Surfacing by Margaret Atwood
In "Surfacing," by Margaret Atwood, the unnamed protagonist acquires a radical perception of reality that is developed through an intense psychological journey on the island that served as her childhood home. Truth can be taken from the narrator's viewpoint, but the reader must explore the inner turmoil plaguing her in order to understand the basis of such beliefs. The narrator's perception of reality can be deemed reliable once all of these factors are understood; however, throughout the novel Atwood develops many unseen connections that are essential to such and understanding. Once the reader is able to understand the basis of the narrator's perception of reality, it is then possible to receive and accept Margaret Atwood's stance on the role of women and nature and, thus, discover the underlying meanings of the novel.
The narrator returns home to an unforgotten place that is gradually being taken over by the diseased culture of the "Americans." At this point in the novel the narrator feels as if she has allowed herself to fall under the control of man and hence has, too, like nature, been a victim of the "American" culture. Although it is not yet clearly evident, it can be inferred when she makes first light of the situation. The baby was "my husband's, he imposed it on me, all the time it was growing in me I felt like an incubator. He measured everything he would let me eat, he was feeding it on me, he wanted a replica of himself." With this in mind, it is quite understandable why the narrator feels contempt towards the "Americans." Perhaps, she relates her husband's masculinity and need to control her to the "Americans" need to disrupt and manipulate nature. Thus, it is hypothesized, that as t...
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...ain with nature. She is now pure.
The narrator's perception of reality is constantly developed throughout the novel. She returns to her childhood home in the same state as she was when she left, but she undergoes a complete transformation in which she discovers the true essence of her reality. Although she becomes psychotic and withdrawn, she eventually arrives at a logical and reliable perception of reality. Nature leads her to the ultimate state of purity and acts as a psychiatrist to pinpoint the torments of her soul. Margaret Atwood uses the narator's experiences during the week at the lake in order to stake the main argument of the book. By relating examples of senseless acts against nature with the defamation of women, Atwood helps the reader understand the problems that are embedded in society and the "American" culture.
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Surfacing
The main female characters of Their Eyes Were Watching God, and Seraph on the Suwanee, move from oppression to liberation throughout the course of the novel. Their journey to find their own “niche” in life occurs via their relationships with men. For Janie, her relationships with dominant male figures stifle her identity as well as her ability to achieve self-actualization. For Arvay Meserve, her personal background and relationship with her authoritarian husband cause miscommunication and thus prevent her from personal growth and awareness. In both cases, a hurricane is the mechanism through which both women find their identities and place in life.
In looking back upon his experience in Auschwitz, Primo Levi wrote in 1988: ?It is naïve, absurd, and historically false to believe that an infernal system such as National Socialism (Nazism) sanctifies its victims. On the contrary, it degrades them, it makes them resemble itself.? (Primo Levi, The Drowned and the Saved, 40). The victims of National Socialism in Levi?s book are clearly the Jewish Haftlings. Survival in Auschwitz, a book written by Levi after he was liberated from the camp, clearly makes a case that the majority of the Jews in the lager were stripped of their human dignity. The Jewish prisoners not only went through a physical hell, but they were psychologically driven under as well. Levi writes, ??the Lager was a great machine to reduce us to beasts? We are slaves, deprived of every right, exposed to every insult, condemned to certain death?? (Levi, 41). One would be hard pressed to find passages in Survival in Auschwitz that portray victims of the camp as being martyrs. The treatment of the Jews in the book explicitly spells out the dehumanization to which they were subjected. It is important to look at how the Jews were degraded in the camp, and then examine whether or not they came to embody National Socialism after this.
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The Ones Who Walked Away from Omelas is a short story written by Ursula Le Guin. In her story, Le Guin creates a model Utilitarian society in which the majority of its citizens are devoid of suffering; allowing them to become an expressive, artistic population. Le Guin’s unrelenting pursuit of making the reader imagine a rich, happy and festival abundant society mushrooms and ultimately climaxes with the introduction of the outlet for all of Omelas’ avoided misfortune. Le Guin then introduces a coming of age ritual in which innocent adolescents of the city are made aware of the byproduct of their happiness. She advances with a scenario where most of these adolescents are extremely burdened at first but later devise a rationalization for the “wretched one’s” situation. Le Guin has imagined a possible contemporary Utilitarian society with the goal to maximize the welfare of the greatest number of people. On the contrary, Kant would argue that using the child as a mere means is wrong and argue that the living conditions of the child are not universalizable. The citizens of Omelas must face this moral dilemma for all of their lives or instead choose to silently escape the city altogether.
Early on, the man orders “two Anis del Toro” (Hemingway, 390). This is used by many, especially writers, as a method of sweeping your problems under the rug. In this case, the American was doing was potentially anchoring the girl down with him. The man is not paying attention to her and could just be trying to forcibly mesh her into his life. This consequently leads to the girl getting annoyed of the man saying that all they do is “look at things and try new drinks” (Hemingway 397). There is something more to this life is what her mind tells her, but the at-ease attitude of her boyfriend doesn’t coincide well with that. To be blunt, the girl craves change, and it is uncertain whether or not the American man can provide that now or ever. The man just sits there and says that all will be good once this issue is taken care of, so this annoys the girl. She is tired of this cultural mirage and living in another person’s fantasy. The man sees a child being born not as the next step in his life but a methodical bump in the road. We can confirm this when he says that the clouds do not look like white elephants and then “drank his beer” to further ignore the obvious shot at him for continuing to ignore the fact that there is a creature inside her
She is a seventeen year old in her prime who feels immortal because she has a long life to live, therefore decision making are not based on careful planning but emotions, peer pressure and fantasies. Risk taking from a teenager normally comes from poor judgement, why would America take the decision of leaving the comfort of her home to go to a country which is mainly travelled by the men in her town? Why did she leave with the most unlikely candidate, her brother-in-law? In adversity her first yearn was for her mother’s touch, her food and her home, the fragile little girl in her cries for a mother touch when times are hard because that’s what she is used to, mom handling the
Margaret Atwood’s novel, Alias Grace, nominated for the Arthur Ellis Award for Best Novel, depicts a young 16 year old girl who is found guilty of murdering her employer and his lover in conspiracy with James McDerrmott. James McDermott is put to death by hanging, but Grace is brought to prison because she is of the “weaker sex.” This is a reflection of the construction of femininity and masculinity of the mid and late nineteenth century. A social issue of the Victorian age was women being treated as subordinate to men. Queen Victoria says, “Victorian ideology of gender rested on the belief that women were both physically and intellectually the inferior sex”(YILDIRIM). Women were seen as highly susceptible to becoming mentally ill because of this belief. Women were subject to only be “housewives.” The novel, Alias Grace, accurately shows the construction of this gender identity through society, sexuality, and emotion while challenging it through Grace’s mother and Mrs. Humphrey.
In “Good People” by David Foster Wallace and Ernest Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants,” two young couples are faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Sheri Fisher may be sympathetic because Lane Dean Jr. gives her little input in a decision within their discussions, he is unsure as to whether or not he loves her, and because Sheri has made big plans for her life ahead before the unplanned pregnancy. I contend that Jig deserves more sympathy because the American is persistent in his persuasion toward the operation, his love is unjustified, and because Jig has not made plans for her life with or without the child.
Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” is an Author’s telling of societal beliefs that encompass the stereotypical gender roles and the pursuit of love in the middle class with dreams of romance and marriage. Atwood writes about the predictable ways in which many life stories are concluded for the middle class; talking about the typical everyday existence of the average, ordinary person and how they live their lives. Atwood provides the framework for several possibilities regarding her characters’ lives and how each character eventually completes their life with their respective “happy ending”.
Margaret Mitchell’s epic tale is impossible to dissolve down to a “brief” description. Her story is the War and Peace of Southern Literature. It is a tale of extremes and contrasts, telling the tragic story of peaceful affluence destroyed by the ravages of war and the destitution and desolation of its aftermath. It is a love story that examines the motivations of the heart contrasted against the will to survive. It is a story of the destruction of an aristocratic society and its disintegration from nobility, honor and hope to humility, disgrace and despair. It is a historical novel and graphic retelling of the Civil War and the Reconstruction of the South as well as a journal of the human side of those events as it recounts the characters struggles to adapt as their lives and their world crumbles. Gone with the Wind is a literary classic that gives the reader a compelling history wrapped in a thrilling romance. Mitchell recreates an idyllic Antebellum Society complete with simpering Southern Belles and Noble Gentlemen, grand plantations and vast fields of cotton, privileged white land-owners contrasted against the poverty of captive black slaves. She details a horrific reenactment of the bloody clash between the Southern Rebels and the Northern Yankees, then like the Phoenix, she raises the South from its own ashes to a new, but very different way of life. Somehow in this rich and vibrant historical tale she manages to bring her equally rich and vibrant character’s lives along the same metaphorical path of affluence, destruction and survival in a mesmerizing account that is the stuff of legend.
Gretel Ehrlich describes her move to Wyoming as awakening from a nap, satisfied in her new home she becomes absorbed in its tranquility and indifference. She is reborn, starts anew and creates a new life for herself. Ehrlich even cut her hair and buys new clothes to create a "new" and different person. To read and understand this essay means looking deeper into the author's story of rebirth, and how the big Wyoming skies were healing and put things into perspective for her. Thus, improving her quality of life without any fillers or distractions.
The American Man is manipulating her into thinking this unborn child will destroy their lives and their love for each other. He doesn’t want something to tie himself to her nor want a child. In one peer view of the short story, it states “Their silly interaction of the need to protect their freedom does not justify their first need for woman.” (Susanty). He is making life without him will be a miserable one, yet he knows that she would do it to be with him. The way he talks to her is enticing her into making this decision. The American Man says “I’ll go with you and I’ll stay with you all the time. They just let air in and then it’s all perfectly natural.” (Hemingway 3). He’s words of comfort are uncover words of controlling her mindset into
of a boy named Tom. In this story Tom gives a recount of the past
In the story "The Open Boat," by Stephen Crane, Crane uses many literary techniques to convey the stories overall theme. The story is centered on four men: a cook, a correspondent, Billie, an oiler who is the only character named in the story, and a captain. They are stranded in a lifeboat in stormy seas just off the coast of Florida, just after their ship has sunk. Although they can eventually see the shore, the waves are so big that it is too dangerous to try to take the boat in to land. Instead, the men are forced to take the boat further out to sea, where the waves are not quite as big and dangerous. They spend the night in the lifeboat and take turns rowing and then resting. In the morning, the men are weak and exhausted. The captain decides that they must try to take the lifeboat as close to shore as possible and then be ready to swim when the surf inevitably turns the boat over and throws the men into the cold sea. As they get closer to land a big wave comes and all the men are thrown into the sea. The lifeboat turns over and the four men must swim into shore. There are rescuers waiting on shore who help the men out of the water. Strangely, as the cook, captain and correspondent reach the shore safely and are helped out of the water, they discover that, somehow, the oiler has drowned after being smashed in the surf by a huge wave. (255-270) “The Open Boat’s” main theme deals with a character’s seemingly insignificant life struggle against nature’s indifference. Crane expresses this theme through a suspenseful tone, creative point of view, and a mix of irony.