Quest of the Spirit: From Suffering to Acceptance

145. Cultural Detachment: Canadians Atwood and Davies!

                                                                           Atwood & Davies

         The archetypal theme of death-and-rebirth plays a prominent role in the transformation of protagonists in Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman and Robertson Davies' The Manticore. As Canadians, both authors advocate an emotional and technological detachment from the United States in order for their country to develop its own personality. To Atwood, a young woman's psychological involves her refusal to be victimized by a narcissistic technological society bent on consuming human emotions like marketed commodities. Marian's struggle reflects the author's criticism that Canada has sacrificed her identity to its superpower neighbor and consequently must reject the deceptive ideology of progress in order to restore its original dignity. Davies' hero Robert Staunton also searches for self as he recuperates from a mental breakdown induced by the sudden death of his wealthy father. Thus, Staunton's quest involves a subconscious introspection as he undergoes psychiatric assessment to recover from the initial shock and unravel the mystery behind his father's demise. In essence, while Marian becomes coldly detached as a means of coping with American consumerism, David resorts to Jungian archetypes and primitivism for spiritual fulfillment. In this respect, the initiation of both heroes denotes their progress from loss to redemption. Both characters undergo a  quest for meaning , as they attempt to restructure own psychological past and present into a purposeful existence.

            Atwood and Davies both employ the victimization theme   as a pre-eminent theme. For example, in The Edible Woman, Atwood  sharply criticizes the characters' inability to communicate effectively on any physical or intellectual level, and thus, the victor-victim cycle produces human beings who regard others as mere objects or saleable items. In her book Survival, Atwood classifies the victor-victim motif as a predominant characteristic of Canadian literature and divides the motif into three basic components: !0 those who deny the fact that one is a victim, 2) those that acknowledge victimization but view it as an act of determinism, and 3) those who acknowledge victimization but refuse to accept its inevitability. (Atwood Survival 61-64). Clearly, Marian falls within the third category in that recognizes Peter's narcissistic abuse of her, and in return, discontinues their affair following his refusal to eat a slice of her symbolic sponge cake (Atwood 271). Interestingly, the philosophy of existentialism presupposes the insignificance of man as a victim of a meaningless existence. As a despairing creature, wandering and alienated, he only confirms his existence through the faces of those he encounters. Such is the case with Marian and her boyfriend Peter, who manipulates her into a field, onto a rug, and into the bathtub in order to vent his desire for sexual gratification rather than establishing an emotional bond (Atwood 59-62). Marian suggests that perhaps Peter compares her personality to the tub itself as a symbolic gesture of consumability: "Or maybe-- and the thought was chilling--he had intended it as an expression of my personality. A new corridor of possibilities extended itself before me; did he really think of me as a lavatory fixture. What kind of girl did he think I was (Atwood 62). 

            Marian's roommate Ainsley also participates in the victor-victim pattern as she seduces Len Slank, an ill-famed seducer himself, and by creating the episode, Atwood emphasizes how every member of society is guilty and subjected to the evil in humanity (Garebian 1-9). Notwithstanding, Duncan, a student of English "escapes" from the tensions of graduate school by secretly meeting   (Atwood 183) and sleeping with Marian (Atwood 263), on which occasions he openly refers to the rendezvous as simply his "alternation of distractions," and evinces no emotional involvement (Atwood 190). Similarly, Marian is "gobbling" Duncan as she occupies the student's time (Atwood 185). In retrospect, rather than becoming involved in the relationship, the characters detach themselves from the situations and become coldly objective--as Marian was about the tub, as Ainsley was in her plot to seduce Len (Atwood 119), and as Duncan was in his narcissistic affair with Marian (Atwood 190). Atwood's criticism must be viewed in it proper perspective,however;   the author is criticizing the technological society that produces victims unable to express themselves altruistically. Unable to expiate the guilt and evil from their lives, the characters feel trapped; consequently, the victim position becomes a passive escape from responsibility. Critic Keith Garebian suggests Marian's tragic dilemma in the following passage: "Confronted by such abundant evidence of victimization, the heroine is convinced that she herself is a victim. As a woman , she feels biologically handicapped in a man's world . . . as a Canadian she feels exploited in a country that is a sell out, and as a human being she thinks her ineluctable legacy is guilt in a world where evil proliferates like the pieces of a tapeworm  (Garebian 4).