Didactic Strands in Geo-Physical Pattern of Atwood’s Bodily Harm
Keywords:
Didactic Elements, Feminism, Postmodern LiteratureAbstract
Feminism emerged as one of the predominant themes of postmodern literature. It got many ardent advocates who considered the sufferings of female folk as their own suffering and tried to vent their protest against this injustice through writings. Margaret Atwood, a renowned Canadian novelist, stands as an important pillar among feminist writers whose literary works reveal an inordinate degree of angst and ire against those who have exploited the weaker sex to satisfy their carnal passions. Along with this feministic aspect, she expresses her serious concern over the exploitation of Canada by America that she portrays through metaphoric juxtaposition in her work Bodily Harm. This novel amply testifies both of her concerns that she has tried to project through an artistic pattern. This research paper attempts to explore all such constituents of the novel that justify her stand over these two issues, and bring to light the didactic elements that this design enfolds.
References
Atwood, Margaret. Bodily Harm. London: Virago Press, 1981.
Atwood, Margaret. Conversations. Ed. Earl G. Ingersoll. London: Virago, 1992. 142.
Bouson, J Brooks. Brutal Choreographies. Massachusetts: University of Massachusetts Press, 1993. III.
Carrington, Ildiko De Papp. “Another Symbolic Descent.” Rev. of Bodily Harm by Margaret Atwood. Essays on Canadian Writing. 26. (1983): 61-62.
Cixous, Helene. “The Laugh of the Medusa.” Trans. Keith Cohen and Paula Cohen. Signs 1.4 Summer 1976. 875.
Howells, Coral Ann. Margaret Atwood. London: Macmillan Private Limited, 1996. 106-128.
Hutcheon, Linda. The Canadian Postmodern: A Study of Contemporary English, Canadian Fiction. Toronto, New York, Oxford: OUP, 1988. 8-153.
Irvine, Lorna. “The Here and Now of Bodily Harm.” Margaret Atwood: Vision and Forms. Ed. Kathryn Van Spanckeren and Jan Gordon Castro. Carbondale: Southern Illinois University Press, 1988. 96.
Jones, Dorothy. “Waiting for the Rescue: A discussion of Margaret Atwood’s Bodily Harm” Kunapipi. 6.3. (1984): 91.
Parker, Emma. “You Are What You Eat: The Politics of Eating in the Novels of Margaret Atwood.” Twentieth Century Literature. 41.3 Fall (1995): 350-363.
Rigney, Barbara Hill. Women Writers - Margaret Atwood. Macmillan: UK, 1987. 104.
Rubenstein, Roberta. “Pandora’ Box and Female Survival: Margaret Atwood’s Bodily Harm” Critical Essays on Margaret Atwood. Ed. Judith McComs. Boston: G. K. Hall, 1988. 264.
Howells, Coral Ann. Private and Fictional Worlds: Canadian Women Novelists of the 1970 and 1980. London: Methuen and Co. Ltd. EC4P4EE. Google books
Paul Farmer. Pathologies of Power: Health, Human Rights, and the New War on the Poor. Berkeley, California: U of California Press, 2003. 402.
Somacarrera, Pilar. “Power Politics: Power and Identity.” The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood. Ed. Coral Ann Howells. Cambridge University Press. 2006. Cambridge Collections Online. 23 September 2009. OI:10.1017/CCOL0521839661.004.
