Margaret Atwoods Surfacing Essay -- Margaret Atwood Surfacing Essays

Margaret Atwoods SurfacingThroughout the book the narrator constantly intertwines the noncurrent andpresent as though it is side by side. Atwood shows this in the open up sentence I cant believe Im on this road again. The useof the adjective again reveals the narrator has been in this placein an earlier life. The narrator seems to repress a lot of her pastand continuously contradicts her self, which at times confuses thereader as we can not tell whether she is talking about her past or herpresent and whether she regards it as understructure as she says Now were on alkali ground foreign territory. This links in with one of the discover divisions in the story between theAmericans and the Canadians that is portrayed throughout the book. This paradoxical declaratory reveals that the champ feels sheshould belong there but feels detached from this childhood place,suggesting she may feel alienated from this place revealing somethingoppressive about this home ground. Also David is the key soulfulness whoemphasizes this division between the Americans and Canadians. On pageboythree David stresses Bloody fascist pig Yanks, reiterating thestereotypical Canadian disliking of the Americans, use his usualhostile, aggressive language. Ironically David seems to be thefascist pig cosmos the unpleasant chauvinistic pig. The use of theadjective foreign links in with the division of language betweenFrench and English that we see posterior in the book. In chapter 2 we see that there is a dismiss division between thenarrator and any emotions. We see that the narrator is emotionallydetached from her husband and her child as she left him in the city,that would be perfectly true, only it was different city he... ...ust them, I cant thinkof anyone else I like better, but right now I wish they werenthere. This shows that the narrator is showing her regrets for bringing them with her reiterating her distrust in them. We also begin to see the narrators distrust in those who ar e closestto her, her family. When she begins to reminisce on the past sherefers to her family with the third person pronoun they for examplewhen she says they used to go over it as fast a possible then laterrealizes this mistake she is making and states that wont work, Icant call them they as if they were somebody elses family.However the tables are turned as we the readers begin to realize thatit is the protagonist that we are unable to trust. This is due to theprotagonists constant self contradictions and self corrections as shesays my husband, my former husband.