Becoming a Trickster and Gaining Vision as Parts of the Survival Process in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing
Keywords:
Canadian literature, Trickster, Margaret Atwood, Surfacing, gaining vision, survival, visual imagery, victimizationAbstract
This article focuses on survival as a key pattern in Margaret Atwood’s novel Surfacing (1972) and explores the process the nameless narrator of the novel undergoes in order to reject her role of a victim and to fight for her survival as a complete, full-value human being. The first step in this process is becoming a trickster creature, as identified by Paul Radin in his monograph Trickster (1956) and the second is gaining vision, as described by Sharon R. Wilson in her essay “Blindness and Survival in Margaret Atwood’s Major Novels”.
References
Atwood, Margaret. Surfacing. London: Virago Press, 2008.
Atwood, Margaret. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Ltd., 2004.
Davies, Madeleine. “Margaret Atwood’s Female Bodies.” In The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood, edited by Coral Ann Howells, 58-71. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Hengen, Shannon. “Margaret Atwood and Environmentalism.” In The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood, edited by Coral Ann Howells, 72-86. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Howells, Coral Ann. “Introduction.” In The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood, edited by Coral Ann Howells, 1-11. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Radin, Paul. “Prefatory Note.” Trickster. New York: Schocken Books, 1972. xxiii-xxiv.
Wilson, Sharon R. “Blindness and Survival in Margaret Atwood’s Major Novels.” In The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood, edited by Coral Ann Howells, 176-187. New York: Cambridge University Press, 2006.
Wilson, Sharon R. “Introduction.” In Margaret Atwood’s Textual Assassinations, edited by Sharon R. Wilson, xi-xv. Columbus: Ohio University Press, 2003.
