The Hand

“The Hand” opens by plunging the reader into a classroom that is meant to evoke the reader’s own school experiences. The poem underscores this deep connection to its reader through its second-person perspective, in which a narrator calls the poem’s main character you, ascribed their identity to the reader. Ruefle’s use of this technique immerses the reader into the world of the poem.

The poem opens with an unnamed teacher, who “asks a question” (Line 1). The poem immediately clarifies how unimportant this question—and by extension the class subject and the teacher—is to you, the student, because what exactly that question is goes unsaid. Since “You know the answer” (Line 2) already, you are not learning anything new in class. Moreover, you, the student, realize that no one else is at your level: “you suspect / you are the only one in the classroom / who knows the answer” (Lines 2-4). Possibly, you don’t simply know the answer to the teacher’s question, but rather something grander. Because of this profound understanding, you see the question as a very personal one: “The person / in question is yourself” (Lines 4-5), turning the seemingly mundane, rote learning into a private, personal contemplation on which “you are the greatest living authority” (Line 6).