On The Female Images In Margaret Atwood's Novels

Margaret Atwood (1939-), acknowledged as the most prominent figure in contemporary Canadian literature, is a poet, novelist, critic and short story writer, and the author of about 40 literary works. Her reputation is credited by both literary critics and mass readers throughout the world, and wins many literary honors including the 2000 Booker Prize, Giller Prize and Governor General's Award. Atwood is a witty author who casts a close eye over society and presents us with more fiill human experience through her expressive writing. As an author with superior writing skills and an insightful perception of real life, Atwood through her works, has made valuable explorations about the survival of modern Canadians, especially Canadian women. Her Canada-set novels share her other works' theme of personal identity in conflict with society from the second half of the 19th century to the beginning of the 21st century in Canada, and demonstrate her poetic imagery, ironic wit and rational reflection. Up to now, Atwood has published 11 novels, and most of her novels are written from the perspective of women in the modern western world. She constantly focuses her attention on these aspects of women's lives: their dilemmas and choices, their perplexities and breakthroughs, their explorations and survivals. In the world of her fiction, the group portraits of female images especially merit our concern anddiscussion. Atwood creates a great number of female characters, many of whom often take a traditional role and feel alienated in male dominated culture. The protagonists are intelligent women, and well educated in most cases. They are gaming increased self-knowledge from their special female experiences and through their rich, active and insightful reflection on various social phenomena.In her first novel The Edible Woman (1969), Atwood vividly shows not only the lives of women in the 1960s of Canada, but also her concern and meditation on women's survival. The three characters, Clara, Ainsley and Marian, synchronically represent three models of female images, and further indicate the three stages of the female's diachronic questing life. Therefore, the female images in this novel are of prototypical significance for the other characters in her following fictions, as they revive their lives in different stories with characteristic essences in the core. Through the analysis of the three types of female characters, this thesis aims at clarifying the process of woman's reconstruction for liberation: from meek submission and oppression in patriarchal order, to suspicion and exploration of her self-identity, and finally breaking the confining force and confirming her autonomy as an active individual. The female images in The Edible Women will be given detailed analysis from social, historical and cultural perspectives, with Marian, the developing image as the first positive alternative for the female protagonists, as sheexperiences the "lost- rebel- reconstruction" mode. In addition, more female images in Atwood's other novels are discussed for illustration, including the innominate female protagonist in Surfacing (1972), Offred in The Handmaids Tale (1986), and Grace in Alias Grace (1996). These characters show the brilliant contribution Atwood has made to the characterization of female images.Chapter One focuses on the depiction of the female characters who get lost in the consuming hedge of family. With their marginal status, the subordinate images of women are presented in the family and the wider social background as the basic concern. Thus the entrapment, neglect and suppression of patriarchal value and force are brought under scrutiny and criticism. In traditional society, as is always conveyed in literature, "the angel in the house"[1] has long been the ideal female image advocated by patriarchy and adhered to by women. Some social, historical and cultural backgrounds contribute to this stereotype: the long established patriarchal values that have shaped people's mind, both male and female, encouraging w...