Margaret Atwood - 5 Motifs

. Environmental Issues
. Feminism
. Speculative Fiction
. Politics
. Nature/Animals

In terms of motifs and reoccurring objects/symbols, I wasn't able to find much. Not because there isn't any in Atwoods writing but because I don't have the time to go through all of her books and pick out symbols or objects that reoccur so I chose themes/ideas that reoccur instead. 
Atwoods views on nature and the environment run almost parallel through her personal life and her work. From reading her books you can tell she is a writer greatly concerned with our relationship as humans with the world around us. This lines up with the fact that she is an environmental activist and spent a lot of her childhood exploring the forests with her family. 

Although she doesn't label her writing feminist, Atwood's books usually touch on feminist issues. She often portrays female characters dominated by the patriarchy in her novels and also sheds light on women's oppression as results from patriachal ideology.  

Atwood resists the idea that her writing is science fiction and in turn describes it as speculative fiction, the difference being that science fiction is about things we cannot do yet, and speculative fiction is about things that could really happen. 

"For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do.... speculative fiction means a work that employs the means already to hand and that takes place on Planet Earth." 

Margaret Atwood - 5 Quotes/Selected Pieces of Writing

The Moment

The moment when, after many years
of hard work and a long voyage
you stand in the centre of your room,
house, half-acre, square mile, island, country,
knowing at last how you got there,
and say, I own this,

is the same moment when the trees unloose
their soft arms from around you,
the birds take back their language,
the cliffs fissure and collapse,
the air moves back from you like a wave
and you can't breathe.

No, they whisper. You own nothing.
You were a visitor, time after time
climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming.
We never belonged to you.
You never found us.
It was always the other way round. 



You Fit Into Me 

You fit into me
like a hook into an eye

a fish hook
an open eye 


Excerpt from 'The Tent' 

“I'm working on my own life story. I don't mean I'm putting it together; no, I'm taking it apart. If you'd wanted the narrative line you should have asked earlier, when I still knew everything and was more than willing to tell. That was before I discovered the virtues of scissors, the virtues of matches.”

"An eye for an eye only leads to more blindness"

“Fear is synonymous with the future, and the future consists of forked roads, I should say forking roads, because the roads are forking all the time, like slow lightning. A road is a process, not a location.”

Chosen Author - Margaret Atwood

After some quick reading and further research I decided to go with Margaret Atwood as my chosen author for this project. I find Atwood's way of writing to be really vivd and descriptive, which I think could be a useful way of helping me link text to image. I'm also interested in the environmental work she has done throughout her life and how this parallels in her writing. The themes that run through her writing, be it poetry or novels, also hold interest too me. Atwood explores our relationship with nature, feminist views, politics, animals and the dangers of ideology. She has also re-told/reconstructed classic fairytales.

I'm really looking forward to learning more about Atwood's life and work. I particularly enjoy her poetry as well as her novels, they're the kind of things that I would usually pick up to read and enjoy. I think she has a really beautiful way of writing and of putting thoughts/feelings/ideas into words and explores some interesting themes with her writing as well

Also wears cute hats.