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... her form of writing that reinforces her theme of awareness can be found in her poem, It is Dangerous To Read Newspaper. This poem deals with the aspect of not only female victimization but beyond that. It talks about how men not only victimize women, but also other men. They not only inflict injuries upon women but upon themselves as well. However, this poem seems to single out a very important part of a society, which is the media and more specifically newspapers.
Throughout her poem, Atwood seems to cover similar themes as the ones covered in her book, bodily harm. She looks at the cause and the effect of victimization and abuse that takes place each day in every part of the world. She is stating that wars have become the cause, which affect many innocent children, women and men. She states in her poem, And the jungles are flaming, the under- brush is charged with soldiers, the names on the difficult maps go up in smoke Men are forced to fight for a cause they dont necessarily believe in. She makes an attempt to warn the reader through her writing that by choosing to become bystanders, one is allowing the situation to continue and take place.
This makes one just as guilty and it makes ones hands just as destructive as the hands of those who kill with guns. Her theme of victimization comes closest to her personal experience as it will get, in the writing of Margaret. She speaks from the perspective of a former journalist and chooses symbolism to awaken the reader and almost force him / her to comprehend her theme of victimization. In Margaret Atwood's book Bodily Harm, the narrative is structured through parallels in events and symbols, including doubled figures of doctors and grandmothers.
Hands and faceless strangers are other important images of both connection and alienation between people. Rennie, who is a victim of cancer in her left breast, symbolizes the political scramble on the islands where she sets off to do her writing piece. Moreover, the break-in alters Rennie's view of herself. Thus, both the invasion of cancer and the invasion of her dwelling space precipitate Rennie's incipient self-estrangement. The parallels of events continue to take place throughout the novel as they help create Atwood's theme. As these parallel events take place, they allow the reader to see into the story that sometimes things are less than obvious and one must put the reoccurring events in perspective and see beyond what is visible to the naked eye.
Like her mother (who had made her feel responsible for accidents that happened to her during her childhood), the policemen investigating the forced entry make Rennie feel as if she invited such an assault. Throughout the novel, the policemen play a sinister role: as agents of authority, they are neutral when they should be involved and involved when they should be neutral. They become symbols of institutionalized brutality, sanctioned by the patriarchal powers and by the impersonality of their uniforms. Some of Rennie's anxieties about invasion and violation can be understood through the cultural attitudes toward both the female flesh and cancer. Rennie is a double victim of both disease and male exploitation.
It is a very conscious choice that Atwood chooses a character that has breast cancer. Men worship the breast, and women internalize the male overvaluation of this aspect of their body. Because it is also associated with the actual and symbolic qualities of nurturance, the loss of part or all of a breast affects a womans sense of procreative capability after her operation. Similarly, Rennie wonders and worries whether she will be able to give birth to a child. Margaret Atwood's use of symbolism is not only distinctive in her novel Bodily Harm, but can also be found in her poems, It is Dangerous to Read Newspapers. This poem takes one inside the mind of Margaret Atwood as this is her most honest work on addressing her reader to the victimization of helpless people.
While I was building neat Castles in the sandbox, The hasty pits were filling with bulldozed corpses She starts off the poem using sand to symbolize innocence and cruelty. In one case she is stating showing an innocent child playing in the sandbox and all of a sudden this shifts giving a dark and a cold use to the sand, which is creating pits to throw in corpses. Even in the first stanza she has used juxtaposition and through parallelism established a rather melancholy view of victimization of many innocent people. She further states, I am the cause, I am a stockpile of chemical Toys, my body I reach out in love, my hands are guns My good intentions are completely lethal. Here, Atwood uses the use of a body which symbolizes life and gives it a double meaning. She is more or less making a confession at this part stating that she reaches out her hands in love but her hands turn into guns that are only capable of destruction.
She is actually using herself as a surfboard for all mankind, and making a statement of the actions of some humans beings and if they arent thought out regardless of how good the intention, maybe it simply results in destruction. In It is dangerous to read newspaper, the style of sentence seems to again combine the literal meaning of the word newspaper which symbolizes information and knowledge and education yet she seems to replace it with a different view stating that it is dangerous to read newspapers. She states this as such a style because this reinforces her theme of victimization. She says newspapers are dangerous because in reality they dont provide the truth. They provide a perspective of the story, a perspective that would guarantee to sell, not necessarily to inform. Margaret Atwood addresses in her novel, Bodily Harm, the nature of violence and victimization, especially of women.
As a great writer she relays on her writing skills, such as symbolism and parallelism. Similarly, in her short stories a great deal of concern is raised through her theme of victimization that occurs within a society especially one that is patriarchal.
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Research essay sample on Margaret Atwood Bodily Harm
