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Identity Margaret at Wood

The document discusses a character's search for identity and struggle to find herself in the modern world. It explores themes of the modern world versus nature, feminism, and national identity. The character feels disconnected from her name and identity and seeks to reconnect with nature, where she is able to gain a deeper understanding of herself.

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Mai Munin
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36 views1 page

Identity Margaret at Wood

The document discusses a character's search for identity and struggle to find herself in the modern world. It explores themes of the modern world versus nature, feminism, and national identity. The character feels disconnected from her name and identity and seeks to reconnect with nature, where she is able to gain a deeper understanding of herself.

Uploaded by

Mai Munin
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as DOC, PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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IDENTITY – MAI

When reading about somebody’s search for identity we can reflect upon our own lives and
ponder if there is something that we are missing or we can fully identify with the character’s
struggles. //The main theme of this novel is the character search of her self-identity. This can
be seen in the following quote
“Joe comes up the steps, shouting; Anna shouts too, shrill, like a train whistle before
departure, my name. It’s too late; I no longer have a name. I tried for all those years to be civilized
but I’m not and I’m through pretending.”
Here there is a constant dissociation with her name – we realize that our Narrator. It’s an
unnamed protagonist of Surfacing. She is in search of gaining back her identity
 The modern world vs Nature
Our character is struggling to find her true identity in a corrupted modern world that is
outside of nature. She realizes that she is not cut out for living in the city. And during her
stay at her father’s house there she is able to connect on a deeper level with nature which
allows her to gain back her power. For instance, diving into the lake acts as a mirror for
herself to see the reality. Nature offers her something completely different 
 The journey makes her revise the memory of her unhappy past:
The narrator struggles to accept her father’s death. At the beginning she thinks he is alive,
probably insane.  And our character strongly denies the possibility of him being dead. In
the act of looking for him she starts consciously recovering some parts of her identity.
 Feminism 
    1. Our character doesn’t like to be imposed. She is aware that women in her hometown
are called Madam; they don’t have a name, therefore, and identity. Ex. These madams
spend their lives living there and raising children. 
    2. The character’s fashion style is pretty simple for her social impositions have no weight
in her life but they do to her friend. Ex. Anna wears makeup but she doesn’t. When looking
at the Magazines, models are wearing a lot of makeup and being dressed with few cloths.
She considers that these women are zoo animals. 
    3. She is not afraid to speak her mind. Ex. Anna can’t disagree with David but our
narrator says what she wants. As well, as an act of rebellion with the guys she destroys the
film knowing the consequences she will have to face.

NATIONAL IDENTITY – we can learn and compare about the struggles of other countries. Glocally
“I can’t believe i am on this road again, twisting along the past where the  white birches are
dying, the disease is spreading up from the south  and I notice now they have sea planes for hire.”
(Page 10 from the PDF file).
“Madame, makes the tea on the new electric stove, a blue ceramic Madonna with pink
child hanging above it ; when I glimpsed the stove on my way through the kitchen I felt betrayed,
she should have remained loyal to her wood range” (Page 21 from the PDF file)//Atwood packs
Surfacing with images of Americans invading and ruining Canada. ... Atwood depicts American
expansion as a result of psychological and cultural infiltration. / The narrator calls Americans a
brain disease, linking American identity to behaviors rather than nationality. /She pioneered the
Canadian nationalist ideology of preserving the indigenous culture from American infiltration by
depicting the local Canadians with American living and Americanization of the Canadian resources
as a matter of looting their identity (robbing the natives). By depicting the process of how this
draining of culture, identity and economic resources is done, Margaret is invoking national
consciousness among the Canadian readers and at the same time making the non Canadian
readers aware of her plight (an unpleasant condition, esp. a serious, sad, or difficult one).

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