Literary Analysis Of Margaret Atwood's 'Stone Mattress'

First performed in 1995, Margaret Edson’s play, W;t (Wit) journeys into the mind of Doctor Vivian Bearing, a scholar of Donne’s Holy Sonnets and terminally ill cancer patient. In her final two hours of life, Bearing reflects upon her attempts to reconcile the disease and her impending death along with her life as a professor (Edson). Edson’s literature introduces us to the abstract concept of pain. While enlightening, words alone cannot sufficiently communicate the transcendental idea. Fortunately for us, Wit was adapted into a movie several years after its debut. This format enables us to visually conceive the physical manifestation of pain, allowing us to create a stronger connection to the work as a whole. It is essential to note that

The example shown is able to prove that in the story Atwood’s personal views will affect the way the story is written and told. Overall, as shown in the story, Verna has had issues with her past husband showing a sense of revenge when she talks about him and how she felt, thus leading to emptiness and tiredness when thinking of these hard times. This sense of emptiness is the ending result of getting revenge. When Verna was assaulted by Bob when she was younger she remembers: '"it does leave an empty space, doesn’t it?' Bob says. 'A sort of blank.' Verna admits that it does.'" This example comes from when Verna was young and assaulted by her later admirer, Bob. Bob and Verna talk about how revenge will lead to emptiness later in life. Not only in “Stone Mattress,” but in Atwood's’ other stories she has the same central theme of needing revenge. Along with this work several of her other writing pieces are, “steeped in primal themes: the hero's journey, revenge, betrayal, gallantry, the outcast, the tragic” (Weller). Not to mention her most common themes all have to do with damage done to a character based on her themes of betrayal, tragedy, and most importantly revenge. Lastly, Atwood is able to use her point of view in her stories to bring out the most important and prominent themes that she is trying to reach.

At some time in life, a person will experience the death of a relative or lose something that was very important to him or her. After that traumatic event, will that person confront his or her pain, or will that person bury it deep within them? Both ways are possible, however, only one is effective in the long term. According to Tim O'Brien, the most effective way to heal after a traumatic experience is to share stories. In Tim’s book, The things they carried, he used the motifs of loneliness, life, and the mood of nostalgia to illustrate the importance of sharing stories during a healing process.

The author begins Getting Life with the section titled pain. The author’s purpose for this section is to describe the events that caused him so much pain and completely changed his life. The author supports the theme of pain throughout this section by providing the reader with a personal account of learning about his wife’s murder, being arrested for the murder, and then being sentenced to life in prison. The author’s account of the murder begins in chapter two, and Morton describes in detail how painful it was to learn that his wife had been murdered. After the sheriff told Michael that Christine was dead, Michael recounts that “it felt like I was falling-falling down, falling apart- breaking into pieces under the weight of the sheriff’s words” (Morton, 2014, p. 19). To make things worse, Michael was not able to peacefully mourn the death of his wife due to the immediate interrogation by the Sheriff’s Office. Six weeks after Christine’s death, Michael was arrested for her murder. Furthermore, the author discusses how difficult the murder trial was. After the chief medical examiner recounted

In Laurie Halse Anderson’s Young Adult novel, Speak, the reader takes a journey following the life of Freshman Melinda Sordino. The novel begins during Melinda’s summer break when a tramatic incident (sexual assault) at a party forces her to call the cops and ruin the party for all her future classmates. Her year at Merryweather High School, following the sexual assualt on her, revolves around the disdain she receives from her fellow students, her constant haste in avoiding Andy Evans (her attacker), as well as her struggles to deal with the deep depression that has over taken her. Her deep depression eventually leads to her desolate silence and eventual avoidance of school and her circumvention of her sexual assault. The novel conveys the

As Wolterstorff describes his continued grieving process, he investigates several books on grief, explaining that many encouraged him to avoid the pain he felt, turning to rationality. After discovering this advice, he quickly rejects the idea, arguing that he refuses to look away. He continually reminds himself that pain is not all that there is in life. This process of facing the pain allows him to accept joy without looking away from the death of his son (Wolterstorff, 1987, p.54).

Being hurt emotionally by death is by far the worst kind of pain in the world. It causes one to completely shy away from doing what is right. Alice Dark’s In the Gloaming, illustrates selfishness in one character, and righteousness in another. Although this story is written in third person, it is out of Janet’s perspective. Janet plays the role of the protagonist character. She spends all of her time taking care of Laird and making him happy. Dark gives her readers many symbols and metaphors throughout her story to explain her theme. She tells a story about a family that is being pulled apart by their brothers and sons homosexuality as well as his death from AIDS. According to David Caron, “The family is an institution, and like all

“That Ray was not unhappy, he knew nothing of what was to come and so he did not suffer…he was happy in his lifetime, he loved his work, his domestic life, loved to garden…he did not suffer the loss of meaning that his survivor feels. Ray’s death was no tragedy but a completion” (Oates 241). This revelation was very powerful to me, as much as she is suffering depressed and having suicidal thoughts; she is able to start having moments of clarity. I saw this as a positive step in her healing. As she states “the widow must remember, her husband death did not happen to her but to her husband. I must stop dwelling upon the past, which can’t be altered” (Oates 228). She reminds herself that “you have your writing, your friends and your students” (Oates 264) and this gives me a sense of hope for her. I am eager to proceed with reading the last section of this book and knowing the outcome of this memoir; that I have enjoyed

In the real world people often portray themselves to be something they are not. Although sometimes they may end up briefly showing their true colors through events or interactions they have with others. In Margaret Atwood's Oryx and Crake this is constantly shown regarding Crake's character. Throughout the novel it is revealed that Crake is not truly who he seems to be. Looking back Snowman clearly could have realized that Crake had subtly made it clear the kind of person he was through interactions the two had and other events in the novel. To begin, a major clue Snowman can look back and realize may have been a sign as to Crake's true character could have been the nightmares Jimmy had witnessed. Throughout the novel it is introduced

Pains hurt Jeannette Walls. It hurts her physically and mentally. Especially when those pains are caused not just by physical harassment caused or those of sexual abuses she experienced or acknowledged happening to her and her family but also the dysfunctionality of her family. The way Jeannette processed and respond to all the misfortunes and abuses of life hints us a rather insightful view of how perceptions and knowledge shape certain prejudices and judgments upon another person 's circumstance.

Being on the verge of adulthood and having just left the simplicity of childhood, teenagers have always been particularly complex and enigmatic individuals. While most people struggle to see things from an adolescent perspective, Canadian playwright Joan MacLeod is well-known for her accurate portrayal of teenagers. In 2002, she published The Shape of a Girl, a play related to the dramatic story of a young girl named Reena Virk who was tragically affected by bullying, a characteristic behavior of adolescent development. Throughout The Shape of a Girl, MacLeod effectively exploits the Aristotelian dramatic elements and she uses Reena Virk’s story as well as the thoughts that it produces in the antagonist’s mind to portray both adolescent character traits and behavioral patterns.

Margaret Atwood portrays her dystopian novel Oryx and Crake through the memories of the main character, Snowman, a survivor of a deadly virus, describes a post-apocalyptic society and people have been eliminated except for the genetically humanoid creatures, the Crakers. While Snowman struggles to live due to hunger and failing to recall his memory of language, he tries to review the past as Jimmy the main character Snowman lives in, the world of full of diseases and scientific innovations. Nevertheless their need to development science and innovation to improve their public advancement, the genuine condition of their society, eventually leads them to their dystopia future.

Many people define their lives by the relationships within their family. They are someone’s daughter, someone’s wife, or someone’s mother or father. The loss of a family member, especially due to death, creates a radical readjustment to people’s day to day lives and how they see and feel about themselves. Sometimes the process of grief can last over several years and how it is mentally processed and dealt with is different for everyone. “Mud” by Geoffrey Forsyth, shows an insightful view of a grieving man who had already lost his father and grandmother and is now just coming to terms with the loss of his wife two years prior. The entire story is written in first person point of view which allows for the reader to fully engage themselves in the grief and strife of the narrator’s life. Geoffrey’s story “Mud” begins in the home of the narrator where he encounters these dead family members and has to decide if he is ready to move on from his grief and say goodbye or stay behind and be consumed by it.

Offered is having a flashback of what her life used to be before everything changed in the society she lived in. She is reflecting back to how much power she used to have, and enough freedom to make her own choices. Giving an insight to the readers of her deeper thought her past life. The flashback is occurring in a time of Offered’s life where she is just starting to adjust to her new way of living as a handmaid. While she on her daily walk, readers get to view Offered expression of how women dress and how social status are viewed by what they wear. There is great significance with this passage because the flashback demonstrates the history of Offered past life which makes the readers understanding of her character more developed. It is also

Atwood’s “Death of a Young Son by Drowning” perfectly grasps the life-altering heartbreak that occurs after the loss of a child by utilizing literary devices such as imagery, personification, simile, and metaphor. In the poem, an image of a voyage is used to characterize a child’s journey from life to death. “The dangerous river”, is used as a metaphor to describe the birth canal which the child victoriously navigates, but after embarking upon the outside world, the child goes into a “voyage of discovery” (4) that results in his death in the river. “On a landscape stranger than Uranus” (14) emphasizes the estrangement felt by the mother without having any knowledge of the environment. Comparing it to Uranus she describes it to be just as strange as a another planet. In the ninth stanza, the mother reminisces the death of her child as she says, “My foot hit rock” (26) which is a representation that she has hit rock bottom and her life will now never be the same. The final simile of the poem, “I planted him in his country / like a flag” (28-29) identifies the relationship between the dead child and the land. It ties the mother to the land in a way that had not been thought of, a way that is fraught with grief. An extended metaphor is developed throughout the poem, comparing the experience of giving birth that the character had, to a river and its contents. It helps to understand the different stages of birth by expressing the hurricane of emotions, and incidents that occurred with the use of waves expressing times of difficulty and pain.