Margaret Atwood
British Irish and commonwealth Poets
● She is a novelist, poet, short story writer, children's author, editor and essayist (38)
● The Edible Woman, her first novel, is mainly a satiracle exploration of sexual politics, where self deprecating female protagonist defend themselves against men using the weapon of language(38)
● Other works include Surfacing (1972), Lady Oracle (1976), Life Before
Man (1979), Bodily Harm (1981), Cat’s Eye(1988), The Robber Bride
(1993), Alias Grace (1996), The Blind Assassin (2000), Oryx and Crake
(2003), The Penelopiad: The Myth of Penelope and Odysseus (2005), and
The Year of the Flood (2009). The Handmaid’s Tale(1985)
● Atwoods guide to literary criticism comes from
A Thematic Guide to
Canadian Literature (1972) essential for the student interested in Atwood’s version of the themes that have shaped Canadian creative writing over a century ● Atwoods success started early from one of her early publications, a collection of poetry known as the Circle Game. This awarded her the
1965 President’s Medal for Poetry by the University of Western Ontario in
1966. it later won the prestigious GovernorGeneral’s Award for poetry in
1967
● The Animals in That Country was awarded first prize in Canada’s
Centennial Commission Poetry Competition. The Chicago periodical
Poetry
awarded Atwood the Union League Civic and Arts Poetry Prize in
1969 and the Bess Hokin Prize in 1974.
● Since that time, Atwood’s numerous awards and distinctions have been more for her work in fiction, nonfiction, and humanitarian affairs. She has received several honorary doctorates and many prestigious prizes, among them the Toronto Arts Award (1986),
Ms
. magazine’s Woman of the Year for 1986, the Ida Nudel Humanitarian Award from the Canadian Jewish
Congress, and the American Humanist of the Year Award for 1987. In fact, at one time or another, Atwood has won just about every literary award for Canadian writers. In 2000, Atwood won the Booker Prize for the best novel by a citizen of the United Kingdom or British
Commonwealth
● Margaret
Eleanor Atwood was raised in an intellectually centered family. This early stimuli may have later influenced her academic career. Her family would take yearly vacations to distant reaches of the ontario
wilderness where her father an entomologist would “Cat’s eye” Novels for students
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Published in Toronto in 1988 ninth novel
Elaine Risley, successful painter, returns to toronto trouble with being 50 disturbing memories of childhood most of the novel is narration of this time in her life suffered teasing from cordelia and two others at a young age destroys her self esteem starts habits: peeling skin, biting nails, chewing hair also has fainting fits and is suicidal.
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Never before had the world of eight-to twelve-year-old girls been examined so thoroughly and with such unflinching insight.” nature of memory and identity
Risley knows that memory is unreliable and experiences are biased by our past events nature of artistic creativity: Risley finds her calling as a painter vivid picture of Toronto in the 1940s and 1950s and how it changed in the 1980s summary: not sure if needed going to finish later...
○ iron lung
■ starts with contemplation about the nature of time to Risley’s brother stephen.
Leads her to say that nothing in life is ever lost, but just what someone remembers at any given moment. She then remembers her childhood friend,
Cordelia, when they were teenagers. She is haunted by memories of Cordelia.
○ Silver Paper
■ Risley sees how much Toronto has changed, and how much the city means to her.
She is married with two daughters, and a successful painter. She returns to
Toronto to take a look back at her work at a gallery called Sub-Versions. Most of this chapter is filled with her memories. Father was a field entomologist. Made them move alot. When she was eight her
