Reading the Gothic in Margaret Atwood's Novels (review)

In this study, Colette Tennant provides a summary and discussion of Gothic themes in Atwood's novels. The book is arranged thematically, treating in its own chapter each of the four themes of setting, shadow males, violence and violation, and Gothic transformations. Chapter 1 focuses on settings, explaining that entrapping external settings are often projections of mental states and showing that many of Atwood's female protagonists explore their settings as ways to gain self-knowledge. Chapter 2 discusses Atwood's 'shadow males,' the ambiguous men who seem simultaneously to both protect and threaten her female characters. Chapter 3 examines the violence that pervades Atwood's novels. Chapter 4, called 'Gothic Transformations,' describes three types of transformation: 'A sort of melding of personalities ... [in which] the central characters' identities are fused with other characters' as in The Edible Woman, Cat's Eye, Alias Grace, The Robber Bride and The Blind Assassin; 'change caused by the death of someone close to the protagonist'; and 'Protagonists ... trapped in altered states,' as in Bodily Harm and The Handmaid's Tale. In these cases, even though the outcome is uncertain, the characters 'live long enough to tell their own stories.' Therefore, storytelling, making sense of one's story, is transformative in itself.

Tennant starts with the thesis that Atwood's use of the Gothic is didactic, teaching through negative example: 'If women are to overcome their status as victims, they must understand that they are ... victimized, and that through self-knowledge they have the power to cease being victims. ... By transforming traditional Gothic elements, [Atwood] enables her readers to transform themselves.' In order to make such a claim, it might be useful to consider its implications more fully by offering a closer examination of women's positions and options in contemporary society. Atwood herself, in Survival (1972), seeks to make us aware of women's victimization and asserts that 'in an oppressed society ... you can't become an ex-victim ... until the entire society's position has been changed.'

Because of the study's thematic structure, each chapter discusses all of the novels in light of a particular theme. This requires that explication of plot and background be repeated in each chapter. It would have made for a stronger book if Tennant had selected one or two novels for a more thorough examination in each chapter, alluding briefly to ways that other novels develop the theme.

Tennant relies on classic studies of the Gothic. Missing are some more recent studies of this genre, such as Michelle Masse's In the Name of Love: Women, Masochism, and the Gothic (1992) which also discusses Atwood. Perhaps the time is now ripe for a new study of Atwood's Gothic that will build on traditional notions of the Gothic and examine them in light of new theoretical and critical methodologies such as cultural materialism.