A Low Art

By: Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood
 Born in Ottawa on the year 1939 and grew up in Northern
Ontario, Quebec and Toronto.
 Author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s
literature, fiction and non-fiction.
 Famous works:
 The Edible Woman (1970)
 The Handmaid’s Tale (1983)
 The Robber Bride (1994)
 Alias Grace (1996)
 The Blind Assassin (won Booker Prize in 2000)
 Ms. Atwood’s work has been published in more than forty
languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish,
Korean, Icelandic and Estonian.
Penelopiad (Book)
 “Now that I’m dead, I know everything.”
 An epic made by Ms. Atwood that is based on the story of
Odysseus in the book Odyssey by Homer.
 The story talks about the life of Penelope, Odysseus’ wife,
and her experience is her past life that takes place in the
world of Death together with her twelve maids.
 The Penelopiad is a literary piece that focuses in the era of
women in 19th century.
Characters:
 Penelope – wife of Odysseus that waited for almost 20 years
for her husband’s homecoming from an adventure to Troy.
 Twelve maids – The maids that hanged by Odysseus for saying
false statements to the him and his family. Penelope ordered
her twelve maids to spend time with the suitors and gain
their confidence by sleeping with them and saying bad things
about Odysseus and his family.
A Low Art (an excerpt)
 Is an epic made by Margaret Atwood and an excerpt from her
book Penelopiad.
 Published in 2005.
 Historiographic Metafiction – The past time of past
time
 Sack of thoughts carried by Penelope in the world of death
 A faithful wife (Penelope) that she became blinded or
pretended to be blind of love despite of his husband's wrong
doings.
 Stick to beat other woman with, representation of a woman
that is too faithful which causes them to just let their
husband, not to stand on their right and act upon their
husband. She doesn’t want the other women to follow her
passiveness.
 Penelope calls STORYTELLING as LOW ART because
stories can be spread with falsehood just like her husband did
to her by spreading rumors about her that is not true.
 “Low” art forms are often associated with women and
femininity.