Margaret Atwood Feminist Literature

This essay proves that graduating students in Ontario should only study literature in a Grade 12 English course. While good writers exist in all cultures, Ontario students should only study literature written by Canadian writers. This is because all Ontario students should become familiar with literature from our province. Three reasons for this are; the need to focus on our own Canadian culture and despite being surrounded by many other cultures, the need to promote and establish our own writers is there, as well as the need to encourage younger Canadian authors.

Atwood displays her feelings about not only the art of creative writing, but also the equally artistic act of living one's life to the

First of all, Margaret Atwood is well known for writing fiction with strong female characters that critics categorize her as feminist. Her initial works, ”The Edible Woman”, “Dancing Girls”, “The Robber Bride”, and “The Handmaid’s Tale” are some of examples of her works that are categorize as feminist. Those novels of strong woman describe, “The main characters variously indulge in self-invention, self-mythologising, role-playing, and self-division, while identity is presented as unstable and duplicitous throughout the novels” (McCarthy 3). Atwood has that unique style to describe her characters. She elucidates the woman as their own self to invent their life and their environment through the entire novel. Atwood has a twisted technique for giving her work a jubilant name when the words describe the opposite. One example of that is her short story collection, “Dancing Girls”, Atwood, “bears a surprisingly joyful title for a series of narratives shot through with anxiety and fear, with images of death, deformity, lifelessness and contained rage” (Murray 1). Atwood has an incredible way to write stories where the characters go through gruesome obstacles or experiences that define

Throughout American Literature, women have been depicted in many different ways. The portrayal of women in American Literature is often influenced by an author's personal experience or a frequent societal stereotype of women and their position. Often times, male authors interpret society’s views of women in a completely different nature than a female author would. While F. Scott Fitzgerald may represent his main female character as a victim in the 1920’s, Zora Neale Hurston portrays hers as a strong, free-spirited, and independent woman only a decade later in the 1930’s.

She is a poet, story writer, novelist, environmental activist, and an essayist. (“Margaret Atwood.” Poetry Foundation) Atwood was born on November 18,1939 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. ("Margaret Atwood." Britannica School) She began writing at age five up in “bush country” or northern Canada with her father who was an entomologist. ("Margaret Atwood." Britannica School) She completed university studies at Victoria College and the University of Toronto and then earned her master’s in English literature at Radcliffe College. ("Margaret Atwood." Britannica School) She then went on to teach English literature at multiple universities. ("Margaret Atwood." Britannica School) Governor General’s Award, Booker Prize, and the Arthur C Clarke Award are just some of the few awards she has received. (“Margaret Atwood.” Poetry

The 1970s was a period of growth in the women’s rights movement: “By 1970, second-wave feminists had inspired women and men… Whether in politics, in the media, in academia or in private households, women’s liberation was a hot topic of the day.”1 Furthermore, it was an inspiring period where people from all around the world were coming together to fight for women’s rights. The growth was also popular in Canada in particular: “Canadian women have participated in many social movements, both on their own, and allied with men. Feminism, or the belief that women have been historically disadvantaged and this ought to change, inspired much engagement and action.”2 One of the people inspired by this engagement was Canadian poet Nancy Senior, who explains the desire for the movement in her satirical poem, “St. George.”

The author, Margaret Atwood demonstrates the theme that in a violent isolated world, feminism is despised by the offended society, the inhuman treatment that women received may lead to physical and psychological perils; conversely, one’s firm belief could embody hope and reveal a precise future. Atwood uses irony to impart the theme. Significantly, the protagonist Offred feels she increasingly losing control of her body as “ an instrument, of pleasure” (Atwood 84). But the infinite emptiness inside her can never swap out the

Atwood begins her speech with an anecdote and quotes this famous nursery rhyme to gain a personal connection with her audience and to introduce the subject of her speech – women in literature. Atwood established herself as a controversial writer, bringing her radical views such as feminism to the centre of

Margaret Atwood is the Canadian author of "Death by Landscape" which is a short story pulled from her novel, Wilderness Tips. This story highlights a huge problem in today's society, teenage suicide. Wilderness Tips was published in 1991, which is during the time of suicide "clusters" in the teenage population. These so called clusters began in the late 80's. Some experts indicate that suicide has always been a problem but was never seriously acknowledged until the late 1980's. Ms. Atwood incorporated this real life epidemic in her short story. Margaret Atwood is known for her effort to discuss real life matters in her writings. She believes that expressing oneself is not the goal to

There are many companies in the world today that put an idea of this perfect female body into the heads of women. These images lead to a faulty standard men hold of women and their bodies and that women strive to become. Margaret Atwood addresses the issue of the way men view the female body by writing her essay in the viewpoints of a male so the reader can better understand how the expectation men have of the female body is unrealistic. First, she uses an allusive comparison to show the male expectation of the female body and how it is objectified as if it were a doll that comes with accessories. Next, she uses an anecdote with defamiliarization to show how the way the father views a Barbie doll and the way it portrays the female body to young girls is hypocritical. Lastly, Margaret Atwood uses insidious diction to talk about how men not only view the female body as a product but how they also use the female body as a product which can be sold amongst businessmen. In The Female Body, Margaret Atwood uses many rhetorical devices to convey how the female body is viewed through the eyes of men.

Throughout her many years as a poet, Margaret Atwood has dealt with a variety of subjects within the spectrum of relationship dynamics and the way men and women behave in romantic association. In much of her poetry, Atwood has addressed the topics of female subjugation in correlation with male domination, individual dynamics, and even female domination over males within the invisible boundaries of romantic relationships. With every poem written, Atwood's method for conveying the message of the poem has remained cryptic. She uses a variety of poetic devices - sometimes layered quite thickly - to communicate those themes dealing with human emotion. In the poem, Siren Song, Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poet and novelist. She was born in 1939 in Ottawa, Canada and has written over forty fiction books in addition to poems and critical essays (2013-17, Margaret atwood biography). Her book of poetry, The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970) was inspired by a dream Atwood had of Susanna Moodie. Moodie was an English writer who immigrated to Canada in 1832 with her husband in order to secure a better life for her growing family. Atwood had read Moodie’s book Roughing It In The Bush prior to her dream that inspired her to write her own book of poetry about the immigrant woman. Moodie’s book is centered around six various stories that she wrote at different points in her life. Similarly, Atwood broke her book of poetry

Feminist theory began in the late 18th century, the main goal was to diminish sexism in society and create equality for men and women. Throughout the years, women have succeeded in gaining equal rights. Unfortunately, there are still issues today. For instance, women are paid 78% of what men are paid. One novel that portrays the argument of Feminism is House of Spirits by Isabel Allende. To begin with, Men are characterized as violent and destructive beings while women are forgiving and possess magic. All the women in the book have names that mean light. Finally, the men in the book have all the power while women remain submissive.

When we talk about the “theme of survival” in literature, we should not forget the contribution of Margaret Atwood for the Canadian indentity. Margaret Atwood had written a literary criticism book named ‘Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature’. According to her theories, Margaret Atwood considers Canadian Literature as the expression of Canadian identity. According to this literature, Canadian identity has been defined by a fear of nature, by settler history and by unquestioned adherence to the community.

Atwood constantly pits civilization against the wilderness surrounding it and society against the savagery from which it arose. She considers these oppositions to be some of the defining principles of Canadian literature. They also provide a metaphor for the divisions within the human personality. Society, civilization, and culture represent the rational, contained side of humanity, while the wild forest represents the very opposite: the irrational, primeval, and carnal impulses that exist in every living being. In The Animals in That Country, Atwood dramatizes the civilized urge to ignore the wildness lurking just over the horizon: in “Progressive Insanities of a Pioneer,” she captures this theme with particular vividness: “In the darkness the fields / defend themselves with fences / in vain: / everything / is getting in.” Atwood elaborates on the uselessness of defending oneself against the wilderness in The Journals of Susanna Moodie, an account of a European immigrant’s struggles to navigate the wildernesses of Canada, her adopted home. Almost every poem deals with this tension in some form. In “This is a photograph of me,” the serene natural setting presents a startling contrast to the human tragedy it masks. The glossy “[m]ountains and lakes and more lakes” depicted on the wall in “At the Tourist Centre in Boston” succeed only in reminding the viewer of the gritty reality beneath the pictures. In “Siren Song,” the jagged cliffs pulverize carefree sailors, who are in,