...A prolific, controversial and innovative writer, Margaret Atwood (born 1939) has emerged as one of the most eminent contemporary figures in Canadian literature. As a feminist, Atwood deals with portrayal of women, women’s perspectives and values, analysis, and myths and versions of what it means to be a woman. Atwood was born in Ottawa, Canada, the second of three children. She spent her early childhood in northern Quebec where her father was a forest entomologist. Her years in the wilderness influenced her writing which makes considerable metaphorical use of the place, its flora and its fauna. Later, Atwood’s childhood experiences of the bush provided material for her focus on rediscovering identity in the wild in Surfacing (1972). She has...
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...please. Margaret Atwood, the author of The Handmaid’s Tale, provides fictional insight on how women will eventually be deprived of their right to choose. Atwood includes Offred’s memories of Moria, an anti-feminist, friend from college, and Aunt Lydia, Offred’s life teacher, to convey how women's actions negatively affected their rights to choose their own style of living. In Offred’s eyes, her life was normal. Simply going through college like any other person would. The problem is, not everyone feels the same way. In the text Atwood stated: “You know, like Tupperware, only with underwear. Tart’s stuff. Lace crotches, snap garters. Bras the push your tit’s up. She finds my lighter, lights the cigarette she’s extracted from my purse. Want one? Tosses the package, with great generosity, considering they’re mine.” (Atwood 56) It is easy to do things without any thought, but that would make you ignorant, and ignorance does not bode well in the Republic of Gilead. In the Republic’s eyes, the women take action without valuing consequence. Defying the laws set in place that keep the world “sane”; therefore, by fear of the women harming society, the Republic striped them of their right to choose....
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...Margaret Atwood: Life, Legacy and Works Margaret Atwood was born on November 18, 1939 in Ottawa, Ontario. She lived with her family in both Sault Ste. Marie, Canada and Ontario Canada. Her father was Carl Edmund Atwood and her mother was Margaret Dorothy Atwood. Her father was a zoologist. He did extensive entomological research for most of Margaret’s younger years. Her mother, Margaret Dorothy Killiam, was very health conscious and chose to become a dietician as a result of her belief in eating and living a healthy lifestyle. Margaret did not like having a mother that watched everything she ate but as she grew older she realized it was for her good and embraced it wholeheartedly. Margaret was the second child born to Carl and Margaret Atwood....
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...The Handmaid’s Tale Societies throughout history have impacted the lives of its inhabitants. In “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood the main character, Offred, is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead which is the new society that took over the United States. Offred experiences some truly horrific things. This society shaped the lives of the citizens into something far from our modern day human experience by societies using the idea of normality. In the Republic of Gilead people use diction to make things that are unusual seem normal. One example of this is calling women “Handmaids”, “Marthas” or “Wives”. These terms devised by the Republic are used to make the profession of women become their identity. They also do this by giving...
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...Introduction Margaret Atwood is a prolific and prize-winning author of fiction, poetry, and critical essays. Her work is worthy of analysis, for she has been considered a Noble Prize contender for years. Indeed, Kazuo Ishiguro issued an apology to Atwood when he captured the 2018 prize. In her collection of short stories Moral Disorder and Other Stories, Atwood conveys the transformation of Nell from child to adult, and the question arises: what literary techniques does Atwood employ to convey the subtleties of this transformation. After a careful analysis of the stories, it is evident that Atwood uses motifs, allusions, image patterns, and shifts in point of view to portray the maturation of Nell. Cat Imagery In several of her stories,...
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...March 11, 2014 TPCAST of “This is a photograph of me” by Margaret Atwood Title: The title of this poem can mean that this is an autobiography of the author or how she sees herself physically. Paragraph: It starts with the description of a photo, what it has and what’s visible to see. Then takes a dramatic turn pointing out that she drowned there, in a lake in the middle, and nobody can see her. Talking how the woman are not treated equally as men. Connotation: It has a deep meaning trying to show how society treats and sees women. Point of view: First person. Imagery: The imagery of the setting is important. All of the imagery is about beauty and perfection even when drowning leading that too much perfection is toxic. Form: Free verse Symbolism: The entire second stanza is a symbolism representing how society sees men more powerful than women. Attitude: The tone used in here is peaceful when describing the scenery. The author at the start sounds peaceful and good with herself; actually all throughout the poem she sounds nice but she actually feels shadowed by society. She asks to the reader that please look for her drowning even in all that beauty. Shifts: I think there’s only one shift in here and it’s when the parenthesis starts and she says “The photograph was taken after I drowned, maybe trying to mock or dramatic. Title#2: Now the title seems more significant. She explains it that even if she is in the picture, she is not the picture, just a part of it. And then...
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...Everyday, there are humans living in poverty and in hospitals who strive to survive so that they can live another day. In the novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, Snowman, the protagonist, tries to survive on an isolated land with the children of Oryx and Crake, and in the novel La Prisonniere by Malika Oufkir, translated by Michelle Fitoussi, Malika tries to survive twenty years in a desert gaol. In both novels, the characters realize that survival is challenging, however, with the companionship of others, they figure out it is possible to survive and to gain freedom.In both novels, the main characters find it difficult to survive in isolation. To begin with, Snowman faces a difficult situation, as the compounds have been destroyed and as a result, limited resources are available.Snowman is starving as he tries to save his food: "He's stashed some mangoes… a precious half bottle of Scotch- no, more like a third- and a chocolate flavoured energy bar scrounged from a trailer park, limp and sticky inside its foil"(Atwood, 4).Healthy food is the key to survival and without this resource, Snowman's health is slowing weakening day by day. Limited clothes and shelter also make Snowman's life very difficult to live in the paradise project land as these are also the basic necessities of life. Furthermore, Snowman desperately misses his luxurious life in the compound.Before, when Snowman lived in OrganInc compound, he had the luxuries of an indoor swimming pool, a small gym, furniture...
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...“I do not wish [women] to have power over men; but over themselves” (Wollstonecraft, Poston). This quote, which Mary Wollstonecraft eloquently stated in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, portrays the exact feelings of Offred, the main character in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Taking place in a dystopian future, The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a totalitarian government under which women are harshly subjugated. Instead of accepting her current position as a handmaid. Offred longs to return to her previous life; however, in the Republic of Gilead, gender-based oppression is commonplace and often prevents Offred from achieving both her short and long-term aspirations. Similar to the painting Fair Rosamund by Arthur Hughes, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale examines how sexual oppression leads to the loss of identity, shaming of...
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...‘The Handmaids Tale is a feminist novel’ In the framework of a dystopian novel, Margaret Atwood creates a society that bereaves women of their identity and individuality by allowing them none other than their gift of bearing children. The novel explores the religious objectification of women that they should use only their physical bodies to procreate, and if this isn’t possible, the women are useless and therefore sent to the ‘colonies’. Margaret Atwood uses strong female characters as a symbol of feminism within the novel. Despite their lack of identity, the women are much more paraded than the men are; with only the ‘Doctor’ and the ‘Commander’ drifting out of the picture. Atwood displays the men as the most mysterious, enigmatic characters that belong in their ‘black painted vans’ with the ‘dark tinted windows’ and ‘dark glasses’. Using adjectives such as ‘dark’ and ‘black’ when describing the male presence aids to the inscrutable effect that they have, where men fade into the background whereas the Handmaids, dressed in red and white, stand out empowering and obvious. Margaret Atwood creates a feminist narrative by focusing the narrative on the women and their appreciable appearance. The character Offred is constantly spinning her thoughts in her mind, with a limited speech allowed. Margaret Atwood could be reflecting the Suffragettes and the fact that women’s ideas should be outspoken and aloud. However, the set up that the Commander talks often but Serena Joy remains...
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...mind, as the space you inhabit not just with your body but with your head. It’s that kind of space in which we find ourselves lost. What a lost person needs is a map of the territory, with his own position marked on it so he can see where he is in relation to everything else. Literature is not only a mirror; it is also a map, a geography of the mid. Our literature is one such map, if we can learn to read it as our literature, as the product of who and where we have been. We need such a map desperately; we need to know about here, because here is where we live. For the members of a country or culture, shared knowledge of their place, their here, is not a luxury but a necessity. Without that knowledge we will not survive.” Margaret Atwood, Survival As Atwood’s statement demonstrates, Canadian literature is concerned with place and displacement, and with the development of an effective identifying relationship between self and environs. Canada’s literature whether written in English or French reflects three main parts of Canadian experience. First, Canadian writers often emphasize the effects of climate and geography on the life and work of their people. Second, frontier’s life is part of Canada’s experience that appears frequently in its literature; Third, Canada’s position in the world profoundly affects many Canadian writers. French Canadians often feel surrounded by their English speaking neighbors. They have made a determined effort to preserve their own...
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...Studying Literature in Grade 12 The works of different non-Canadian authors, writers, and playwrights such as Steinbeck, Orwell and Shakespeare have been widely used in English classrooms. While bright writers exist in all cultures, Ontario students should solely focus on Canadian writers. As Canadians, it is essential to become more familiar with writings one can call their own. Senior students in Ontario should solely study Canadian literature because writings from other cultures are being studied far too frequently, it is important to encourage young Canadian authors, and the need to promote diverse, home-grown writers is escalating. To begin, focusing on Canadian literature for English students is significant because they are constantly overwhelmed by the American culture. This is often prevalent in Canada because the culture has always been a “branch plant” of another country. Canadian culture has never had the chance to fully blossom since it has always been under the thumb of a more powerful foreign culture since its conception, notably England and France. For this reason, high school students living in Ontario are forced to succumb to Shakespeare and other British writers. These days, even American authors such as Fitzgerald can be found in classrooms all across Canada. Unfortunately, many schools continue to limit a student’s exposure within the classroom to Canadian authors’ works to ISP (Independent Study Project) reading lists. In this sense, Canada is an attic in...
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...Merriam-Webster Dictionary. Offred is presented as our protagonist in The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood. Atwood presents Offred as a air head who goes through the motions. No where close to what we consider our typical literary heroine. Throughout the story she seems to space out and not understand her situation very well. However, if Atwood were to try and portray her as what we consider a typical heroine, the story would lose much of the meaning. Offred would become more of an individual rather than representing all the handmaid's, we wouldn't get to see things happen from a bystander, and lastly we would loose the showing of the deep oppression of women in the society of Gilead. Offred is a representation of all of the handmaids struggle. We as a reader never learn her birth name, only the name she has been given in Gilead. We learn very little about Offred and it leads the readers to feel disconnected from her. She is only a face in the crowd, the face of all handmaids. Even when talking...
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...In Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye, an unconventional theory is given about time. The protagonist, Elaine, describes time as being “not a line but a dimension” (Atwood 3) and something “You don’t look back along but down through like water” (3), where events are “like a series of liquid transparencies, one laid on top of another” (3) and nothing ever disappears in it. In the novel, Elaine is forever haunted by memories of Cordelia, a childhood friend who she was both adored and tormented by. Despite not having any contact with her for several decades, Elaine continues to see Cordelia in every female she encounters in her life, causing her to have trust issues with her daughters, strangers from work as well as herself. In Cat’s Eye, Cordelia is proof that “Nothing [ever] goes away” (3) in time. To begin with, Cordelia affects the way in which Elaine views her own daughters. When they reach the age of nine, Elaine begins to fear that she may hate them, as not only was it at this age that she herself met and was terrorized by Cordelia, but because she also sees Cordelia in their every action. For instance, when her daughters begin to respond with “So?”(268) to her, Elaine suddenly sees, not her children, but Cordelia in accurate detail, as if she is standing right in front of her, and is reminded about how “Cordelia did the same thing, at the same age” (268), with “The same folded arms, the same immobile face, the blank-eyed stare” (268). This mirrors the way in which, whenever Elaine...
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...SE2421 Contemporary Women’s Writing Week 5: 1 November 2011 Dr Becky Munford (munfordr@cardiff.ac.uk) Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) Language, bodies, desire [pic] Word games (1) ‘I didn’t know what it meant, or even what language it was in….Still, it was a message, and it was in writing, forbidden by that very fact, and it hadn’t yet been discovered. Except by me, for whom it was intended.’ (chapter 9, p. 62) (2) ‘So that’s what’s in the forbidden room! Scrabble!...Now it’s forbidden, for us. Now it’s dangerous. Now it’s indecent. Not it’s something he can’t do with his Wife. Now it’s desirable…We play two games. Larynx, I spell. Valance. Quince. Zygote. I hold the glossy counters with their smooth edges, finger the letters. The feeling is voluptuous. This is freedom, an eyeblink of it. Limp, I spell. Gorge. What a luxury. The counters are like candies, made of peppermint, cool like that. Humbugs, those were called. I would like to put them into my mouth. They would also taste of lime. The letter C. Crisp, slightly acid on the tongue, delicious.’ (chapter 23, p. 149) (3) Offred uses [scrabble] as a mirror for herself, as a way of hearing her own voice in an otherwise engulfing, enforced silence. Atwood uses it, I would suggest, as an image of the text, as a mise en abîme, in which one can see this autobiographical ‘tale’ as a Scrabble board on which we must also play. If we have trouble with the plotting of the narrative or the structure...
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...Relationships in Alias Grace The truth may not always be as black and white as it seems. In Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, the main character is immediately judged and harboured as a criminal. The book is about a woman, who, at the age of sixteen is tried in the court as an accomplice to a double murder. It is a true story that happened in Canada in the 1850`s. A lot of mystery surrounds the role she actually played in the murders because some of the facts do not add up. There are competing versions of the story, and Grace herself has no memory of the event. She confesses, but the story quickly reveals that her lawyer coerced her into giving the version of the story that he liked best. Meanwhile, Grace is prone to mental fits that no one understands, so countless doctors and clergymen examine her and come to differing conclusions; some are convinced that she is guilty, and others are convinced that she is innocent. One of the only things keeping Grace strong is her ability to connect with certain characters that are introduced into her life. The use of her qualities and strengths as a woman allows Grace the ability to hold onto certain relationships longer than others. Grace not only has the ability to draw people into her life, like Doctor Simon Jordan and Mary Whitney, but she is able to entice the reader in ways that others cannot and bring them in as her fascinated audience. To begin with, one of the main characters in Atwood’s novel, Alias Grace, is Doctor Simon...
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