academic institution more grandiosely, imparting a wealth of knowledge as a professor. Just a guest speech made people feel her authority in academia and her confidence in the professional field. In contrast, the seemingly humorous but sarcastic introductions of black male scholars suddenly became a ridiculous struggle for men’s weakness.
Alice’s husband, John, is also a professor, and he has done something in his professional field. The two have equal status in the family. No one is controlled by each other. Alice naturally does not need to depend on her husband to exist. Whether in society or in the family, Alice has never been oppressed because of her identity as a woman, and she is quite comfortable in the two spaces. It's just that all of this gradually collapsed after suffering from Alzheimer's disease. The signs of illness first appeared when Alice was out jogging when she lost her way on the familiar Harvard campus. This is undoubtedly the greatest mockery and punishment for her. First of all, women are always considered to have a less natural sense of direction than men. On the one hand, Alice’s loss is a sign of memory loss. On the other hand, it also implies that Alice is ultimately a woman—a woman weaker than a man? More importantly, the place where she lost her way was Harvard University, an academic hall dominated by men. As a woman, Alice not only rushed in, but also tried to compete with men. Of course, she could not be allowed to relax in it.
After being ill, Alice began to lose her proud language ability. The embarrassment of forgetting words in class and the one-sided negative comments made by students forced her to face the reality that her right to speak was taken away. Facing the patient's speech, it became her last struggle, just like the short but brilliant life of a butterfly, Alice tried to leave her last beautiful memory; although this memory would not become her memory at all. If language reflects the highly evolved mental abilities of human beings and is a unique way of communication for humans, then Alice, who no longer has the right to speak, will not be able to exist as an independent person besides losing her mental abilities. A scene of incontinence caused by forgetting the location of the toilet, cruelly declared that Alice must rely on her husband (male) and family to get back a little bit of living position. Sadly, under the director's deliberate camera scheduling, Alice, who can only be attached to the family, is alienated from her family, just like furnishings.
The right to speak that Alice had struggled for most of her life was wiped out in an instant, causing her to lose her existence and herself, completely becoming a passive object, unable to determine her own life and death. In order to prevent her from losing the last trace of her human dignity due to illness, Alice had pre-recorded videos to teach herself how to find death. Unexpectedly, she lost her memory. She always couldn't remember the steps and had to go downstairs and repeat the video again and again. This scene is really funny, but it is deeply saddening. If a person doesn't even have the ability to find death, then her life will no longer belong to her.
At the end of the story, he probably didn't want to fall into despair, so he ended up with love and gave Alice the meaning of life again. However, this love is sweet icing after all, wrapped in the cruel fact that she can no longer be an independent person. Just like Shakespeare’s sister could not enter the theater to act, and finally died in a foreign land, as a woman, she still could not gain a foothold in the patriarchal society. So, is Alice still Alice? Undoubtedly, Alice’s husband is equally keen on self-achievement, and can ask Alice to sing with her husband (at this time, Alice no longer can, and cannot refuse), and move around with his career prospects.
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