I Who Have Never Known Men

I Who Have Never Known Men, Jacqueline Harpman

“It is strange that I am dying from a diseased womb, I who have never had periods and who have never known men.” Jacqueline Harpman’s haunting final line in I Who Have Never Known Men (1995) evokes pathos in readers, urging us to contemplate the purpose of life and question the societal constructs that dictate us. Is there a difference between merely surviving and actually living? Is existential angst a result of our context and surroundings. 

This feminist speculative novella set in a dystopian world, was originally published in French as Moi qui n’ai pas connu les hommes, and adopts the bildungsroman form to deliver a powerfully poignant yet bleak warning about the future of humanity. With modernist and post-apocalyptic elements, Harpman weaves human devastation, resilience, intimacy, and friendship, into an unforgiving prophecy.

In an obscure setting on some ambiguous planet, thirty-nine adult women and an unnamed young girl (our protagonist) are kept prisoner in an underground bunker where they are watched by all-male guards. The guards never interact with them, except to whip them if they break the rules: no touching and no hiding from the guards’ view. None of the women know why they are there, they can’t remember how they were captured, have no notion of time, and only the faintest memory of their past lives. When an alarm goes off, the guards flee and the forty women escape amidst the chaos.

Written in first person from the girl’s perspective, her voice guides readers through her growth as she learns to navigate the desolate outside world alongside the thirty-nine women. We learn how her intelligence and leadership keep the group alive as they ration limited supplies, delegate tasks, and build homes during their journey forward. They have no idea where they are going, and some inevitably lose hope when burdened with the foreboding unknown. What is the point?

As the last survivor and now an elderly woman, our protagonist who has led the group as best she can, and who has never experienced womanhood and motherhood as we know it, reflects on the loyalty, loss, and love she has witnessed in her seemingly meaningless life.

She never finds any other survivors or signs of life, and eventually dies alone from a diseased womb, she who has never known men - the irony.