Characters in the Works of Margaret Atwood
Margaret Atwood’s works often have female protagonists that are in relationships with men who are already in a relationship with another woman to convey the power the protagonist has, ultimately illustrating a feminist approach to relationships. The cultural norm surrounding an affair is that a man is going outside of his relationship to fulfill his desires; the use of a female protagonist in Atwood’s works serves to convey that the woman can be in control in a relationship as she, too, can get what she wants out of that relationship.
In the novel Cat’s Eye, Margaret Atwood establishes this feminist approach through the relationship that the protagonist, Elaine, has with Josef and Jon. Josef is having an affair with Elaine, since he is already in a relationship with Susie; Atwood’s way of describing this relationship would be to say that Elaine was in a relationship with Josef given that she would reap the benefits she so chooses. Elaine's choice to be involved with Josef stems from her desires “to be squashed by passion, obliterated” (Atwood, 1989, p. 307). She “was a little envious” of the relationship Josef had with Susie (Atwood, 1989, p. 307). Atwood reveals that Elaine is in control of her own life by defining the exact reason Elaine is with Josef. Atwood uses this to reveal Elaine's ability to be particular with her choice in men. One night Jon and Elaine meet up when Elaine is fed up with Josef’s attempts to control her, and Elaine lets out the emotional baggage she has been holding by disguising it with being drunk. It is her ability to control the situations that enables her to “hope he will think” she has “had too much to drink” in an attempt to have an outlet for the emotions she is experiencing towards Josef (Atwood, 1989, p. 323). One can only absorb that Jon is Elaine’s emotional outlet while Josef fulfills her sexual desires because Elaine is the protagonist. By writing of Elaine’s ability to control her reasons for being in each relationship, Atwood conveys to her readers the opposite of the cultural norm by placing Elaine in two different relationships simultaneously to obtain two different advantages. Women can get the benefits they desire in the relationships they choose to be in; it is not solely a man’s desires that is important.
A similar message is conveyed in many of the short stories in Atwood’s Wilderness Tips. In the story, “The Bog Man,” Julie is in a relationship with one of her professors, Connor, who is married. While Julie and Connor have passionate nights in motel rooms, travel to Spinoza and Orkney to study, and spend long hours in the pubs of Scotland, Julie begins to find flaws in Connor like his jealousy over her communication with other men and his stereotyping of her. Before she may have thought she was in love with him and hoped that he would divorce his wife to marry her, but now she “no longer wants to marry Connor,” and “she no longer wants him” (Atwood, 1991, p. 92) Atwood places the power in the hands of the female protagonist, Julie, by letting her decide the fate of the relationship rather than letting Connor decide how the relationship ends based on his wishes. This breaks the cultural norm that “it was always supposed to be her that needed him”(Atwood, 1991, p. 92) Women can have control in a relationship as presented by Julie’s power to change her mind about her relationship with Connor at the drop of a hat, or at first sight of Connor’s negative characteristics, because she, the woman, is now longer getting any benefits out of the relationship.
Ultimately, the protagonists in Atwood's works have the ability to control the relationships they are in based on their reasons for their relationships which enables her to break the cultural norm surrounding a man's role in a relationship and to establish a feminist approach.