Authors: Margaret Atwood
By the way, darling, I wish you wouldn’t call your stepdad
the bloat king
. He does have a slight weight-problem, and it hurts his feelings.
The rank sweat of a
what?
My bed is certainly not
enseamed
, whatever that might be! A nasty sty, indeed! Not that it’s any of your business, but I change those sheets twice a week, which is more than you do, judging from that student slum pigpen in Wittenberg. I’ll certainly never visit you
there
again without prior warning! I see that laundry of yours when you bring it home, and not often enough either, by a long shot! Only when you run out of black socks.
And let me tell you, everyone sweats at a time like that, as you’d find out very soon if you ever gave it a try. A real girlfriend would do you a heap of good. Not like that pasty-faced what’s-her-name, all trussed up like a prize turkey in those touch-me-not corsets of hers. If you ask me, there’s something off about that girl. Borderline. Any little shock could push her right over the edge.
Go get yourself someone more down-to-earth. Have a nice roll in the hay. Then you can talk to me about nasty sties.
No, darling, I am not
mad
at you. But I must say you’re an awful prig sometimes. Just like your Dad.
The Flesh
, he’d say. You’d think it was dog dirt. You can excuse that in a young person, they are always so intolerant, but in someone his age it was getting, well, very hard to live with, and that’s the understatement of the year.
Some days I think it would have been better for both of us if you hadn’t been an only child. But you realize who you have to thank for
that
. You have no idea what I used to put up with. And every time I felt like a little, you know, just to warm up my ageing bones, it was like I’d suggested murder.
Oh! You think
what?
You think Claudius murdered your Dad? Well, no wonder you’ve been so rude to him at the dinner table!
If I’d known
that
, I could have put you straight in no time flat.
It wasn’t Claudius, darling.
It was me.
— There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the forest.
— Forest?
Forest
is passé, I mean, I’ve had it with all this wilderness stuff. It’s not a right image of our society, today. Let’s have some
urban
for a change.
— There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked stepmother in a house in the suburbs.
— That’s better. But I have to seriously query this word
poor
.
— But she
was
poor!
— Poor is relative. She lived in a house, didn’t she?
—Yes.
— Then socio-economically speaking, she was not poor.
— But none of the money was
hers!
The whole point of the story is that the wicked stepmother makes her wear old clothes and sleep in the fireplace –
— Aha! They had a
fireplace!
With
poor
, let me tell you, there’s no fireplace. Come down to the park, come to the subway stations after dark, come down to where they sleep in cardboard boxes, and I’ll show you
poor!
— There was once a middle-class girl, as beautiful as she was good –
— Stop right there. I think we can cut the
beautiful
, don’t you? Women these days have to deal with too many intimidating physical role models as it is, what with those bimbos in the ads. Can’t you make her, well, more average?
— There was once a girl who was a little overweight and whose front teeth stuck out, who –
— I don’t think it’s nice to make fun of people’s appearances. Plus, you’re encouraging anorexia.
— I wasn’t making fun! I was just describing –
— Skip the description. Description oppresses. But you can say what colour she was.
— What colour?
—You know. Black, white, red, brown, yellow. Those are the choices. And I’m telling you right now, I’ve had enough of white. Dominant culture this, dominant culture that –
— I don’t know what colour.
— Well, it would probably be
your
colour, wouldn’t it?
— But this isn’t
about
me! It’s about this girl –
— Everything is about you.
— Sounds to me like you don’t want to hear this story at all.
— Oh well, go on. You could make her ethnic. That might help.
— There was once a girl of indeterminate descent, as average-looking as she was good, who lived with her wicked –
— Another thing.
Good
and
wicked
. Don’t you think you should transcend those puritanical judgemental moralistic epithets? I mean, so much of that is conditioning, isn’t it?
— There was once a girl, as average-looking as she was well-adjusted, who lived with her stepmother, who was not a very open and loving person because she herself had been abused in childhood.
— Better. But I am so
tired
of negative female images! And stepmothers – they always get it in the neck! Change it to step
father
, why don’t you? That would make more sense anyway, considering the bad behaviour you’re about to describe. And throw in some whips and chains. We all know what those twisted, repressed, middle-aged men are like –
—
Hey, just a minute!
I’m
a middle-aged
–
— Stuff it, Mister Nosy Parker. Nobody asked you to stick in your oar, or whatever you want to call that thing. This is between the two of us. Go on.
— There was once a girl –
— How old was she?
— I don’t know. She was young.
— This ends with a marriage, right?
— Well, not to blow the plot, but – yes.
— Then you can scratch the condescending paternalistic terminology. It’s
woman
, pal.
Woman
.
— There was once –
— What’s this
was, once?
Enough of the dead past. Tell me about
now
.
—There –
—So?
— So, what?
—So, why not
here?
E
veryone gets a turn, and now it’s mine. Or so they used to tell us in kindergarten. It’s not really true. Some get more turns than others, and I’ve never had a turn, not one! I hardly know how to say
I
, or
mine;
I’ve been
she, her, that one
, for so long.
I haven’t even been given a name; I was always just
the ugly sister;
put the stress on
ugly
. The one the other mothers looked at, then looked away from and shook their heads gently. Their voices lowered or ceased altogether when I came into the room, in my pretty dresses, my face leaden and scowling. They tried to think of something to say that would redeem the situation –
Well, she’s certainly strong –
but they knew it was useless. So did I.
You think I didn’t hate their pity, their forced kindness? And knowing that no matter what I did, how virtuous I was, or hardworking, I would never be beautiful. Not like her, the one who merely had to sit there to be adored. You wonder why I stabbed the blue eyes of my dolls with pins and pulled their hair out until they were bald? Life isn’t fair. Why should I be?
As for the prince, you think I didn’t love him? I loved him more than she did; I loved him more than anything. Enough to cut off my foot. Enough to murder. Of course I disguised myself in heavy veils, to take her place at the altar. Of course I threw her out the window and pulled the sheets up over my head and pretended to be her. Who wouldn’t, in my position?
But all my love ever came to was a bad end. Red-hot shoes, barrels studded with nails. That’s what it feels like, unrequited love.
She had a baby, too. I was never allowed.
Everything you ever wanted, I wanted also.
A libel action, that’s what I’m thinking. Put an end to this nonsense. Just because I’m old and live alone and can’t see very well, they accuse me of all sorts of things. Cooking and eating children, well, can you imagine? What a fantasy, and even if I did eat just a few, whose fault was it? Those children were left in the forest by their parents, who fully intended them to die. Waste not, want not, has always been my motto.
Anyway, the way I see it, they were an offering. I used to be given grown-ups, men and women both, stuffed full of seasonal goodies and handed over to me at seed-time and harvest. The symbolism was a little crude perhaps, and the events themselves were – some might say – lacking in taste, but folks’ hearts were in the right place. In return, I made things germinate and grow and swell and ripen.
Then I got hidden away, stuck into the attic, shrunken and parched and covered up in fusty draperies. Hell, I used to have
breasts! Not just two of them. Lots. Ever wonder why a third tit was the crucial test, once, for women like me?
Or why I’m so often shown with a garden? A wonderful garden, in which mouth-watering things grow. Mulberries. Magic cabbages. Rapunzel, whatever that is. And all those pregnant women trying to clamber over the wall, by the light of the moon, to munch up my fecundity, without giving anything in return. Theft, you’d call it, if you were at all open-minded.
That was never the rule in the old days. Life was a gift then, not something to be stolen. It was my gift. By earth and sea I bestowed it, and the people gave me thanks.
It’s true, there are never any evil stepfathers. Only a bunch of lily-livered widowers, who let me get away with murder vis-à-vis their daughters. Where are they when I’m making those girls drudge in the kitchen, or sending them out into the blizzard in their paper dresses? Working late at the office. Passing the buck. Men! But if you think they knew nothing about it, you’re crazy.
The thing about those good daughters is, they’re so
good
. Obedient and passive. Snivelling, I might add. No get-up-and-go. What would become of them if it weren’t for me? Nothing, that’s what. All they’d ever do is the housework, which seems to feature largely in these stories. They’d marry some peasant, have seventeen kids, and get “A dutiful wife” engraved on their tombstones, if any. Big deal.
I stir things up, I get things moving. “Go play in the traffic,” I say to them. “Put on this paper dress and look for strawberries
in the snow.” It’s perverse, but it works. All they have to do is smile and say hello and do a little more housework, for some gnomes or nice ladies or whatever, and bingo, they get the king’s son and the palace, and no more dishpan hands.
Whereas all I get is the blame.
God knows all about it. No Devil, no Fall, no Redemption. Grade Two arithmetic.
You can wipe your feet on me, twist my motives around all you like, you can dump millstones on my head and drown me in the river, but you can’t get me out of the story. I’m the plot, babe, and don’t ever forget it.
—the airheads, the bubblebrains, the ditzy blondes:
the headstrong teenagers too dumb to listen to their mothers:
all those with mattress stuffing between their ears,
all the lush hostesses who tell us to have a good day, and give us the wrong change, while checking their Big Hair in the mirror,
all those who dry their freshly shampooed poodles in the microwave,
and those whose boyfriends tell them chlorophyll chewing gum is a contraceptive, and who believe it;
all those with nervously bitten fingernails because they don’t know whether to pee or get off the pot,
all those who don’t know how to spell the word pee,
all those who laugh good-naturedly at stupid jokes like this one, even though they don’t get the point.
They don’t live in the real world
, we tell ourselves fondly: but what kind of criticism is that?
If they can manage not to live in it, good for them. We would rather not live in it either, ourselves.
And in fact they don’t live in it, because such women are fictions: composed by others, but just as frequently by themselves,
though even stupid women are not so stupid as they pretend: they pretend for love.
Men love them because they make even stupid men feel smart: women for the same reason,
and because they are reminded of all the stupid things they have done themselves,
but mostly because without them there would be no stories.
No stories! No stories! Imagine a world without stories!
But that’s exactly what you would have, if all the women were wise.
The Wise Virgins keep their lamps trimmed and filled with oil, and the bridegroom arrives, in the proper way, knocking at the front door, in time for his dinner;
no fuss, no muss, and also no story at all.
What can be told about the Wise Virgins, such bloodless paragons?
They bite their tongues, they watch their smart mouths, they sew their own clothing,
they achieve professional recognition, they do every right thing without effort.
Somehow they are insupportable: they have no narrative vices:
their wise smiles are too knowing, too knowing about us and our stupidities.
We suspect them of having mean hearts.
They are far too clever, not for their own good but for ours.
The Foolish Virgins, on the other hand, let their lamps go out:
and when the bridegroom turns up and rings the doorbell,
they are asleep in bed, and he has to climb in through the window:
and people scream and fall over things, and identities get mistaken,
and there’s a chase scene, and breakage, and much satisfactory uproar:
none of which would have happened if these girls hadn’t been several bricks short of a load.
Ah the Eternal Stupid Woman! How we enjoy hearing about her:
as she listens to the con-artist yarns of the plausible snake,
and ends up eating the free sample of the apple from the Tree of Knowledge:
thus giving birth to Theology;
or as she opens the tricky gift box containing all human evils,
but is stupid enough to believe that Hope will be some kind of a solace.
She talks with wolves, without knowing what sort of beasts they are:
Where have you been all my life?
they ask.
Where have I been all my life?
she replies.
We
know!
We
know! And we know wolfishness when we see it!
Look out
, we shout at her silently, thinking of all the smart things we would do in her place.
But trapped inside the white pages, she can’t hear us,
and goes prancing and warbling and lolloping innocently towards her doom.
(Innocence! Perhaps that’s the key to stupidity,
we tell ourselves, who think we gave it up long ago.)
If she escapes from anything, it’s by sheer luck, or else the hero:
this girl couldn’t tear her way out of a paper bag.
Sometimes she’s stupidly fearless; on the other hand,
she can be just as equally fearful, though stupidly so.
Incest-minded stepfathers chase her through ruined cloisters,
where she’s been lured by ruses too transparent to fool a gerbil.
Mice make her scream: she whimpers, teeth chattering, through the menacing world,
running – but running involves legs, and is graceless – fleeing, rather.
Leglessly she flees, taking the wrong turn at every turn,
a white chiffon scarf in the darkness, and we flee with her.
Orphaned and minus kind aunts, she makes inappropriate marital choices,
and has to dodge ropes, knives, crazed dogs, stone flower-urns toppled off balconies,
aimed at her jittery head by suave, evil husbands out for her cash and blood.
Don’t feel sorry for her, as she stands there helplessly wringing her hands:
fear is her armour.
Let’s face it, she’s our inspiration! The Muse as fluffball!
And the inspiration of men, as well! Why else were the sagas of heroes,
of their godlike strength and superhuman exploits, ever composed,
if not for the admiration of women thought stupid enough to believe them?
Where did five hundred years of love lyrics come from,
not to mention those plaintive imploring songs, all musical whines and groans?
Aimed straight at women stupid enough to find them seductive!
When lovely woman stoops or bungles her way into folly,
pleading her good intentions, her wish to please,
and is taken advantage of, especially by somebody famous,
if stupid or smart enough, she gets caught, just as in classic novels,
and makes her way into the tabloids, confused and tearful,
and from there straight into our hearts.
We forgive you!
we cry.
We understand! Now do it some more!
Hypocrite lecteuse! Ma semblable! Ma soeur!
Let us now praise stupid women,
who have given us Literature.