One aspect of Atwood's writing which I found more interesting and intriguing
the deeper I analysed it, was her illumination of the theme I have labeled
as escapism. Atwood is an acute observer of human society and yet she presents
her perceptions in a beautifully poetic form. My creative component essentially
grew out of the knowledge and understanding of this theme that I gained
through completing my analytical component. I have tried to capture, in
a style not dissimilar to Atwood's, a young girls fantasy which is based
on my own experience in an all female environment at Ogilvie High School.
The narrator describes the changerooms after a physical education lesson,
and the story follows her pattern of thought as she imagines that she and
the other girls in her class are in a concentration camp, being put through
a sterilization process by a mysterious referred to a simply "they", before
being gassed.
By and large my novel's center on women...None of them are about miners
in the mines, seamen on the sea, convicts in the jail, the boys in the
backroom, the locker rooms at the football game…How come? Well, gee, I
don't know! Maybe because I am a woman and therefore I find it easier to
write as one.
Each story focuses on a different female character and explores her thoughts
and her reactions to her social environment. Throughout the collection
of stories there are a number of underlying themes that reveal Atwood's
insight and understanding of why men and women are different. These themes
include the questionable definitions of femininity proposed in society,
the idea of escapism through fantasy and the conflict that exists between
men and women.
One concept Atwood explores to explain the differences between men and
women is simply that there are biological differences between each gender.
This difference is highlighted throughout a number of the stories, significantly
in "Giving Birth". Atwood comments that for women there is some salvation
from a male dominated society in that, through the process of giving birth
a woman is allowed some connection with her body which men simply cannot
experience.
They still have some connection with their own bodies through the celebrated
woman's role…But some guy who is doing nothing but punching little holes
in cards all day, he has no connection with himself at all, and guys who
sit on their asses in an office all day have no contact with their own
bodies, and they are really deprived, they're functions, functions of a
machine.
Throughout the final story of the collection, Atwood examines the physical
process of "giving birth", the spiritual implications of creating a new
life and the significance of the term itself. "But who gives it," the story
begins, "and to whom is it given? Certainly it doesn't feel like giving…Thus
language, muttering in its archaic tongues of something, yet one more thing,
that needs to be re-named."
In this story Atwood creates an extraordinary interplay between fiction
and reality to allow the narrator to recapture her experience of birth
that is rapidly escaping into the irrecoverable past. As the narrator speaks
of her own commonplace existence and the solid reality of her child - "now
she's having her nap and I am writing this story", it becomes increasingly
evident that the story's protagonist, a pregnant woman called Jeannie,
is the narrator as she was before giving birth. The story itself is the
narrator's attempt to remember, "what it was like". "You may be thinking"
she says, "that I've invented Jeannie to distance myself from these experiences.
Nothing could be further from the truth. I am, in fact, trying to bring
myself closer to something that time has already made distant. As for Jeannie,
my intention is simple: I am bringing her back to life."
By bringing Jeannie "back to life". Atwood is able to resurrect the
experience whereby the narrator was transformed into her present self,
to describe Jeannie becoming "drifted over with new words," ceasing "to
be what she was", being "replaced, gradually, by someone else". The narrator
observes that "it was to me, after all, that the birth was given, Jeannie
gave it, I am the result". Finally defining the terms we use to describe
the experience of birth, explaining the process whereby she achieved a
new identity, the narrator thereby defines herself. Atwood questions the
mystery and miracle of the creative act she says, brings no "vision…no
special knowledge". But in the communion between mother and child - as
in the communion between narrator and reader - the creative act becomes,
nevertheless, an affirmation of life, an event that may change us into
something we have never been before.
Atwood maintains throughout the story that "girls can have babies and
boys can't" and suggests that this is one aspect that underlines the biological
difference between men and women. Yet Atwood also rejects society's proposal
that the process of "giving birth" as being significantly influential in
defining femininity - "I'm old enough to remember the time when women were
told they had to get pregnant and have babies in order to "fulfill their
femininity". And I didn't like that either". While giving birth is wonderful
for the women from whose point of view the story is told, Atwood also includes
the woman whom the narrator refers to as being a shadow figure for whom
giving birth is not wonderful. Atwood comments that while there is no word
in language for the concept of forced pregnancy, it still exists. Thus
the process of "giving birth' is an aspect of biological difference that
sets women apart from men, yet Atwood argues that it should not be influential
in the social definition of femininity.
Another concept Atwood explores to explain the differences between men
and women is the process of socialisation. Socialisation is a developmental
process whereby individuals learn and become aware of the patterns of behaviour
expected by society. Atwood suggests throughout the stories that society
is structured to function on the stereotypical models of masculinity and
femininity and thus many differences between men and women are a product
of the process of socialisation.
People use the term "real woman", but it doesn't have the same connotation
as "real man". If you're not a "real man" you're not a man. If you're not
a "real woman" - that is someone's idea of desirable femininity - you're
still a woman…Real woman may mean good woman or acceptable woman. But if
you're not a "real man", something's missing…Many of these distinctions
have been made by men.
Atwood examines this process throughout many of the stories and in doing
so reveals how socialisation differs for men and women through exposing
their different reactions to their social environment. Through various
stories including "Polarities", "When it Happens" and "A Travel Piece",
Atwood suggests that many women try to escape, through fantasy, the boundaries
of the stereotypes they have been socialised into.
"Polarities" plays out the increasingly evident madness of Louise, a
graduate teaching assistant, and the attempts by Morrison, an American
instructor who has been developing a relationship with Louise, to understand
her. Louise begins to question technology (in the form of the telephone)
and to develop the notion that structures can only be entered from a certain
direction ("I can't go through this door any more. It's wrong"). She gathers
up a small group of individuals, whom, she believes constitute a unifying
force, part of a "private system, in aphorisms and short poems which were
thoroughly sane in themselves but which taken together were not". They
in turn bring her to the hospital for treatment. For all her madness, Morrison
realises that "the only difference is that she's taken as real what the
rest of us pretend is only metaphorical." And he sees that her perception
of himself, contained in her notebook that he and the others spy through,
is, for all its exaggeration, accurate: "Morrison is not a complete person.
He needs to be completed, he refuses to admit his body is a part of his
mind. He can be in the circle possibly, but only if he will surrender his
role as a fragment and show himself willing to merge with the greater whole."
By the end of the story, Louise remains in the psychiatric ward of the
hospital, her mad vision shattered, and Morrison realising he loves her,
seeing the futility of his life, stares out into the frozen tundra that
suggests the coldness of his existence. Between the warm madness of Louise's
vision and the "chill interior" of Morrison's isolation, there is no connection
possible. The polarities remain.
In contrast to the mad visionary fantasies of "Polarities" are the more
terrifying fantasies that occur in "When It Happens" and "A Travel Piece".
In "When it Happens", we meet middle-aged Mrs Burridge, who while tending
to her rural ways, putting away her yearly pickles, contemplates the beginnings
of World War III and prepares, in her mind, images of herself, gun in hand
protecting her territory. Atwood ends the story benignly, however, as Mrs
Burridge is transported out of her fantasy and back into the daylight world
of her mundane kitchen. In "A Travel Piece" Annette, a free lance journalist,
undergoes a plane crash on the water: bewilderment over whether the crash
has really happened or exists only in Annette's drug-and-liquor-muddled
imagination is part of Atwood's strategy, as she examines a character to
whom "real events" never "happen" and whose articles tell similarly of
places "where all was well, where unpleasant things" do not occur. For
her, the crash may be at last a real event. And, though at first she feels
"it is as safe in this lifeboat as everywhere else", the story moves inexorably
to a horrifying conclusion, as Annette must decide whether she will participate
in an act of cannibalism which seems to define "what it means to be alive,"
in an act that for all its evil is also a "mundane" reality, "bathed…in
the ordinary sunlight she has walked in all her life".
Through her examination of the idea of escapism through fantasy as an
underlying theme of many of the short stories, Atwood establishes the suggestion
that women, in order to break free from the boundaries of their socialisation,
essentially create fantasy from the circumstance of their lives. Atwood
includes this to examine the difference in the socialisation process between
men and women and to essentially offer explanation as to why men and women
are different.
Atwood not only attempts to explain why there are differences between
men and women, but she also develops some of the results of this difference
through her exploration of the conflict that exists between men and women.
When asked do you think men and women can live together, Atwood replied
"Well they do live together. I don't know if this means that they can or
that they can not." Yet throughout the short stories Atwood proves to be
an acute observer of the eternal, universal relationships between men and
women.
The place where all the little Nazi's come out is likely to be personal
relationships.
Several stories - "Under Glass," "The Grave of the Famous Poet," "Hair
Jewellery," "The Resplendent Quetzal," "Lives of the Poets" - concentrate
on the conflicts between men and women. As Atwood says:
Love relationships between men and women involve power structures,
because men in this society have different kinds of, and more, power than
women do…Is it possible to have an equal exchange in a society where such
things aren't entirely equal?
In "The Grave of the Famous Poet", for example, the narrator analytically
surveys the battle ground that is her relationship with her lover, notes
that "we've had our quarrel,…the one we were counting on," and observes
their isolation from each other: "If there were separate buses we'd take
them. As it is we wait together, standing a little apart". "Under Glass"
tells of the ambiguous, sordid affair between the quasi-mad narrator and
her promiscuous partner, who has, on the eve of her moving in to the apartment
with him, made love to yet another woman. Reconciling herself, the narrator
thinks about the plants under a greenhouse she has visited, "the plants
that have taught themselves to look like stones"; and she wonders how long
it will take to transform herself into a stone also.
Atwood essentially leads the reader of Dancing Girls on a journey
of understanding surrounding Atwood's revelation and explanation as to
why men and women are different. Through her examination of gender difference
and the explanations found in her exploration of biological and sociological
processes, Atwood effectively develops universal themes including the definition
of femininity, escapism and conflict between men and women, which essentially
support her perceptions and prove her as capable of seeing connections
between apparently disparate circumstances.
Ingersoll-Earl.G., Margaret Atwood: Conversations, Virago Press, London,
1992, pg. 195
Ibid., pg.17
Atwood-Margaret., Dancing Girls, Vintage, London, 1996, pg. 225
Ibid., pg. 227
Ibid., pg. 229
Ibid., pg. 229
Ibid., pg. 240
Ibid., pg. 239
Ibid., pg. 239
Ingersoll-Earl.G., op. cit., pg.141
Ibid., pg. 142
Aspin-Lois.J., Focus on Australian Society, Longman, Australia, 1996,
pg. 14
Ingersoll-Earl.G., op. cit., pg. 102
Atwood-Margaret, op. cit., pg. 63
Ibid., pg. 69
Ibid., pg. 69
Ibid., pg. 69
Ibid., pg. 131
Ibid., pg. 138
Ibid., pg. 143
Ingersoll-Earl.G., op. cit., pg. 32
Ibid., pg. 31
Ibid., pg. 245
Atwood-Margaret, op. cit., pg. 98
Ibid., pg. 98
Ibid., pg. 87
Creative section - Dancing Girls
Lucy is watching as the rest of the class comes into the changerooms. All
the other girls are hyped up with the excitement of the previous lesson,
their fleshy pubescent bodies flushed pink, yet to become beautiful - but
beauty in the making all the same. She sits on the bench that runs along
the wall knowing if she is still and quiet, no one will notice her, perhaps
she may even blend into the bench and become like a flakey piece of the
peeling paint, just waiting to be brushed off into the air, floating, only
to fall to the ground and become the ever increasing amount of dust collecting
in the corners of the cold room.
At first she used to play their game. More pointedly she played by their
rules, she played hard and she played well. She had the skills and all
the moves, she could out manoeuvre the best of the girls. She even scored
the highest score on round three. But Lucy got sick of their game, so she
invented her own. Now she watches. Now she waits. She likes it, and has
learnt that she can be herself this way, that she doesn’t have to try to
be different, any better, any more special, any louder any funnier than
the girl standing next to her. Yet by refusing to participate in their
game she must face the consequences and in the midst of watching in the
change rooms she thinks, so this is what it will be like.
The room itself is a certain give away. The large cold room, with its
hard cement flooring, the big heavy doors that move so slowly, the lock
that they say is there for the purpose of property protection, yet she
knows its real purpose. The lack of natural light, the only sunlight let
in by two small high windows she knows are there to serve their perverted
pleasure. The glare of the artificial fluorescent globes makes her feel
sick as she thinks of what they will later watch through those windows.
She ponders the blatant insincerity of the room, the added feature bar
heaters that they say have never worked due to "technical failure". Their
effort to deceive the girls, to lull them into a false sense of security
has been quite successful as she marvels at the other girls in the room.
Why do they play their game she thinks? How could they possibly not understand?
Realising that the girls ignorance will add to their final pleasure, Lucy
feels like vomiting. She knows and understands how brutal they really are
a she looks towards the wall and sees the seemingly innocent symmetry of
the shower cubicles - their sinister plan is so obvious.
Lucy watches the other girls still high in spirit remove the outer layers
of their uniforms. As she too takes off the uniform, standing naked she
wonders who they will send in to collect the clothing discarded by the
girls. Will they collect it together and use it for the next group of girls
that they make play their game, she wonders.
One of the younger ones was sent in and Lucy saw how pathetic he was.
She almost feels sympathetic, but as she hands him her clothes she sees
the evil intent in his eye and wants so desperately to spit in his face.
The girls now naked, shower washing themselves clean from the effects
of the exercise of the previous lesson. She continues to watch as the other
girls squeal in great delight, frolicking in their naivety under the spray
of the showers.
She watches as another one enters the change rooms, clippers in hand,
and shaves off the girls locks that were one day to be so beautiful. As
her hair falls to the ground she wonders if they know that she understands.
That by refusing to play their game she has seen their plan. Perhaps not,
for they have not sent for her previously. How she hates them.
Soon the door will be deadlocked for the final time and the artificial
lights will glare no longer. She waits for their faces to appear at the
windows as they slowly release the gas.
