Breakdown as Breakthrough: Female Emancipation in Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman and Surfacing

Abstract

Margaret Atwood stands out as one of the most successful and prolific contemporary Canadian writers. Her books mostly discuss women's issues, such as female alienation, pregnancy, beauty standards and male oppression. This dissertation focuses on the analysis of two of her most well-known novels, The Edible Woman and Surfacing, drawing attention to the two female narrators’ inner journeys towards self-awareness. Particularly, the journey Marian and the narrator of Surfacing undertake has been divided into three stages: victimization, breakdown and recovery. The first phase sees the two protagonists fully trapped in their victim role because of societal pressure and expectations; in the second phase Marian and the Surfacer experience a mental and physical breakdown which seems to function as their own way to reject and rebel against society’s standards; the last phase introduces the readers to the two narrators’ final recovery. In short, this dissertation wants to draw attention to the great amount of similarities between The Edible Woman and Surfacing, as they both present a female main character who, thanks to her cathartic and character-building experience with madness, is able to get her identity back, eventually assert herself and emerge as an enlightened and knowledgeable woman.