Word: atwoods
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...Margaret Atwood puts the matter directly, if a bit move crudely, in her recent novel Bodily Harm. As one oft-jilted character muses to another...
Sometimes the barriers to communication are simply those of nationality. Atwood's characters are often displaced: Americans lives in Canada, Canadians live in America. The first story. "The Man From Mars," follows the tale of a Vietnamese man seeking the companionship of a Canadian woman, Christine. Although bereft of friends herself. Christine is started by the refugee's language disability and threatened by his advances. Eventually, she has him deported to Vietnam, where war is unfolding and Atwood's ending suggests that he gets killed. Only when Christine notices the headlines of war in the newspaper does she begin...
...other stories, miscommunication takes place right at home, especially--where else--in bed. And this is where Atwood whips irony to a thick, using her acrid insight to turn human ambivalence on its back. In "The Grave of the Famous Poet" the narrator relates...
Violence becomes a current that runs through all these stories. As Atwood's characters continue to cross wires, anxiety gathers like dust in corners until it overtakes the whole room. Love and hate become diffused between lovers...
...Atwood does more than just rail against the ugliness of human relations. Her willingness to confront the seamy side of men and women's behavior makes her forgiving. By acknowledging human shortcomings they become less acute Ultimately. Atwood sees the elements of Elizabethan tragedy in modern life, you have to descend to the bottom of the wheel of fortune before you come...