THE YOUNG WOMAN IN AGONY
(1996)
with
Mary A. Burgess
Atwood’s work frames a portrait of the young woman in agony. Her first novel,
The Edible Woman
(written 1965, published 1969), has been described as
proto
-feminist, while
Bodily Harm
(1981), which concerns itself heavily with the juxtaposition between the inner and the outer woman, her health and her work, has justifiably been called
post
-feminist.
The Edible Woman
is narrated by Marian, who struggles to define her existence in terms of what is expected of her as a woman. As with most of Atwood’s fiction, this is a novel about relationships, about the ways in which men and women give up to each other the power of control, both physically and psychologically. Atwood addresses these issues in a typically ambivalent manner, allowing Marian to slide into the salvation and trap of anorexia. As Marian ceases to consume food, she begins consuming her own psyche, although she eventually finds the courage to resolve both her eating disorder and her problems with Peter, her fiancé.
Surfacing
(1972) is undeniably more strident, more invasive, more violent in its depiction of the confrontations that underlie the relations between men and women, with clear foreshadowing of the futuristic horrors depicted in
The Handmaid’s Tale
. Anna must tread a careful line to avoid running afoul of David’s “rules,” or face immediate corporal punishment for her meaningless “transgressions.”
Atwood’s later works, such as
Lady Oracle
(1976) and
Cat’s Eye
(1988), take a more jaundiced look at women and their friendships, both with the opposite sex and with each other, focusing particularly on the very basic relationship between mothers and their daughters. In
Lady
Oracle
, for example, the author confronts the “rules” of femininity head-on. Her character’s love-hate relationship with her “good”/”bad” mother has forced the adolescent Joan into a fit of self-loathing and obesity. The act of overeating (or that of starving oneself, in
The Edible Woman
) represents the attempt of the disenfranchised to strike out against those in power, and is a metaphor for how some women perceive themselves in society—”consume, or be consumed.” Joan’s eventual loss of weight, and later on, her success at writing women’s gothic romance novels, allows her to regain “control” of her existence, in essence to become her own oracle, to remake her own future. In this sense,
Lady
Oracle
can be seen as a direct progression along Atwood’s fictional road from female self-sacrifice to female self-vindication.
Although all of the author’s works are cut from the same fictional cloth, her novel
The Handmaid’s Tale
(1985) is the only one of her long tales which can be considered fantastic. In the not-too-distant future the religious right has taken over the United States, and Canada has become the last bastion of democracy in the new world. Freedom of speech and freedom of worship have been abolished, having been outlawed by a totalitarian regime that emphasizes the harsher dictates of the Old Testament. Women have become chattel, relegated either to mindless existences as uneducated
hausfraus
or as outright slaves and surrogates of their masculine masters, the elite of this highly stratified brave new world.
Within this sick society the “handmaids” have been stripped of all identity, even their personal names. Now they are called by variations of their masters’ given names—
e.g.
, “Offred” (Of Fred), “Ofglen” (Of Glen), “Ofwarren” (Of Warren). They have become mere appendages of the males they are bound to serve, and can undertake no task independently, even bathing or the simple pleasure of shopping. No women, not even the wives of the masters, are allowed to read
anything
, including the Bible. Even something as innocuous as hand lotion is forbidden, its use being considered pleasurable and self-enhancing. The handmaids’ only requirement is to bear children for the sterile wives of their masters.
Offred lost her husband and daughter while trying to escape to Canada; she is utterly without friends or family. But although she may be physically restrained, she still has the ability to think and scheme— about her past, her present, and the possibilities of her future. As long as she can keep her sanity, she tells herself, she will find some way to escape. Her forbidden relationship with Nick is secretly encouraged by Commander Fred’s wife, Serena Joy, who suspects that her husband is also infertile, and who, in any case, is anxious to drive a wedge between Offred and the Commander.
Atwood highlights the drabness of this world by letting us feel the sensuality of her heroine’s personality. Through her vivid first-person narration we feel Offred’s reaction to the fabrics drawn against her skin, and experience the touch and shape of objects as disparate as Scrabble tiles or soft-boiled eggs; we smell the intoxicating perfume of the flowers in Serena Joy’s garden, juxtaposed against the almost-sickening scent of the Commander’s “moth-ball” aftershave; we share Offred’s vivid craving for the mere taste of tobacco or a whiff of its smoke (mirrored by her equally vivid longing for sex with Nick). All of these images pierce us through Offred’s eyes like a Technicolor searchlight stabbing through the gray personalities and decaying images of this bleak dystopian future.
It is not surprising, then, that the colors of Off
red
’s world are all primary hues, like the reds, blues, and greens in a child’s paint-box. The handmaids, all dressed in lush reds, resemble nothing so much as Serena Joy’s blood-hued tulips—at first flourishing, then drooping and dropping their petals in her immaculate flowerbeds. Serena Joy (like the other wives) wears only virginal blue. She is cold and pristine, “serene” but icy, “sterile” and utterly devoid of sympathy. The lack of “joy” in her existence is clearly contrasted with her handmaid’s lust for life. In this society, as in Harlan Ellison’s “Down Under” from “A Boy and His Dog,” the evil of
The Handmaid’s Tale
lies just beneath an idyllic
façade
, a landscape of lies overlaying a corrupt and dissolute society.
There is a compelling charm and subtlety about Atwood’s heroine, but also a measure of calculation and practicality in her character that is immediately offsetting. This is no innocent waif to be gobbled up by the lions. Offred recognizes instinctively that her true enemy is not the Commander, but his wife, who in many respects is as much a prisoner as she. She will make no mistake if she can help it, and considers her options well before she enters into clandestine relationships with Commander Fred and with Nick, her Guardian lover. She carefully bides her time, observing both her captors and her fellow prisoners, weighing their motivations and reactions with a cool, clinical eye. We come to realize that Offred has more control over her situation than it might at first seem. In each of Atwood’s books her characters gradually learn to control first themselves, then their surroundings, and finally their opponents through subtle manipulations. These almost cynical maneuverings become part and parcel of her protagonists’ protective coloring. Moving delicately through the light and shadow of the societal jungles of her existence, Offred watches, waits, and moves her pawns carefully. Outwardly she may be a prisoner, but inwardly she is captain of her soul. As she plays the forbidden Scrabble with the Commander, the words she forms in her mind become objects, like the smooth tiles in her fingers. She wins the first game handily, then “allows” the Commander to win the second. Although she is virtually his slave, she consciously manipulates his desire in order to control the situation.
Here and elsewhere in her fictions Atwood seems much more concerned with the relationships her characters establish, and with the use and abuse of power within those relationships, than with the characters themselves. So while we are clearly meant to empathize with Offred’s “tragedy,” some of that empathy is lost through the latter’s cold appraisements of her own situation. For example, Offred would like to have a knife, or perhaps Serena Joy’s gardening shears, or some other sharp object—not, we suspect, to commit suicide (as her captors fear), but to do other damage. She is almost sly in her little deceptions and transgressions. She watches and waits and plots. The smoldering violence which has often been foreshadowed in Atwood’s contemporary novels here bursts forth into the flame of revolution. Offred and her companions must literally fight and hack and slash their way to freedom. At the end of the book we hail the new revolution that will inevitably topple the rotted-out hulk of the Guardians’ society—and wonder, just a bit, where all of this destruction will lead.
Atwood has oft been hailed as a feminist spokesperson, and her works have been described by other critics as being driven by many of the issues ascribed to this movement. Certainly the author is concerned with the use of control in relationships, and, perhaps more importantly, with women’s image of self, and how that image can be changed, bolstered, or destroyed by inward or outward manipulation. At the same time, one finds a certain ambivalence in Atwood’s fiction, and detects in her soliloquies almost a loathing of her female self. Her characters are constantly remaking themselves, and seem never satisfied with who they are or what they were or have become. Janus-faced, she has peered simultaneously at both the past and future of women in society, and found them both wanting. For example, the author seems to empathize almost viscerally with the physical and emotional needs of women to bear and rear children. And yet one senses, particularly in such episodes as the birthing scene in
A Handmaid’s Tale
, an almost overpoweringly negative response to the multitude of sensual stimuli associated with birth—the contortions, the pain, the sweating, and the smells—particularly the smells. Atwood’s loathing of her own sex, however, seems directed most uncompromisingly toward the kind of women represented by Joan’s mother or the Commander’s wife, who are willing to use others of their gender unfeelingly for their own self-fulfillment or -aggrandizement.
Atwood has presented, in this harsh depiction of a future America, an allegory of the abuse of political and personal power by both men and women, of the manipulation of others by those who perceive themselves to be in control of society. The salvation of the individual can only be found in such simple things as improved self-image and the courage to remove oneself from inappropriate abuse, and through the willingness to seek further empowerment, vindication, and escape from a system that represses the possibilities of any individual who fails to fit the mold. Her female protagonists are tortured creatures trying to maintain a scrap of dignity in an unjust world. They may be down, she seems to be saying, but they can never be counted out—at least as long as there are any sharp knives around.
THE MYSTERY NOVELS OF LINDSEY DAVIS
(1996)
It is the year 70
a.d
., during the height of the Roman Empire. Eighteen months earlier the Emperor Nero had committed suicide, plunging Rome into a year of civil war. Out of the chaos of four candidates vying for the throne emerged the Emperor Vespasian, and into the turmoil of Roman politics and society plunges the hero of this new detective series, Marcus Didius Falco.
Falco is a member of the lower classes, a former soldier who had served a term in the frontier province of Britain, but has now returned home to Rome. His father, who had abandoned the family many years before, now works as a successful auctioneer in Rome; his older brother, a war hero, had been killed a year earlier while serving under the Emperor’s son and heir, Titus, during the wars in Judea. His five sisters have all married and most have broods of their own. Falco lives on the upper floor of a rundown apartment building, the higher levels being the most undesirable lodgings. He calls himself a “private informer”: his services are available at reasonable rates to uncover information or to do whatever needs to be done to satisfy his clients.
Sometimes he works directly for the Emperor himself, traveling from Rome to distant provinces in Italy, Britain, and Gaul, accomplishing tasks for the government that must be handled discreetly or at least not through official channels. On other occasions he follows the more traditional pursuits of the P.I., uncovering murder, mayhem, and larceny for private customers within the walls of Rome herself or in her nearby environs. He also serves as occasional bodyguard, blackguard, body disposer, and guardian of public morality, depending on the commission and the circumstances, although he maintains a strict code of ethics, and will not kill gratuitously or enrich himself needlessly as his so-called betters (and employers) frequently do. He supports the restoration of the Republic, and is not afraid to say so publicly, but is realistic enough to work for the Imperium, and eventually becomes friends with Vespasian and Titus. He can be crude, boorish, inconsiderate, fast-talking, quick-thinking, and without manners, yet utterly charming for all that.
In the first novel of the series,
The Silver Pigs
, Falco meets Helena Justina, the recently-divorced daughter of a rich senator, and a member of the privileged class. Their on-again, off-again romance and the inherent differences in their social positions, a gulf that makes a marriage impossible in Roman society, fuel the underlying tension of this series. Part of what drives Falco in the subsequent novels is the necessity of accumulating enough wealth (400,000 pieces of gold) to buy a social position which will enable him to marry Helena. They make a delightful if constantly bickering couple, although the ultimate conclusion, despite the fact that Helena is living with Falco by the fifth book in the series, remains uncertain.
The connection with Helena proves useful to Falco in other ways, opening doors to the wealthier classes that he otherwise might have difficulty in reaching. Falco’s unique position allows him to pry the lid off higher Roman society, and to watch the roaches feeding at the public trough scurry for cover. Most of the novels deal with high-level chicanery in one form or another, even when the initial problem seems to be something else. In
The Silver Pigs
, for example, Falco must return to Britain and work as a slave in the silver mines there to uncover a smuggling scheme involving Helena’s uncle. In
Shadows in Bronze
(each of the first five books in the series includes a metal in its title) the detective travels to the isle of Capri and southern Italy to unravel a plot to overthrow the Emperor.
Venus in Copper
has Falco investigating a vixen whose wealthy husbands, all much older than she, keep dying providentially very shortly after their marriages. In
The Iron Hand of Mars
Vespasian sends the investigator on a secret mission to discover who is behind the rebellion of the Germanic auxiliaries at the Rhine, and in the process Falco discovers the solution to a generations-old mystery of what happened to the Emperor Augustus’s three lost legions, and uncovers a pattern of high-level graft.
Poseidon’s Gold
focuses on the mystery behind the career of Falco’s older brother, Festus, who took an arrow during the siege of an obscure village in Galilee, and on the background of their father, Favonius the sleazy auctioneer.
Davis opens our eyes to the realities of life for the average Roman citizen. There are no hoards of Christian refugees roaming the streets, and none of the modern amenities. What does fill these books is a certain
joie de vivre
and a humor sorely lacking in most historical and crime fiction. Most of Falco’s friends are poor, but they live their brief lives to the fullest.
Venus in Copper
features an utterly classic dinner scene, in which a giant turbot given to Falco by the Emperor’s son is cooked and served to the comings and goings of Falco’s multitudinous family, with Titus Caesar himself showing up in the middle of the feast with his military escort. The episode is funny and sad and chaotic all at the same time. One has the sense that Davis has lifted her characters straight out of history, that this is how things actually were in ancient Rome.
Each book has advanced the timeline by four to six months, and as with most historical detective series, they should be read in order for greatest appreciation, since the characters and their situations change and develop sequentially. Meanwhile, we wait, as Falco himself does, to see what new perfidies and corruptions will come his and Helena Justina’s way. As Cicero himself once said,
“O tempora! O mores!”