Saturday, 1 October 2016

A LOW ART
REFLECTIVE JOURNAL #2
     
                  A LOW ARTBy: MARGARET ATWOOD
AUTHOR

  

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian award-winning writer best known for her poetry, short-stories and
novels such as The Circle Game, The Handmaid’s Tale, Snowbird and The Tent.
Synopsis
Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer born on November 18, 1939 in Ottawa, Canada. The
internationally-known author has written award-winning poetry, short-stories and novels,
including The Circle Game (1966), The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), Snowbird (1981), The Blind
Assassin (2000), The Tent (2006) and more. Her works have been translated into 30 different
languages.

Career Highlights
Born on November 18, 1939 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada. Margaret Atwood is one of today's
leading fiction writers. She studied at the University of Toronto and Radcliffe College, becoming a
lecturer in English literature. Her first published work was a collection of poems entitled The
Circle Game (1966), which won the Governor-General's Award.

Since then Margaret Atwood has published many volumes of poetry and short stories, but is best
known as a novelist. Her controversial The Edible Woman(1969) is one of several novels focusing
on women's issues. Her futuristic novel, The Handmaid's Tale (1985) — which was later turned
into a film by Harold Pinter—was short-listed for the Booker Prize, as was Cat's Eye in 1989. She
finally won the award for The Blind Assassin (2000). Other critically acclaimed works by Margaret
Atwood include The Robber Bride(1994), Alias Grace (1996), and Oryx and Crake (2003).
Her Survival (1972) is widely considered to be the best book on Canadian literature.

In 2006, Margaret Atwood had several new publications: The Tent, a volume of tales and
poems; Bashful Bob and Doleful Dorinda, a children's book; andMoral Disorder, a collection of
short stories. She continues to be a popular author worldwide; her works have been translated
into more than 30 different languages.

SUMMARY

As portrayed in Homer's Odyssey, Penelope - wife of Odysseus and cousin of the beautiful Helen of Troy -
has become a symbol of wifely duty and devotion, enduring twenty years of waiting when her husband goes to
fight in the Trojan War. As she fends off the attentions of a hundred greedy suitors, travelling minstrels regale
her with news of Odysseus' epic adventures around the Mediterranean - slaying monsters and grappling with
amorous goddesses. When Odysseus finally comes home, he kills her suitors and then, in an act that served as
little more than a footnote in Homer's original story, inexplicably hangs Penelope's twelve maids. Now,
Penelope and her chorus of wronged maids tell their side of the story in a new stage version by Margaret
Atwood, adapted from her own wry, witty and wise novel.

           The Penelopiad opens with Penelope quoting herself saying, “now

that I’m dead, I know everything.” Penelope then goes on to say that this
wish did not come true, at least not totally. Death, Penelope thinks,
despite the knowledge it does bring, is not worth the cost. She even says
that she would rather not know some of the things she has learned.

Penelope begins to describe the afterlife, stating that everyone arrives to

the underworld in a sack “full of words—words you’ve spoken, words
you’ve heard, words that have been said about you.” Penelope notes that
her own sack was full of words about her husband, and that some people
say that her husband made a fool of her and got away with everything.

Odysseus’ account, Penelope thinks, was always so plausible, and many

people believed his account of things while taking the mythology with a
grain of salt. Penelope admits that even she believed him often, thinking
that he would not lie to her since she was such a loyal wife.

Bitterly, Penelope thinks that all she amounted to was a “stick used to

beat other women with,” since all the storytellers considered her the
model of a faithful wife. Penelope wanted to scream at other women and
tell them not to be like her. Penelope admits that she always knew
that Odysseus was tricky, but that she pretended not to see that side of
him. Instead, she kept her doubts to herself because she wanted happy
endings. Now, though, Penelope realizes that lots of people were
mocking her in secret. They told stories about her that Penelope calls
“scandalous gossip,” but that she says will only make her seem guilty if
she denies them.