Many commend Margaret Atwood for her ability of depicting individual and worldly troubles of universal concern (Study Guide). Over thirty years, Atwood has written more than twenty volumes of verse, novels, and nonfiction. Although she is noted for all of these volumes, she is better known for her novels. In these work of fiction, themes such as feminism, mythology and power of language pervade. Margaret Atwood's immense talent for conveying the importance language through her characters can be seen in her writings such as The Handmaid's Tale.
Margaret Atwood was born on November 18, 1939 in Ottawa, Ontario. Much of her childhood was spent in northern Quebec with her father, who was doing research as an entomologist. These experiences in her early years provided material for later writings (Stein, 200). After graduating high school, Atwood attended the University of Toronto. It was at this university that she met the literary analyst Northrop Fry, who influenced her greatly (McHenry). She also studied Victorian literature in Cambridge at Radcliffe College and at Harvard. At the age of nineteen, she made her debut with a collection of poems called Double Persephone.
After her first publication, Atwood made a name for herself. Over the past three decades, she has written numerous works of poetry, nonfiction and fiction, including children's books, and short stories. Her writing often focuses on feminist issues and concerns, which she examines through multiple genres such as science fiction, Southern Ontario Gothic, comedy, and the ghost story (Davidson, 25). She continues to thrive as an author today that is known for her feministic themes in such novels as The Edible Woman and The Handmaid's Tale (Stein, 193). She currently lives with the writer Graeme Gibson and their daughter on a farm in Ontario (McHenry). Her most recent works of nonfiction include Negotiating With The Dead and Oryx & Crake.
Throughout her career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and several honorary degrees. These awards include the Canadian Governor General's Award, Le Chevalier dans l'Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, and the National Arts Club Medal of Honor for Literature. The Margaret Atwood society is an international association of scholars, teachers and students who share an interest in Atwood's work (Atwood). The main goal of the Society is to promote scholarly exchange of the writer's work by providing opportunities for scholars to exchange information (Atwood).
Through the characters of one of Atwood's best-known novels, The Handmaid's Tale, her concept of language, politics, power and creativity can be seen (Davidson, 26).
Margaret Atwood is famous for many things. She is a poet, novelist, story writer, essayist, and an environmental activist. Her books are usually bestsellers and have received high praises in the United States, Europe, and her native country, Canada. She has also received many Literary awards, like the Booker Prize, the Arthur C. Clarke Award, and the two Governor General’s Awards (“Margaret Atwood” Poetry). Through her books, she has written about what she sees in society towards women. She discusses how gender equality was corrupted in the past, but still is far from being reached, and women’s roles in society (“Spotty-handed”). Atwood also takes events in her life; like the Great Depression, Communism, and World War II; and applies it to her works. Margaret Atwood's works, including her novel The Handmaid's Tale, reflects women’s fight in equality, how society determines
The novel “The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood shows the way of life for women in the
Dystopian novels are a dime a dozen and the majority of them focus on the overuse of technology causing the demise of humanity. However, with The Handmaids Tale, written in 1986, Margaret Atwood uses her dystopian novel as a warning against patriarchal societies. Atwood’s novel portrays a world undone by pollution and infertility, reflecting 1980s fears about declining birthrates, environmental degradation and nuclear war during the Cold War. The novel was written shortly after the elections of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain, during a period of conservative revival that was partly fueled by a strong, well-organized movement of powerful religious conservatives who criticized what they perceived as the remnants of the “sexual revolution” of the 1960s and 1970s. The growing power of this “religious right” heightened feminist fears that the gains women had made in the previous few decades would be reversed ("Historical Context"). In The Handmaids Tale, Atwood portrays two distinct social classes through her choice of diction and uses her novel as an allegory for the treatment and perception of modern day women by conservative men.
...ce from men. Atwood is not a lone though, Alicia Ostriker attests to many female writers and poets changing the way language is used. Women are not just defined as weak, vulnerable, conniving, and evil, they can also be strong, intelligent, loving, and fierce. The Siren is a woman stuck in a stereotype but if set free, as contemporary women seek freedom, then she will show everyone a different character that they may have never imagined her to have.
Staels, Hilde. “Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale: Resistance Through Narrating.”Critical Insights (227-245) From English Studies 76.5 (1995): 455-464. Web. 10 Apr. 2014.
Feminism as we know it began in the mid 1960's as the Women's Liberation Movement. Among its chief tenants is the idea of women's empowerment, the idea that women are capable of doing and should be allowed to do anything men can do. Feminists believe that neither sex is naturally superior. They stand behind the idea that women are inherently just as strong and intelligent as the so-called stronger sex. Many writers have taken up the cause of feminism in their work. One of the most well known writers to deal with feminist themes is Margaret Atwood. Her work is clearly influenced by the movement and many literary critics, as well as Atwood herself, have identified her as a feminist writer. However, one of Atwood's most successful books, The Handmaid's Tale, stands in stark contrast to the ideas of feminism. In fact, the female characters in the novel are portrayed in such a way that they directly conflict with the idea of women's empowerment.
There are many female writers, some known better than other. Female writes most of the time focused their stories in experiences or personal point of view on what is going on around them. Other women write fiction of unusual worlds and character that people can relate to with the struggle or experiences. Margaret Atwood the “Canadian nationalist poetess is a prominebt figure concerned with the need for a new language to explore relations between subjects and society“ (Omid, Pyeaam 1). Atwood wrote her first novel called, “The Edible Woman”; this first novel categorized her as feminist, based on the main character of a strong woman. In an interview with Emma Brockes, Atwood affirms, "First of all, what is feminism? Second, which branch of it? Am I against women having rights? Actually, no. Am I really a puppet of the women's movement? No, I'm too old for that. I've been writing since 1956 and there was no women's movement in sight at the time”. Atwood does stands for women’s right but she never thought of being feminist while writing her stories. Atwood writes about strong women because just like any other female they are tired of reading about weak and submissive woman in books. Is clear that Atwood began writing before the woman movement started and that means she was ahead of her time. Atwood’s works is not just feminist her works represents her art and the way she feel about the world. Margaret Atwood is a poet, critic, novelist, and activist. Atwood’s stands for issues that trouble her and that she sees that are obstacles for her community. Through her entire writing career peoples can see that culture, science, feminism, and environment is reflected in her words and her expression to tell a story the only way she can. Her sho...
Bouson, J. Brooks. Margaret Atwood the robber bride, the blind assassin, Oryx and Crake. London: Continuum, 2010. Print.
‘The Handmaids Tale’ is a blunt warning to modern society, Atwood underlines that all the points in her novel have occurred in the world previously, and if propaganda establishes itself it could take place again.
One of Canada's foremost contemporary writers, Margaret Atwood is an internationally renowned poet, literary critic, novelist, humanitarian and political activist. Born in Ottawa, Ontario, in 1939, she spent most of her childhood in the Canadian wilderness. She has won praise and acclaim for her ability to incorporate humor, biting wit, irony and symbolism into her writing style. Her themes usually depict the very nature of human behavior and issues of power between men and women as it relates to society ("The Writer." New York Times). Her very first novel, The Edible Women, published in 1970, explored issues of oppression, self-identity and power, as it relates to the broader social content of contemporary urban life and the sexual politics involved. She further explores those issues in "Rape Fantasies" first published in Canada in 1979 in her book The Dancing Girls and Other Stories. "Rape Fantasies" has become one of Atwood's best known works as it explores the issues of power between men and women, highlighting women's fears of crime and victimization, where safety depends on the ability to find a medium between trust, suspicion, fear, and isolation ("I Just Don't Understand It." Gale).
Snodgrass, Mary Ellen. Cliff Notes on Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. Lincoln: Cliff Notes, Inc., 1994.
Neuman, Shirley. "'Just A Backlash': Margaret Atwood, Feminism, And "The Handmaid's Tale.." University Of Toronto Quarterly 75.3 (2006): 857-868. Academic Search Elite. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
...l E. "Margaret Atwood and the Poetics of Duplicity." The Art of Margaret Atwood. Ed. Arnold E. Davidson. Toronto: House of Anansi Press, 1981.
The Handmaid's Tale presents an extreme example of sexism and misogyny by featuring the complete objectification of women in the society of Gilead. Yet by also highlighting the mistreatment of women in the cultures that precede and follow the Gileadean era, Margaret Atwood is suggesting that sexism and misogyny are deeply embedded in any society and that serious and deliberate attention must be given to these forms of discrimination in order to eliminate them.
Postmodernism in art and literature includes many aspects that define a novel or piece of writing to be “postmodern”. A postmodern novel often leaves the reader ambiguous to some of the most obvious forms of literature, but this ambiguity serves a purpose to the postmodernism in the metafictional story that embeds the theme or the purpose of the novel. One of the greatest examples of postmodern fiction/literature would be The Handmaids Tale by Margret Atwood. Certain aspects of this novel allow this novel to be characterized as “postmodern”, this novel was also written in time when postmodernism was just on a moral zenith in people’s consciousness. The main narrative from of this novel