Roads Taken By Women Of Their Own Will Through By Margaret Atwood's Novels

Margaret Atwood is a contemporary Canadian writer who enjoys world popularity for her glorious literary contribution to English literature, and as an expert in poetry, novels, short stories, editing and literally review, she is one of the most important writers of the English language in the international literary circle. Outside of her native country, in USA, UK, Australia and China, Margaret is best known for her six powerful, feminist novels: and Lady Oracle, The Edible Woman, The Handmaid's Tale, Bodily Harm, Life Before Man, Surfacing.This paper selects three of the six novels(The Handmaid's Tale, Bodily Harm, The Edible Woman) in an effort to explore the road taken by women of their own will. This road, at the primary stage, starts with the generation of the female's self-consciousness. Margaret Atwood always depicts the cruel reality to remind women of their abject and miserable life and urge them to become self-consciousness. I choose two typical novels as the examples. In "Bodily Harm", women are merely sexual instruments, and in "The Handmaid's Tale", women are reduced to no more than an instrument to bear children. Facing unavoidable reality, the heroines finally raise their self-consciousness.The second stage is women's self-realization. I think the way of women's self-realization in Atwood's novel is "descent into the underground". In the Atwoodian edifice of symbolism, descent into the ground, into the dark, chaotic, and creative forces of the unconscious-the psychic topography that acts a vital part in the psychological evolution of Atwood's female protagonists. Varied forms as they are, they serve the same purpose for Margaret Atwood's heroines to seek ego in self-realization, a process to explore their souls. From the angle of symbolism, the heroines sink themselves into unconsciousness, return to imaginations unacceptable to the symbolic order, and acquire there the power to overcome psychological barriers. The heroines, in their experience of descenting into the underground, symbolically experience a battle against the symbolic order and acquire there the wisdom and power so that they can brave the threat from the male-dominance society and remold themselves.The third stage is self-selection. After the female realize the self-consciousness and obtain the power to fight against the male -dominance society, what on earth is the way out for women after their awakening? My answer is, self-selection. In my opinion, Margaret Atwood's depiction of three heroines in her first novel "The Edible Woman " has presented to modem women three living modes for self-selection, which are instructive to women today. My summary of the three modes is: Clara, the road to pursue traditions; Ainsley, the road d'avant-garde full of hardships and difficulties, and Marian, the road to break through and come back to herself. What we should pay special attention is that, the conventional childbearing of Clara has always been criticized, as women are not independent or not emancipated. In my opinion, the most important role of women in society is still to have children and propagate humanity, the society must respect such traditional roles, but at the same time, women should be independent persons, they have the rights to select the living mode by their own will.