Abstract
This paper explains that Margaret Atwood is not merely a writer but also the author of a more formative treatise on Canadian literature, "Survival", which serves as a context for interpreting and understanding the work of Canadian authors, in which she claims that Canada has a distinct national literature, distinguished from American and British standards. The author relates that Atwood argues that the central organizing metaphor or "symbol" for Canadian literature is survival, not merely that act of living through difficult times but rather an entire mind-set, which pervades the people and literature of the nation. The paper states that Atwood, writing from her own experience, lived as a child in the deep bush and observed the difference between what the characters of "Cat's Eye" call the wild and the tame of the world and the characters of "Surfacing" call the natives and the Americans.

Table of Contents
Introduction
Atwood's Career History
Survival: The Theory
Nature and Meaning in "Surfacing"
Survival and Nature in "Cat's Eye"
The Influence of Atwood's Life
Conclusion

From the Paper
"The challenge of surviving society and seeking legitimacy is perhaps the greatest challenge in "Cat's Eye", and yet the society of Toronto against which Elaine struggles is rather tame in comparison with the difficult situations of some of Atwood's other heroines, such as Offred. In "Handmaid's Tale", the great difficulties which patriarchy creates for women who wish to communicate with one another are made less subtle and more blatant. Offred spends months communicating with Ofglen before they begin to be able to communicate more than a few words at a time. She is likewise unable to truly communicate with Serena or with the Marthas. Here the Aunts inform and abuse their fellow women, and paranoia and backstabbing are the norm."

Tags:treatise, survival, heroines, mind-set, experience

Abstract
The paper examines the gender conflict of the main character in "Surfacing" by Margaret Atwood. The paper explains the ecofeminist position that allows the main character to integrate male gender role attributes into her own life. The paper illustrates the power of natural environments to reconstruct a woman's divided psyche.

From the Paper
"The main issue for Atwood's Surfacing is the conflict between gender roles that are present within the main character. The novel is set within the Northern Quebec, where the main character had grown up in an isolated cabin. She has suffered a divorce, the death of her father by drowning, and an abortion. Atwood creates this past history to help build the character around a return to her childhood, which forces the protagonist to face her fears and family history. The central aspect of Ecofeminism within this novel is defined by the main character's victimization of patriarchal domination."

Tags:ecofeminism, men, patriarchy, male, female, nature, freedom

Abstract
This paper examines the symbolic aspects found in the setting of Margaret Atwood's novel "Surfacing." Additionally, the paper analyzes one of the chief characters in the novel and explains how this individual is important to the over-all narrative. Additionally, the paper argues that silence, miscommunication and suspicion twist human relationships, a central theme in the story.

From the Paper
"The following brief paper will discuss the symbolic aspects found in the setting to Margaret Atwood's Surfacing. Additionally, the paper will look at one of the chief characters in the novel and explain how this individual is important to the over-all narrative. In the end, the next several pages will argue that silence, miscommunication and suspicion and how they twist human relationships are central to the story; no less importantly, her uneasy relationship with her male companion, Joe, suggests how communicating with men is not something she can do - or at least not well enough."

Tags:margaret, atwood, surfacing

Abstract
This paper explores and analyzes the narrative structure used by Margaret Atwood's in her novel entitled "Surfacing." According to the paper, the narrative structure is an extremely important part of achieving the author's complex objectives. Additionally, the paper describes this novel as an intricately crafted account of a complete descent into madness, and the beginning of a recovery, set over the time span of just ten days. However, the novel also references the past extensively, showing how events of the past have precipitated this mental collapse.

From the Paper
"In Margaret Atwood's novel 'Surfacing', the narrative structure is an extremely important part of achieving the author's complex objectives. This novel is an intricately crafted account of a complete descent into madness, and the beginning of a recovery, set over the time span of just ten days. However, the novel also references the past extensively, showing how events of the past have precipitated this mental collapse. As will be shown in this essay, Atwood uses the narrative structure to help her perfect her extremely successful portrayal of the character's state of..."

Tags:atwood, surfacing, narrative

Abstract
This paper looks at the symbolic aspects of Margaret Atwood's, "Surfacing" and argues that silence is something that pervades the entire novel and keeps people from saying what needs to be said. The paper also examines how the narrator's strange relationship with Joe reveals her inability to communicate and how she views him with silent disdain, never deigning to sit down with him to see if there is a way for that sentiment to be turned into something more positive.

From the Paper
"The symbolism of the novel's setting is unmistakable. The story begins with the narrator returning to the remote northern Quebec hinterland to seek her father, who is missing and with whom the narrator is estranged. The opening line, "I can't believe I'm on this road again," (Atwood, 3) gains in significance when the full nature of the narrator's relationship with her dad is revealed. Quite simply, she had thought the tie between them had been severed permanently - only now she is returning once more to seek out the man she had, for all intents and purposes, left behind years earlier. "

Tags:narrator, joe, symbolism

Abstract
In this paper, the integration of gender roles found in eco-feminism have been analyzed through Margaret Atwood's main protagonist in the novel 'Surfacing'. The writer discusses that the gender role transformation of the main character reveals the power of natural environments to reconstruct a woman's divided psyche. By facing her fears about her father's drowning, she begins to 'surface' or be awakened to the truth of patriarchal domination of gender role language. The writer maintains that this provides the platform for the charter to integrate a new vision of gender roles that is not defined by the men in her past.

Tags:surfacing

Abstract
The paper looks at the creation of interior monologue, the imagery and the symbolism which are employed to formulate key characters in in Margaret Atwood's "Surfacing" and Mordecai Richler's "St Urbain's Horseman". The paper examines each of the aforementioned devices and suggests that they all conspire to show deeply vulnerable, troubled characters who feel marginalized in mainstream society.

From the Paper
"The following paper will look at the use of literary devices in Margaret Atwood's "Surfacing" and Mordecai Richler's "St Urbain's Horseman". Specifically, the ensuing essay will look at how the creation of interior monologue, the imagery and the symbolism which are employed to formulate key characters: in Atwood's case, that critical character is the unnamed narrator at the heart of the story who returns to Quebec after many years to search for her missing father; in the case of Richler's text, the key character to be examined is Jake Hersh, the tormented Jewish television..."

Tags:atwood, surfacing, horseman

Abstract
This paper reviews and analyzes Margaret Atwood's book, "Surfacing" from the broader point of view of Canadian nationalism. It pays special attention to her powerful environmental and feminist themes, along with the personal rage evident when conflicting family and relationship dynamics come into play. The paper also discusses the pessimistic feelings many Canadians have toward the U.S. in particular and Western attitudes in general.

Table of Contents:
Thesis Statement
Introduction - How Canadians View themselves and the United States
Surfacing - Looking Closely at the Novel's Feminism, Nationalism & Guilt
A Closer Glance at Atwood, Feminism and Sex in the Novel
Conclusion

From the Paper
"Yes, "America" is a dirty word in this novel - and in real time, America is an intrusive, smothering influence on the Canadian culture - but beyond Canadian nationalism and the feminine and ecological themes, there is a power in this novel that transcends characters, themes, settings and conflicts. Human frailty and societal greed play a part here too thanks to the power of Atwood's writing skills. Atwood's protagonist / narrator is possibly a metaphor for what has happened to Atwood's beloved homeland; but the narrator is also very human, and very angry not just at her father's disappearance but at the fact that she believed her first lover when he said there haven't been any important women artists, and so she gave up her design work for him. Canada, too, gave up something (its virgin wilderness and innocence at least in part) because a new suitor (European colonialists) came along."

Tags:nationalism, Western, influence

Abstract
This paper analyzes the narrative structure within Margaret Atwood's novel, "Surfacing." The paper shows how Atwood uses the narrative structure to help her perfect her extremely successful portrayal of the character's state of mind through this process. The paper provides examples from the text, which along with its analysis of the character, show the importance of this narrative style in achieving the author's complex objectives.

From the Paper
"Thus we see that Atwood uses the novel's narrative structure to trace the narrator's descent into madness, as well as her tentative groping towards re-surfacing from madness. The change from first person present tense to first person past tense, and back again, is an important part of this narrative structure, as shown above. Moreover, the three-part division of the novel enables Atwood to fit the intricate and intense emotional changes of the narrator into the tight time-frame of ten days. All in all, the narrative structure contributes in an important way to make possible the successful realization of this very complex novel."

Tags:madness, narrator, emotional, text

Abstract
In reference to the novel, 'Alias Grace' this essay explores examples of historic inequities for women in Victorian society and how one women Grace Marks may have survived by utilizing the penal system as an unlikely refuge. According to the paper, on the surface, the novel 'Alias Grace' is a unique present-day exploration of a Victorian murder mystery. The novel is the story of Grace Marks who was convicted of murdering her employer and his housekeeper.

From the Paper
"Alias Grace is Margaret Atwood's fictionalized biography of the infamous murderer Grace Marks, who, in 1843 was convicted of a double murder in Kingston and served her sentence at Kingston penitentiary and the Lunatic Asylum in Toronto. On the surface, the novel, Alias Grace is a unique present-day retelling of a true crime story complete with dramatized news headlines, sex, violence, a bias judicial system and duplicitous Victorian morals. On a deeper level, this novel tells the story of how one woman may have exploited the very society that oppressed her in order to survive systemic bias and gender inequities. "

Tags:alias, grace, gender