Intertextuality in Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride
Keywords:
Patriarchal, myth, intertextuality, victim, avengerAbstract
Margaret Atwood is the first major author of Canada to envision a new woman as self-cognizant, self-governing and searching to acquire an identity of her own. As a versatile genius, Atwood through her novel explores the condition of women and their status in the Canadian patriarchal society. She portrayed women as both victims and avengers in her works. In her fiction and poetry, she often employed Canadian and Universal myths to portray the female/human predicament. Her works are often known for their intertextuality, The Robber Bride uses intertextuality like Triple Goddess and The Three Little Pigs. This article attempts to study Atwood’s The Robber Bride (1993) in the light of intertextuality. Zenia, the protagonist of the novel is a whore who rebels against male sexual politics in a patriarchal society. She rejects society’s view of fallen women, oppressed by male and uses her body as a weapon to humiliate men. Her strength is the power of female sexuality. She traps men, seduces them and then, abandons them. Zenia is a homeless, demonic woman who wants to revolt against male hegemony.
References
Atwood, Margaret. Witches, Second Words. Selected Critical Prose. Toronto: Anansi 1982, 333.
Atwood, Margaret. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian literature. Toronto Anansi, 1972.
Atwood, Margaret. “A Reply, signs: journal of women in culture and society 2, No.2, 1976.34
Atwood, Margaret. The Robber Bride. New York. Double Day, 1993.
Bouson. J. Brooks. “Introduction: Negotiation with Margaret Atwood”. Margaret Atwood: The Robber Bride, The Blind Assassin and Oryx and Crake Ed. Bouson. London: Continuum International Publishing Group, 2010.
Butler, Judith. Gender Trouble: Feminism and the subversion of Identity. New York: Routledge, 1993 Print.
Thompson. Garland R. Extraordinary Bodies: Figuring physical disability in American culture and literature New York, Columbia University Press, 1997 Print.
Howells, Coral Ann. “The Robber Bride: or, who is a True Canadian”. Margaret Atwood’s Textual Assassinations: Recent poetry and fiction Ed. Wilson Columbus Ohio State University Press, 2004.
Murray, Jennifer. “Questioning the triple Goddess: Myth and meaning in Margaret Atwood’s The Robber Bride” Canadian Literature 173 (2002).
Stein, Karen F. “Problematic Paradice in Oryx and Crake”. Margaret Atwood: The Robber Bride. The Blind Assassin and Oryx and Crake. Ed. Bouson.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Articles are the intellectual property of the authors. The Journal of Teaching and Research in English Literature does not take ownership of the copyright of any published article. Authors retain the copyright to their articles and may republish these articles as part of a book or other materials. However, while republishing an article published in JTREL, the author must ensure that the following conditions have been met:
- The source of the publication (the title, volume, number and URL of the Journal) should be acknowledged.
- The article will remain published on the JTREL website (except on the occasion of a retraction of the article) and licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
- We do not allow the distribution and transmission of plagiaristic works based on the articles that appear in our journal.
- Readers may not use the articles for commercial purposes unless they get the written permission of the author and publisher. To disseminate copies for commercial purposes, write to editor.JTREL@gmail.com
