Reflection Of The Prejudiced Lower Class, By Margaret Atwood

In the 1900’s females only had two roles; raising children and remaining uninvolved in male dominated industries. It was not until 1920 when Congress ratified the right for women to vote after extensive boycotting and many deaths due to their dogged determination. Even so, the remolded perspective of women as workers and avid political participants would never attain the equal gender standards held by men. Although most cultures today accept females as prominent members of society, discrimination dates back to ancient Greece in epics such as the Odyssey, a glorified account of a journey through the depths of hell, and oblivious damsels in distress. However, the public eye would never see poor women fated into lives of sexual and verbal abuse with unjust prejudicial treatment due to their social class and gender. Nevertheless, Margaret Atwood takes into account the second perspective of the prejudiced lower class by extracting the Chorus’s function of edifying the audience of the lower classes’s suffering. In order for the audience to gain a sense of compassion and respect for the sufferers, Atwood utilizes the traditional Greek Chorus to make her point that because the upper class selfishly values their reputation over helping the less fortunate, people often discriminate against those who will damage their ego and status.

Atwood utilizes the Chorus by bridging the gap between the plot and the audience to catch them between two opposing forces; suffering due to prejudice and a lack of compassion from the upper class, and selfish valuing of reputation. Atwood uses Penelope’s egotistic side by giving insight to the lives of the maids and hoping for the audience to gain respect for them. When the maids relationships with the suitors...

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...op the chorus’s prominent role of edifying the audience of the truth behind the sumptuous life of the upper class, but also seeks to engrave compassion for the less fortunates.

Throughout the Penelopiad, Atwood extensively conveys the Chorus’s depressing point of view on their lives and how egotistic society concerned with reputation discriminates against those who are less privileged. However Atwood never explains why it’s important the audience recognizes this. When humans discriminate, social exclusivity is creating causing others to feel alienated, disconnected and cut off from others resulting in lack of self-esteem and loneliness. Atwood utilizes the universal theme that discrimination is wrong because humans need to feel a sense of belongingness in order for culture and race to flourish. People are more likely to be accepting when they are loved and accepted.