Chapter 3 Surfacing was first published in 1972 and it is the second published novel by Canadian author Margaret Atwood. It has often been called a companion novel to Power Politics Atwood's collection of poems which deals with complementary issues. The novel has also been compared to The Bell Jar (1963) by Sylvia Plath. Plath's Esther Greenwood and Atwood's unnamed narrator are both driven to psychological breakdowns due to their unwillingness to adhere to the social expectations imposed on women. This chapter will explore Atwood’s successful use of the troubled psyche to depict the conflict of her protagonist who eventually descends to the state of a savage animal who wishes to remain out of bounds of the social constrictions. This novel also portrays how a diseased
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My mother was alone in the house; … she heard something down by the water. She ran to the dock, he wasn’t there, she went out to the end of it and looked down. My brother was under the water, face upturned, eyes open and unconscious, sinking gently; air was coming out of his mouth.. It was before I was born but I remember it as clearly as if I saw it, and perhaps I did see it : I believe that an unborn baby has its eyes open and can look out through the walls of the mother’s stomach, like a frog in a jar. (39-40)
This line also brings to our mind the novel The Bell Jar where the protagonist, Esther too was full of thoughts about cadavers: the execution of the Rosenbergs, pickled babies in bottles etc. Moreover Surfacing also has instances that rings a bell about The Bluest Eye, when the narrator was in the garden gathering vegetables for their dinner she “ …pull up an onion, sliding the loose brown outer skin off from the bulb, white and eye-like.”(47). This instance clearly brings to our mind Pecola’s fascination for blue
My mother was alone in the house; … she heard something down by the water. She ran to the dock, he wasn’t there, she went out to the end of it and looked down. My brother was under the water, face upturned, eyes open and unconscious, sinking gently; air was coming out of his mouth.. It was before I was born but I remember it as clearly as if I saw it, and perhaps I did see it : I believe that an unborn baby has its eyes open and can look out through the walls of the mother’s stomach, like a frog in a jar. (39-40)
This line also brings to our mind the novel The Bell Jar where the protagonist, Esther too was full of thoughts about cadavers: the execution of the Rosenbergs, pickled babies in bottles etc. Moreover Surfacing also has instances that rings a bell about The Bluest Eye, when the narrator was in the garden gathering vegetables for their dinner she “ …pull up an onion, sliding the loose brown outer skin off from the bulb, white and eye-like.”(47). This instance clearly brings to our mind Pecola’s fascination for blue