Exploration On Multiple Meanings Of The Images Of Drowning In Atwood's Fiction

Margaret Atwood is a famous Canadian woman novelist,poet and critic who has written a lot of wonderful works since 1960s. She also won a lot of literary awards, due to which she got the reputation of"the queen of Canadian literature". So far, she has got 11 novels, 5 short stories, 14 anthologies and 3 literature critic collections published. Atwood's works mainly give concern to three aspects including feminism,nationalism and ecologism. The three subjects are not seperated from each other, but have close links instead. What combines them is that Atwood ponders her nation's survival problem based upon female individual life. Atwood's fiction writing manifests unique techniques and skills, which mainly benefit from the wide use of stream of consciousness, unreliable narrator, the open-ended, metafiction, parody, irony etc.that belong to artistic skills of modernism and postmodernism. The essence of thought hidden behind the solemn subjects is further displayed via novel techniques and vanward forms. Deeply influenced by archetypal criticism master Northrop Frye, Atwood takes great interest in fairy tale and thoughts of prototype. Atwood's literary achievements primarily lie in her 11 novels which show her profound thoughts about women, individual, society and nation, indicating an author's responsibility as well as strong faith in society. The author's strong sense of mission for the nation and country reveals clearly between the lines in Atwood's novels.This thesis will proceed with Atwood's fiction, and analyze the rich meanings in her fiction writing according to the image of drowning. It is divided into three chapters.Chapter one mainly analyzes the meanings of image in a systematic and comprehensive manner with the combination of cultures of both China and western countries. This chapter also explores the prototype of drowning image, seeks out its source and inheritance in the long history of western literature, depicts the image of drowning's use in writers'works in all ages, and summarizes Atwood's adoption of drowning image in her fiction.Chapter two discusses the multiple meanings of the images of drowning which appear frequently in Atwood's fiction writing according to the Unconscious Theory, Frye's Prototype Theory and psychological knowledge, in order to set forth the deep-seated meanings behind the images.The meaning of drowning is that it provides a special way for women as a social group to make choice of returning self and remodeling self after confronting life dilemma in modern society. Atwood'purpose of using the image of drowning is beyond the former aspect by all appearances. She starts thinking with female in itself, then her thought extends from individual to group, from group to Canadian as a nation. She reflects on the history of Canada, and looks forward to its future as a scholar whose heart is full of social mission and responsibility, at the same time probes the Canadian's collective self-bewilderment and considers the way of establishing national consciousness as well as national culture attribute.This is what Atwood wants to express by means of the image of drowning secondly. Margaret Atwood, who pays great attention to individual life, who deeply knows human common sense, shows female's (also including male) value judgement and everlasting probe for drowning, which makes up of the third meaning on the image of drowning in Atwood's fiction.Chapter three mainly demonstrates the reasons why Margaret Atwood adopted lots of drowning images in her fiction writing. The analysis of attribution primarily involves intrinsic motivation and external motivation. As for internal reasons, the author's growth experience and her attitude on feminism are something relevant. In regard with external reasons,the effect of Frye's prototype theory,female symbolic meaning and metaphor significance of water image, and the ideological trend of self-growth fiction during the process of Canadian literature are just in point. Thus, the reasons why Atwood put drowning images frequently in use lie in several sides. Among these factors, there are not only mental disposition which derives from life experience and thinking/cognition of the author, but also the tradition of western culture, literary criticism theory and trend of the times.The meanings of drowning image in Atwood's fiction are rather multiple, which point not only to the difficult progress and particular way of women's self retrieve, self returning and self reconstruction, but also to the ingrained colonial ideology in Canadian people's cockles of the heart and the lacks of national self, self consciousness and the mindset of self-contempt because of the former aspect,which therefore show Atwood's value judgment of deaths from drowning and the primitive impulse to return to the matrix-earth. As the source of life, water becomes the only chance to release from the pattern of authority, becomes the indirect path of self growing, secret aisle of self retrieval and secret harbour of giving warmth to heart. In the ultimate sense, water is the restart and fulfillment of self and life.Whether the female protagonists are alive or dead, whether the destiny waiting for them is survival or to depart to the world of shadows,the quality of their lives has undergone fundamental changes, while the construction of national self consciousness and attribute can also be the case.