The cambridge introduction to margaret atwood

This page intentionally left blank The Cambridge Introduction to Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood offers an immensely influential voice in ­contemporary literature Her novels have been translated into over twenty-two ­languages and are widely studied, taught and enjoyed Her style is defined by her comic wit and willingness to experiment Her work has ranged across several genres, from poetry to literary and cultural criticism, novels, short stories and art This Introduction summarizes Atwood’s canon, from her earliest poetry and her first novel, The Edible Woman, through The Handmaid’s Tale to The Year of the Flood Covering the full range of her work, it guides students through multiple readings of her oeuvre It features chapters on her life and career, her literary, Canadian and feminist contexts, and how her work has been received and debated over the course of her career With a guide to further reading and a clear, well-organized structure, this book presents an engaging overview for students and readers Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson is Dean of the Faculty of Humanities and Professor of English at De Montfort University, Leicester The Cambridge Introduction to Margaret Atwood H eidi Sle t t edahl M acphe r s o n CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS Cambridge, New York, Melbourne, Madrid, Cape Town, Singapore, São Paulo, Delhi, Dubai, Tokyo Cambridge University Press The Edinburgh Building, Cambridge CB2 8RU, UK Published in the United States of America by Cambridge University Press, New York www.cambridge.org Information on this title: www.cambridge.org/9780521872980 © Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson 2010 This publication is in copyright Subject to statutory exception and to the provision of relevant collective licensing agreements, no reproduction of any part may take place without the written permission of Cambridge University Press First published in print format 2010 ISBN-13 978-0-521-87298-0 Hardback ISBN-13 978-0-521-69463-6 Paperback Cambridge University Press has no responsibility for the persistence or accuracy of urls for external or third-party internet websites referred to in this publication, and does not guarantee that any content on such websites is, or will remain, accurate or appropriate For Allan Contents Preface List of abbreviations and note on references Chapter 1  Life page ix xi Chapter 2  Contexts 11 English-Canadian literature and the development of the canon Atwood’s criticism: amateur plumbing On being a woman writer, writing about women 12 16 22 Chapter 3  Works 25 Novels Short stories Poetry 25 86 104 Chapter 4  Critical reception 111 1970s and 1980s 1990s Atwood criticism in the twenty-first century 111 114 118 Notes Further reading Index 121 123 133 vii 130 Further reading Grace, Sherrill Violent Duality: A Study of Margaret Atwood Montreal: Vehicule Press, 1980 Graves, Robert The White Goddess: A Historical Grammar of Poetic Myth London: Faber & Faber, 1948 Hancock, Geoff ‘Tightrope-Walking over Niagara Falls’, in Ingersoll (ed.), Waltzing Again, 90–118 Irvine, Lorna ‘A Psychological Journey: Mothers and Daughters in English Canadian Fiction’, in Cathy N Davidson and E M Broner (eds.), The Lost Tradition: Mothers and Daughters in Literature New York: Frederick Ungar, 1980 Kertzer, Jonathan Worrying the Nation: Imagining a National Literature in English-Canada Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 1998 Kroetsch, Robert The Lovely Treachery of Words: Essays Selected and New Toronto: Oxford University Press, 1989 Loriggio, Francesco ‘The Question of the Corpus: Ethnicity and Canadian Literature’, in John Moss (ed.), Future Indicative Literary Theory and Canadian Literature Ottawa: University of Ottawa Press, 1987, 53–68 Pache, Walter ‘ “A Certain Frivolity”: Margaret Atwood’s Literary Criticism’, in Nischik (ed.), Margaret Atwood, 120–35 Rosenthal, Caroline ‘Canonizing Atwood: Her Impact on Teaching in the US, Canada, and Europe’, in Nischik (ed.), Margaret Atwood, 41–56 Sandler, Linda ‘A Question of Metamorphosis’, in Ingersoll (ed.), Waltzing Again, 18–36 Staines, David ‘Margaret Atwood in her Canadian Context’, in Howells (ed.), The Cambridge Companion, 12–27 Templin, Charlotte ‘Tyler’s Literary Reputation’, in Dale Salwak (ed.), Anne Tyler as Novelist Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1994, 175–96 Van Spanckeren, Kathryn, and Jan Garden Castro (eds.) Margaret Atwood: Vision and Forms Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988 Wilson, Sharon Rose Margaret Atwood’s Fairy-Tale Sexual Politics Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1993 York, Lorraine Literary Celebrity in Canada Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2007 Criticism section Atwood, Margaret ‘A Reply’, Signs 2.2 (1976): 340–1 Bardolph, Jacqueline Telling Stories: Postcolonial Short Fiction in English Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2001 Christ, Carol P ‘Margaret Atwood: The Surfacing of Women’s Spiritual Quest and Vision’, Signs 2.2 (1976): 316–30 Gerstenberger, Donna ‘Conceptions Literary and Otherwise: Women Writers and the Modern Imagination’, Novel: A Forum on Fiction 9.2 (1976): 141–50 Further reading 131 Kolodny, Annette ‘Some Notes on Defining a “Feminist Literary Criticism” ’, Critical Inquiry 2.1 (1975): 75–92 New, William H ‘A Well Spring of Magna: Modern Canadian Writing’, Twentieth Century Literature 14.3 (1968): 123–32 Perrakis, Phyllis Sternberg (ed.) Adventures of the Spirit: The Older Woman in the Works of Doris Lessing, Margaret Atwood, and Other Contemporary Women Writers Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2007 Rigney, Barbara Hill Madness and Sexual Politics in the Feminist Novel: Studies in Brontë, Woolf, Lessing and Atwood Madison: University of Wisconsin Press, 1978 Sandler, Linda (ed.) Margaret Atwood: A Symposium, The Malahat Review, 41 January 1977 Showalter, Elaine ‘Women and the Literary Curriculum’, College English 32.8 (1971): 855–62 Secondary sources Biographies Cooke, Nathalie Margaret Atwood: A Biography Toronto: ECW Press, 1998 Sullivan, Rosemary The Red Shoes: Margaret Atwood Starting Out Toronto: HarperCollins, 1998 Selected recommended criticism and reference works Bouson, J Brooks Brutal Choreographies: Oppositional Strategies and Narrative Design in the Novels of Margaret Atwood Amherst: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993 Cooke, Nathalie Margaret Atwood: A Critical Companion Greenwood, 2004 Davey, Frank Margaret Atwood: A Feminist Poetics Vancouver: Talonbooks, 1984 Davidson, Arnold E and Cathy N Davidson The Art of Margaret Atwood New York: MLA, 1981 Fleenor, Juliann E (ed.) The Female Gothic Montreal: Eden Press, 1983 Grace, Sherrill and Lorraine Weir Margaret Atwood: Language, Text and System Vancouver: UBC, 1983 Hengen, Shannon Margaret Atwood’s Power: Mirrors, Reflections and Images in Select Fiction and Poetry Toronto: Second Story, 1993 Hengen, Shannon, and Ashley Thomson Margaret Atwood: A Reference Guide Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 2007 Howells, Coral Ann (ed.) The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006 Contemporary Canadian Women’s Fiction: Refiguring Identities Houndmills: Palgrave, 2003 132 Further reading    Margaret Atwood 2nd edn Houndmills: Palgrave, 2005    Private and Fictional Words London: Virago, 1987 Howells, Coral Ann, and Lynette Hunter (eds.) Narrative Strategies in Canadian Literature: Feminism and Post-Colonialism New York: Taylor & Francis, 1991 Ingersoll, Earl G Waltzing Again: New and Selected Conversations with Margaret Atwood Princeton, NJ: Ontario Review Press, 2006 Kroetsch, Robert, and Reingard M Nischik (eds.) Gaining Ground: European Critics on Canadian Literature Edmonton: NeWest Press, 1985 Macpherson, Heidi Slettedahl Courting Failure: Women and the Law in Twentieth-Century Literature Akron: University of Akron Press, 2007    Women’s Movement: Escape as Transgression in North American Feminist Fiction Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2000 McCombs, Judith (ed.) Critical Essays on Margaret Atwood Boston: Hall, 1988 McWilliams, Ellen Margaret Atwood and the Female Bildungsroman Farnham: Ashgate, 2009 Mendez-Egles, Beatrice Margaret Atwood: Reflection and Reality Edinburg, TX: Pan American University, 1987 Mycak, Sonia In Search of the Split Subject: Psychoanalysis, Phenomenology, and the Novels of Margaret Atwood Toronto: ECW Press, 1996 Nicholson, Colin (ed.) Margaret Atwood: Writing and Subjectivity Houndmills: Palgrave, 1994 Nischik, Reingard M (ed.) Margaret Atwood: Works and Impact Rochester, NY: Camden House, 2000 Rao, Eleonora Strategies for Identity: The Fiction of Margaret Atwood New York: Peter Lang, 1993 Rigney, Barbara Hill Margaret Atwood Houndmills: Macmillan, 1987 Rosenberg, Jerome Margaret Atwood Boston: Twayne, 1984 Stein, Karen Margaret Atwood Revisited New York: Twayne, 1999 Tolan, Fiona Margaret Atwood: Feminism and Fiction Amsterdam: Rodopi, 2007 Van Spanckeren, Kathryn, and Jan Garden Castro (eds.) Margaret Atwood: Vision and Forms Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988 Wilson, Sharon Rose Margaret Atwood’s Fairy-Tale Sexual Politics Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 1993    (ed.) Margaret Atwood’s Textual Assassinations Ohio State University Press, 2004 Wilson, Sharon R.,Thomas B Friedman and Shannon Hengen Approaches to Teaching Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Other Works New York: Modern Language Association, 1996 Wynne-Davies, Marion Margaret Atwood Tavistock: Northcote Publishing, 2009 York, Lorraine Various Atwoods: Essays on the Later Poems, Short Fictions and Novels Toronto: Anansi, 1995 Index Alias Grace, 68–72, 84, 107, 127–8 Author’s Afterword, 69 class position, 69, 70 ending, 72 female bad behaviour, 68, 69 focus on language, 69 freedom, 70 historical basis of, 68–9 multiple stories and multiple voices 69 power, 71 quilting metaphors, 69, 71 rescue, 70 storytelling, 70, 71 truth, 69–72 Amnesty International, 47, 107 The Animals in that Country, ecological focus, 105 Annotated bibliography on Margaret Atwood, Atwood, Margaret and Amnesty International, 47, 107 and autobiography, 7–8, 10 biographies, 1, 115, 131 birth, childhood, commercial success, 2, 15 as cultural export, 14, 15, 113, 119 daughter, education, environmental concerns, 78, 86, 105 and feminism, 23, 24, 26, 60, 114 historiography, 68 honours, 2–3 ideology, 23 influence of, 3, 16 influences on, 18 interpretation of, 14 interviews, 7–8, 9, 115 management of her public persona, control, 4–5, distancing, 4–5, 6, marriages, politicization, 47 reading, 2, reputation, 1, 14 scholarship, 77 separability of art and life, 62 siblings, 1, study of her works, 14 use of punctuation, 56 visual art, 114, 116 autobiographical resonances in Atwood’s works, 3, 6, 7–8, 110, 121 ‘Butterfly’, 109 ‘My Mother Dwindles’, 109 autobiography, 10, 119 and celebrity, 10 autobiography and art, 62, 64 Bardolph, Jacqueline, 118 Barzilai, Shuli, 81 Beaulier, Victor-Lévy, 16 betrayal, 90, 92–3, 100 Billingham, Susan, 13 biographies of Margaret Atwood, 1, 115, 131 Bjerring, Nancy, 31 133 134 Index Blake, William, 105 The Blind Assassin, 19, 21, 72–7, 101, 128 blindness, 77 Booker Prize, 8, 77 brutality, 76 celebrity, 8, 72 class and gender, 72 control, 73 experiment in genre and style, 72 hands, 77 marriage, 75 respectability, 75 secrets, 76 seeing and not seeing, 76 truth, 72, 74 victimization in, 74, 76 withholding of information, 75 blindness, 77 Bluebeard (oral tale), 97 Bluebeard’s Egg, 88 collapsing of fixed categories, 94, 95 Bodily Harm, 47–53, 91, 108, 126 disengagement, 53 doubling, 52 fantasy, 53 fragmentation, 48, 49 Gothic romance narrative, 48, 49 hands, 19, 52 mirrors, 48 morality, 52 power, 50 rescue, 48, 50, 52 sadism, 51 storytelling, 49, 51 surfaces, 48 violence, 50, 51, 52, 107 wordplay, 48 Booker Prize, 2, 8, 77 Bouson, J Brooks, 29, 34, 116 The Blind Assassin, 74, 76 Oryx and Crake, 81 The Robber Bride, 67 British Association for Canadian Studies, 13 Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood, 5, 119–20 Canada funding for the arts in, 15 history of, 11, 12, 72 landscape, 13, 88 regulation of gender, 60 relationship with America, 13, 18, 31 responses to Atwood in, 14 Canadian literature, 2, 11, 12 Atwood’s place in, 1, 111, 113 development of, 12–15, 21 patterns and motifs, 16 archaeological motifs, 17 ‘failed’ or ‘mediocre’ artists, 17 ‘magic baby’ motif, 17 the malevolent north, 18 Rapunzel syndrome, 17 wendigos, 18, 31, 35 reception of, 16 strengths of, 17 Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, 16–18 women writers, 12, 22 Castro, Jan Garden, 114 Cat’s Eye, 8, 59–64, 127 childhood, 59, 63 competition, 61 control, 61 female bad behaviour, 60 femininity, 60, 62 feminism, 59, 60, 63 heroism, 63 mirrors, 61 power, 62, 63 respect, 63 secrets, 59 semi-autobiographical character of, 59 truth, 63 unreliable narrator, 64 visual art in, 19, 60, 63 women artists, 59 celebrity, 5, 8–9, 35, 77 Atwood and, 3, 5, 6, 9–10, 119 Index and autobiography, 10 in The Blind Assassin, 72 commercial aspect of, 15 and death, change, 30, 106 Chernin, Kim, 64 childhood, 59, 63, 97 Christ, Carol P., 111 Christian symbolism, 34, 108 Cole, Amanda, 86 control, 8, 45, 61, 73 Cooke, Nathalie, 1, 115 Corse, Sarah, 12 critical reception, 11, 13, 16–22, 23, 111–20 in the 1970s and 1980s, 111–14 in the 1990s, 114–18 approach to, 16, 111 Curious Pursuits, 19–21 feminist, 67, 111, 112 Negotiating with the Dead, 109 Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, 21–2 psychoanalytical theory, 112, 115–16 Second Words, 18, 23 Strange Things: the Malevolent North in Canadian Fiction, 18 Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, 16–18 thematic, 16 in the twenty-first century, 118–20 Curious Pursuits, 3, 19–21 ‘In Search of Alias Grace’, 21 ‘Spotty-Handed Villainesses: The Problem of Female Bad Behaviour in the Creation of Literature’, 20–1 Dancing Girls, 88–93 betrayal, 90 miscommunication, 88, 90 Dancygier, Barbara, 77 Davey, Frank, 45, 87, 88, 113 135 Davidson, Arnold E., 112, 113 Davidson, Cathy N., 113 Davies, Madeleine, 119 debt, 21–2 DiMarco, Danette, 81 The Door, 109–10 doubling, 19, 24, 104, 112 duplicity, 32, 112, 115 dystopia, 53, 77, 120 Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965–1995, 109 The Edible Woman, 112, 124–5 characters, 27 conflict between self and other, 26 criticism of, 28, 29 identity, 27, 28 make-believe and fairy tales, 27 publication of, 26 refusal of food, 28 Empson Lectures, 6–7, 19 entrapment, 23, 57, 107 environmental concerns, 78, 105, 114 escape, 30, 56, 118 fairy tales, 35, 64–8 fathers, 31, 35, 78, 82 female bad behaviour, 64, 68 femininity, 59, 94, 96, 100 artifice of, 29, 116 and feminism, 29 and food, 29 feminism, 11, 21 and antifeminism, 59 and art, 63 and consumption, 64 and femininity, 29 and literature, 24 organized, 51 as a political force, 24 psychoanalytical, 112, 115, 116 food, 28, 29, 35, 65–6 Foucault, Michel, 61–2 freedom, 54, 56, 70; see also entrapment 136 Index Friedan, Betty, 26 friendship, 31 Frye, Northrop, 12, 18, 35 Fuller, Danielle, 13 Gartner, Hana, Gerstenberger, Donna, 112 Gibson, Eleanor Jess, Gibson, Graeme, Giller Prize, Godard, Barbara, 94 Gothic romance narratives, 38–41, 48, 49, 114 conventions of, 41–2 parody of, 36, 37, 40 Governor General’s Award, Grace, Sherrill, 112 Graves, Robert, 18 Greer, Germaine, 16 Grey Owl, 18 Griffith, Margaret, 28 Hancock, Geoff, 22 The Handmaid’s Tale, 24, 53–9, 91, 109, 126 access to information, 54, 56 control, 61 dystopia, 53, 54 entrapment, 57 freedom, 54, 56 love and sex, 55 marriage, 56 memory, 57 Offred’s passivity, 58 palimpsest, 54 past and present, 55 reconstruction of history, 54 rescue, 56 resistance movement, 58 roles of men, 54 sensory deprivation, 57–8 storytelling, 53, 58 strict gender roles for women, 53, 54 theocracy, 54 totalitarianism, 53 hands, images of in Bodily Harm, 19, 48, 52 in The Blind Assassin, 74, 77 in poetry, 109 Hansen, Elaine Tuttle, 49 happy endings, see narrative endings haunting, 103 Hengen, Shannon, 115–16 heroism, 40, 63, 64 history, 21, 106 feminist perspective on, 71 postmodern reconstruction of, 71 reconstruction of, 54 war history, 65, 109 Hite, Molly, 62 Hönnighausen, Lothar, 105, 107 House of Anansi Press, Howells, Coral Ann, 5, 112, 117, 118, 119–20 Alias Grace, 70, 71 The Blind Assassin, 73 Bodily Harm, 49, 50, 53 Cat’s Eye, 59 Lady Oracle, 42 Life Before Man, 47 Oryx and Crake, 81 humour, 1, 10, 26, 64, 104 identity, 13, 30, 56, 115 Canadian, 11, 12 multiple, 30, 47, 87 national identity, 13 Ingersoll, Earl, 77, 114 Interlunar, 107, 108 myth, 108 rescue, 108 Internet, power of, 79, 86 interviews, 7–8, 9, 87, 115 invisibility, 10 irony, 104 Irvine, Lorna, 12, 22, 45, 49 Johnson, Gordon, 104 The Journals of Susanna Moodie, 21, 105 justice, 21 Index Kertzer, Jonathan, 12 Klappert, Peter, 105 knowledge, 75, 80, 95, 109 Kolodny, Annette, 112 Kroetsch, Robert, 13 Lady Oracle, 8, 35–42, 125 automatic writing, 19, 37 and categories of Gothic romance, 38–41 absent father, 39 Byronic figures, 40–1 Other Woman, 39 secrets, 41 wicked mother, 38 celebrity, 35, 36 conventions of Gothic romance, 41–2 criticism of, 36, 38–41 escape, 36 identity, 35–42 parody of Gothic romance, 36, 40 Escape from Love, 37 Love, My Ransom, 37 Stalked by Love, 37 politics, 36 possible heroes, 40–1 possible villains, 40 storytelling, 42 the supernatural in, 37 unreliability of the narrator, 39 language, 31, 80, 95, 117 in Alias Grace, 69 in The Handmaid’s Tale, 54 in Life Before Man, 42 in Surfacing, 31, 112 Larkin, Joan, 34 Le Bihan, Jill, 53 Life Before Man, 42–7, 102, 125–6 characters, 45–7 disintegration, 45 emotional paralysis, 42 feminism, 43–5 focus on language, 42 fossilization, stasis and decay, 43 137 love and violence, 44 male–female divide, 43 marriage, 44 power, 45, 46 refusal to be a victim, 46 secrets, 45 survival instinct, 46 torture, 46 literature, 12, 111, 118 and politics, 18, 23, 26 LongPen, Loriggio, Francesco, 16 MacLulich, T D., 28 The Malahat Review, 111 Margaret Atwood Reference Guide, 120 Margaret Atwood Reference Site, Margaret Atwood Society, 3, 113, 120 Current Atwood Checklist, 120 Margaret Atwood Studies, 120 marriage, 27 in The Blind Assassin, 75 in The Handmaid’s Tale, 56 in Life Before Man, 44 role of wife, 28 in Surfacing, 32, 33 Martel, Yann, 15 masculinity, 94 Massey Lectures, 22 Mathews, Robin, 17 McCombs, Judith, 112, 114 McWilliams, Ellen, 118 memory, 21, 57, 63, 78 Mendez-Egles, Beatrice, 114 mirrors, 106, 115 in Bodily Harm, 48 in Cat’s Eye, 61 literature as a mirror, 12 in poetry, 104, 106 Modern Language Association, Moral Disorder, 7, 112 semi-autobiographical character of, 101 morality, 78, 81 138 Index Morning in the Burned House, 108 mortality, 109 mothers, 35, 78, 81, 82, 102, 116 Mycak, Sonia, 117 myth, 34, 93, 104, 107, 108, 112 in poetry, 104, 109 narrative endings, 35, 72, 75, 99, 117 nationalism, 13, 87 nationality, 31 Negotiating with the Dead, 6–7, 19, 109 New, W H., 111 Nicholson, Colin, 116–17 Nischik, Reingard, 86, 90, 118–19 non-fiction, 108, 124; see also under individual titles Negotiating with the Dead, 6–7, 19, 109 Survival, 16–18 Second Words, 18, 23 Curious Pursuits, 3, 19–21 Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, 21–2 Strange Things, 18 normality, 28, 95 novels, 80, 123; see also under individual titles Alias Grace, 68–72 The Blind Assassin, 72–7 Bodily Harm, 47 Cat’s Eye, 114 The Edible Woman, 26–30 The Handmaid’s Tale, 53–9 historical, 21 Lady Oracle, 35–42 Life Before Man, 42–7 Oryx and Crake, 77–81 and poetry, 114 The Robber Bride, 64–8 Surfacing, 30–5 The Year of the Flood, 81–6 Oates, Joyce Carol, 107 Ondaatje, Michael, 14 Oryx and Crake, 77–81, 128 dystopia, 77 games, 79 importance of language, 80 knowledge, 80 morality and science, 78, 80, 81 past and present, 79 reality and unreality, 80 role of women in, 81 storytelling, 80 Pache, Walter, 16, 18 palimpsest, 33, 54 Palumbo, Alice, 30 past and present, 104 Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, 21–2 Penelope, 21, 37, 71 The Penelopiad, 108 Persephone, 108 poetry, 87, 104–10, 129 collections The Animals in That Country, 105 The Door, 109 Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965–1995, 109 Interlunar, 107, 108 The Journals of Susanna Moodie, 105 Morning in the Burned House, 108 The Penelopiad, 108 Power Politics, 105 Procedures for the Underground, 105 Selected Poems: 1965–1975, 106 Selected Poems: 1965–1984, 109 Selected Poems II: Poems Selected and New 1976–1986, 107 True Stories, 107 Two-Headed Poems, 106, 107 You Are Happy, 106 diversity and scope of, 104 environmental issues, 104 fairy tales, 104 landscape, 104 mirrors, 104 Index miscommunication, 104 myth, 104, 109 and novels, 114 poems ‘A Women’s Issue’, 107 ‘Another Visit to the Oracle’, 109 ‘Butterfly’, 109 ‘Cressida to Troilus: A Gift’, 108 ‘The Door’, 109–10 ‘Eating Snake’, 108 ‘Helen of Troy Does Counter Dancing’, 108–9 ‘The Loneliness of the Military Historian’, 109 ‘Marrying the Hangman’, 107 ‘My Mother Dwindles’, 109 ‘Notes Towards a Poem that Can Never be Written’, 107 ‘Owl and Pussycat, Some Years Later’, 109 ‘Poetry Reading’, 109 ‘The Poet Has Come Back’, 109 ‘The Poets Hang On’, 109 ‘The Woman Who Could Not Live With Her Faulty Heart’, 106 ‘The Woman Who Makes Peace With Her Faulty Heart’, 106–7 ‘This is a Photograph of Me’, 100, 104–5 ‘Torture’, 107 ‘Tricks with Mirrors’, 106 ‘Two-Headed Poems’, 106 ‘War Photo’, 109 ‘War Photo 2’, 109 ‘You Fit Into Me’, 105–6 relationships between men and women, 104 responsibility, 104 presence and absence, 105 victimhood, 104 violence, 104 politics, 87, 91 and power, 119 politics of literature, 18, 26 139 Polk, James, postfeminism, 64 Potts, Donna, 67 power, 45, 61, 104, 115, 116, 117, 119 and blood, 65 of language, 95 in Life Before Man, 46 of Margaret Atwood, 12 and politics, 87, 119 in The Robber Bride, 67 of women, 64, 65, 68, 100 in The Year of the Flood, 84 Power Politics, 105 presence and absence, 105 Procedures for the Underground, 105 psychoanalytical theory, 115, 116, 117 Quill and Quire, 14 Rao, Eleonora, 115 Rapunzel Syndrome, 17 reality, 34, 80 reference works, 131–2 refusal of food, 28, 35 relationships between men and women, 104, 105, 106, 116 religion, 108 rescue, 30, 56, 70, 83, 85, 103, 108 in Bodily Harm, 48, 50, 52 respectability, 75, 103 responsibility, 18, 35, 104, 109 Rigney, Barbara Hill, 112, 114 Robertson, Ray, The Robber Bride, 7, 64–8, 108, 109, 127 ceremony, 65 criticism of, 67 female bad behaviour, 64 femininity, 66 feminism, 67–8 food and desire, 64, 65–6 for Charis, 65–6 for Roz, 66 for Tony, 65 hunger, 65, 68 140 Index The Robber Bride (cont.) metaphors for hunting and fishing, 67 multiple devouring females, 65 power, 65, 66, 67 Zenia, 66–7, 68 role models, 114 role-play, 30–5; see also identity Rosenberg, Jerome H., 113, 117 Rosenthal, Caroline, 14 Royal Society of Canada, Rubbo, Michael, Rubenstein, Roberta, 52, 58 Russ, Joanna, 38–41 Sandler, Linda, 7, 14 Schaub, Danielle, 35 science and scientists, 78 Second Words, 18 ‘On Being a Woman Writer’, 23 secrets, 41, 45, 59, 76, 98 Sedgwick, Eve Kosofsky, 38–42 seeing and not seeing, 33, 76 Selected Poems: 1965–1975, 106, 109 Selected Poems II: Poems Selected and New 1976–1986, 107 self 30, 117; see also identity sexual politics, 104 short stories, 86–103, 129 betrayal, 92–3 breakdown in communication between men and women, 93 Canadian setting, 100 collapsing of fixed categories, 94 collections, 87 Bluebeard’s Egg, 88, 93–7 Dancing Girls, 88–93 Moral Disorder, 101–3, 112 The Penelopiad, 108 The Tent, 87 Wilderness Tips, 87–8, 97–101 construction of, 103 distance, 100 environmental themes, 97 landscape, 97 miscommunication, 93 myths and folktales, 93 narrative endings, 99 repetition and accumulation of image and symbol, 88 stories ‘The Age of Lead’, 100 ‘The Art of Cooking and Serving’, 101 ‘Bad News’, 101 ‘Betty’, 89 ‘Bluebeard’s Egg’, 96–7 ‘The Bog Man’, 90, 99–100 ‘The Boys at the Lab’, 103 ‘Dancing Girls’, 93 ‘Death by Landscape’, 100 ‘Encouraging the Young’, 87 ‘Entities’, 103 ‘Giving Birth’, 93 ‘The Grave of the Famous Poet’, 90 ‘Hack Wednesday’, 100 ‘Hair Jewellery’, 90–1 ‘Hairball’, 99 ‘The Headless Horseman’, 49 ‘Hurricane Hazel’, 95 ‘In Search of the Rattlesnake Plantain’, 97, 103 ‘Isis in Darkness’, 99 ‘The Labrador Fiasco’, 103 ‘Life Stories’, 87 ‘Lives of the Poets’, 92–3 ‘Loulou; Or, the Domestic Life of the Language’, 94–5 ‘The Man from Mars’, 88–9 ‘Monopoly’, 102 ‘Moral Disorder’, 102 ‘My Last Duchess’, 101–2 ‘No More Photos’, 87 ‘The Other Place’, 102 ‘Polarities’, 89–90 ‘The Resplendent Quetzal’, 91–2, 96 ‘The Salt Garden’, 97 ‘Scarlet Ibis’, 97 Index ‘Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother’, 93–4 ‘Spring Songs of the Frogs’, 97 ‘The Sunrise’, 96 ‘Training’, 92 ‘A Travel Piece’, 91 ‘True Trash’, 97–8, 101 ‘Two Stories about Emma’, 95 ‘Uglypuss’, 95 ‘Uncles’, 100 ‘Under Glass’, 90 ‘Unearthing Suite’, 97 ‘Walking on Water’, 95, 96 ‘Weight’, 100 ‘When It Happens’, 91 ‘The Whirlpool Rapids’, 95–6 ‘White Horse’, 102–3 Showalter, Elaine, 112 siblings, 101, 103 Signs, 111 social responsibility of the writer, 18 Somacarrera, Pilar, 119 Staels, Hilde, 77 Staines, David, 12 Stein, Karen, 117 storytelling, 49, 93, 107, 117 in Alias Grace, 70, 71 in Bluebeard’s Egg, 94 conventions of, 73 in The Handmaid’s Tale, 53, 58 in Lady Oracle, 42 in Oryx and Crake, 80 and truth, 107 Strange Things: The Malevolent North in Canadian Fiction, 18 Sturgess, Charlotte, 94, 95 Sullivan, Rosemary, 1, 115 Surfacing, 13, 30–5, 111, 112, 125 acquiescence, 33 alienation, 112 Christian symbolism, 34 criticism of, 31 duplicity, 32 141 femininity, 34 identity, 31 landscape, 35 marriage, 32, 33 narrator, 30, 32, 34 a palimpsestic text, 33 subterfuge, 32 and Survival, 17 truth, 33 use of language, 31, 112 Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature criticism of, 16 impact of, 16–18 and Surfacing, 17 Templin, Charlotte, 14 The Tent, 87 Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, University of Toronto, Atwood Archives, Tolan, Fiona, 118 totalitarianism, 53 travel, 50, 91–2, 102 True Stories, 107 truth, 14, 59 in Alias Grace, 69, 71, 72 in The Blind Assassin, 72, 74 in Cat’s Eye, 63 and storytelling, 107 in Surfacing, 33 Two-Headed Poems, 106, 107 United Kingdom, responses to Atwood in, 14 University of Toronto, Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, Van Spanckeren, Kathryn, 114 victim theory, 16, 50, 68, 87, 113 basic victim positions, 17, 18 in The Blind Assassin, 74, 76 Rapunzel syndrome, 17 refusal to be a victim, 35, 46 Vincent, Sybill Korff, 37 142 Index violence, 44, 51, 104 in Bodily Harm, 50, 51, 52, 107 visibility, 62 visual art, 114 Weir, Lorraine, 113 wendigos, 18, 31, 35 White, Roberta, 30 wilderness, 18 Wilderness Tips, 87–8 Wilson, Sharon Rose, 16, 116, 120 Wolf, Naomi, 68 women, 5, 94, 118 artists, 59 monstrous women, 64 objectified, 104, 107 relationships with other women, 59, 60, 114 women’s stories, 20, 70 writers, 18, 22–4 Woodcock, George, 28 Woolf, Virginia, 106 works of Margaret Atwood, 25–110, 123–4 book reviews, non-fiction, 124; see also (under individual titles) Negotiating with the Dead, 6–7, 19, 109 Payback: Debt as Metaphor and the Shadow Side of Wealth, 21–2 Curious Pursuits, 3, 19–21 Strange Things, 18 Second Words, 18 Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature, 16, 17 novels, 25–86, 123; see also (under individual titles) Alias Grace, 68–72 The Blind Assassin, 72–7 Bodily Harm, 47–53 Cat’s Eye, 59–64, 114 The Edible Woman, 26–30, 112 The Handmaid’s Tale, 53–9 Lady Oracle, 35–42 MaddAddam Trilogy, 82 Oryx and Crake, 77–81 Power Politics, 105 The Robber Bride, 64–8 Surfacing, 30–5, 112 use of the double voice, 30 The Year of the Flood, 81–6 poetry, 87, 104–10, 123–4, 129 The Animals in That Country, 105 The Door, 109 Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965–1995, 109 Interlunar, 107, 108 The Journals of Susanna Moodie, 105 Morning in the Burned House, 108 The Penelopiad, 108 Power Politics, 105 Procedures for the Underground, 105 Selected Poems: 1965–1975, 106 Selected Poems: 1965–1984, 109 Selected Poems II: Poems Selected and New 1976–1986, 107 True Stories, 107 Two-Headed Poems, 106, 107 You Are Happy, 106 reference guide to, 115 short stories, 86–103, 129; see also under individual titles Bluebeard’s Egg, 88, 93–7 Dancing Girls, 88–93 Moral Disorder, 101–3, 112 The Penelopiad, 108 The Tent, 87 writing about women, 22–4 motivations for, 73 The Year of the Flood, 81–6, 128 belief and action, 83 Index extra-textual elements in, 86 female persective of, 82 God’s Gardeners cult, 81, 82, 84, 86 and Oryx and Crake, 85 power of Adam One, 84 religion, 83 rescue, 83, 85 survival, 85 Waterless Flood, 84 website for the novel, 86 York, Lorraine, 4, 9, 10, 14, 117 You Are Happy, 106 143 Cambridge Introductions to… authors Margaret Atwood  Heidi Slettedahl Macpherson Jane Austen  Janet Todd Samuel Beckett Ronan McDonald Walter Benjamin  David Ferris J M Coetzee  Dominic Head Joseph Conrad John Peters Jacques Derrida  Leslie Hill Emily Dickinson  Wendy Martin George Eliot Nancy Henry T S Eliot  John Xiros Cooper William Faulkner  Theresa M Towner F Scott Fitzgerald  Kirk Curnutt Michel Foucault  Lisa Downing 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Abbott The Nineteenth-Century American Novel  Gregg Crane Postcolonial Literatures  C L Innes Postmodern Fiction  Bran Nicol Russian Literature  Caryl Emerson Scenography  Joslin McKinney and Philip Butterworth The Short Story in English  Adrian Hunter Theatre Historiography  Thomas Postlewait Theatre Studies  Christopher Balme Tragedy  Jennifer Wallace Victorian Poetry  Linda K Hughes ... how the media created images of Atwood- as-writer that may or may not have anything to with the ‘real’ Margaret Atwood (citing Margaret the Medusa’, Margaret the Magician’ and Margaret the. .. reading the next page You, poor creature, are shackled to the Margaret Atwood desk; you’ve got to turn the next page whether you want to or not In turning the focus on the interviewer, Atwood. .. yourself, but other than that you’re just the medium People don’t go to a seance to talk to the medium; they go to talk to Aunt Bessie! Atwood s sense of herself as the medium and not the message