Margaret Atwood is
a Canadian writer who is known by many to hold a very firm feministic approach
to writing. Concrete evidence of
this is found in her writing titled, “Not Just a Pretty Face,” published in The Women’s Review of Books, in which
she begins a section saying, “Long, long ago- In 1972, to be exact, I was
teaching a Women’s Fiction course at York University” (6). In this work she continues to pinpoint
the idea that female writers, and females in general, are under the microscope,
more so than men, when it comes to criticism as she says, “Both men and women
have traditionally judged women more harshly than men, in writing as in many
other areas of life,” (6). This
judgment is seen in her story, “Happy Endings,” in selection B, when speaking
of Mary and John’s relationship, the narrator says, “People at work notice. Her friends tell her John is a rat, a
pig, a dog, he isn’t good enough for her, but she can’t believe it” (54). As her co-workers take notice of her
mistreatment, and her friends bring the matter to surface, they seem to be
judging John, but when this instance is thought of in the light of reality
these people are actually judging Mary because of her acceptance of John. It is very common that Atwood, being a
connoisseur of feminism, would set up a scenario like this as she it portraying
the disadvantage of being a female in this situation. Despite John’s poor intentions of a strictly physical
relationship, Mary has to deal with not only loving, and not being loved in
return, but being judged more than the victimizer in the relationship.
While
this approach to feminism seems to be the largest factor to Atwood’s writing,
an underlying approach to the relation of physics seems to be another
interesting idea. In June Deery’s,
“Science for Feminists: Margaret Atwood’s Body of Knowledge,” she says, “Almost
every major theme in Atwood’s writing- the formation of feminine identity, the
construction of personal past and cultural history, body image, colonization-
all are at some point described in basic forms of physics,” (470). Deery then goes on to identify that
quantum mechanics and relativity theory share commonalities with Atwood’s
approach to Literature as she says, “They look at interrelationships and
participation, Atwood has been able to use these bodies of knowledge to
describe metaphorically women's constraints and their adaptive strategies,” (471). Pertaining to physics, it is noticed
that scientists are forced to deal with harsh scrutiny when presenting their
ideas, because of the recognition that these ideas are restricted by
uncertainty. This harsh scrutiny
can be directly related to the same scrutiny of Atwood’s writings because of
her gender. In more simplistic
terms, despite various forms of disproval, so as to generalize the relationship
of physics and Atwood’s, “Happy Endings,” many people can recall middle school
information of physics by the common saying, “What goes up must come
down.” This saying directly
relates to the story of Atwood’s, “Happy Endings,” as she closes her story with
the idea to not focus on the inevitable, such as, “must come down,” saying,
“You’ll have to face it, the endings are the same however you slice it,” and,
“So much for endings. Beginnings
are always more fun,” (56).
With
these two ideas, and approaches, in mind, how might Atwood’s approach to
physics guide her approach to feminism rather than vice versa? Also, in what ways do other approaches
to, and ideas of, physics relate to her story, “Happy Endings?”
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. "Not Just a Pretty
Face." JSTOR. Salisbury University, Jan. 1994. Web. 01 May 2012.
<http://www.jstor.org/stable/4021722>.
Charters, Ann. The Story and Its Writer:
An Introduction to Short Fiction. New York: St. Martin's, 1983. Print.
Deery, June. "Science for Feminists:
Margaret Atwood's Body of Knowledge." JSTOR. Salisbury University,
Winter 1997. Web. 01 May 2012. <http://www.jstor.org/stable/441746>.
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