Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing: trauma, nature and religion

Abstract

The initial part of this dissertation provides a study of the first chapter of the novel with the aim of demonstrating how a story world takes shape and how the order of textual elements contributes to create its meaning. Atwood’s literary choices, the first impressions readers may construct from the first encounter with the characters and the conclusions readers may draw from a first reading are discussed in details. Secondly, this dissertation attempts to analyse three of the major themes of the novel that the initial close reading has highlighted, namely trauma, nature and religion. The exploration of the protagonist’s trauma is at the heart of the second chapter, since the experience of undergoing an interruption of pregnancy had the consequence of fragmenting her identity and leaving her emotionally numb. Nature appears to be fundamental for the protagonist’s recovery from her sense of alienation and dissociation and to become whole again. Moreover, a comparison between the role of women and nature, which is assimilated to the role of passive victims, is provided in the third chapter, with reference to eco-feminism. The final chapter is centred on the theme of religion and spirituality and the role of the narrator’s parents in the protagonist’s process of healing. Indeed, the protagonist undertakes an inner journey and she regresses to almost an animal state to reach a communion with all natural elements. Thanks to this descent into her deeper self, a rebirth takes place and she is finally complete, she is able to feel and, with the gifts her parents have left her, she has become a new creature.