Insights into Margaret Atwood's "Surfacing"
The novel "Surfacing" is structured around the point of view of a young woman who travels with her boyfriend and two married friends to a remote island on a lake in Northern Quebec, where she spent much of her childhood, to search for her missing father. Accompanied by her lover and another young couple, she becomes caught up in her past and in questioning her future. This psychological mystery tale presents a compelling study of a woman who is also searching for herself.
The unnamed narrator of the novel is also its chief protagonist. She is an artist who goes in search of her missing father. The novel is written entirely from the narrator’s perspective, detailing events as they occur while flashing back to events past.
Atwood re-creates the narrator’s raw, unfiltered psychology by including the narrator’s observations and memories as they occur. The narrator speaks in the first person and does not address a specific audience. Her voice is objective in that it only relates what the other characters say and do, but it is subjective in that she interprets the psychology behind other characters’ actions. The narrator is unreliable because she relates memories only to change or deny them.
Atwood uses the narrator’s near-constant feeling of alienation to comment on the alienation of all women. The narrator feels abandoned by her parents because of the disappearance of her father and the detachment of her mother. She finds men especially alienating because of the way they control women through religion, marriage, birth control, sex, language, and birth. She depicts the way that men view relationships as a war, with women as the spoils. The narrator also describes her alienation as systematic, highlighting the way that children learn gender roles early on in life. The result of the narrator’s alienation is madness and complete withdrawal. The narrator remains unnamed, making her a universal figure and suggesting that all women are in some way alienated.
The narrator’s search for her father, memories of her mother, confrontation of her past, observations of her companions, and reaction to American encroachments on the wilderness all promote in her an emotional numbness. During the first hours of staying at the cabin, the narrator revisits memories. She thinks of her parents and brother, of her own failed marriage, and of her child who now lives with her ex. She also thinks about whether or not she loves Joe, and she realizes she doesn't feel love for him. She doesn't feel much emotion at all—a fact that worries her with increasing urgency. She knows she needs to find out why she can't seem to feel anything. So as she is solving the mystery of where her father is, she is also trying to solve the mystery of her own lack of emotion.
Even though she has broken from reality, she seems to be processing her grief over losing her parents and giving up a pregnancy. Eventually she emerges from this psychotic state, somewhat healed from her pain. She looks in the mirror and sees she is just herself, a natural woman. The narrator feels that her spiritual journey begins with her return to the Canadian wilderness. The search for her missing father reflects the search for her true identity.
The narrator wants to get rid of the past, she tries her best to purify herself from any connection with the past. She revives her own past searching for an understanding of her own femininity.
The narrator's painful process of reminiscence, which requires that she face the traumatic experience of the abortion, helps her to change and ultimately discover some sense of herself. Her conclusion that she has become pregnant with Joe's child and that she must survive for the child to survive, pulls her back into reality and to a reestablishment of her ties with civilization. By the end of the novel, her future with Joe is uncertain, but she has made one significant change: she insists that she will never be a victim.
The Narrator and Joe and Anna and David relationship in the novel speaks about the themes of male dominace and insecure mindset. At first the narrator depicts Joe as simple-minded and agreeable, but as Surfacing progresses, Joe’s personality undergoes changes. Where once he seemed content, he becomes irritable and sullen when the narrator refuses his marriage proposal. Also, Joe’s actions become less predictable. His proposal is unexpected, and the narrator becomes less able to discern Joe’s intentions. When David asks Anna to be filmed naked and Joe defends her, the narrator has trouble discerning whether Joe is helping a friend or seeking a way to become sexually aroused. The narrator shows herself to be unreliable in depicting Joe objectively.
As her impressions of Joe fluctuate, the narrator’s impression of their love also shifts. Initially, the narrator downplays Joe’s love for her. She believes that Joe wants to marry her out of a conceptual ideal and not out of affection. The narrator also downplays her love for Joe, claiming she only enjoys Joe for his physical qualities. However, Surfacing ends with legitimate love between the two, and Joe displays his sincere affection for the narrator when he searches for her on the island. Despite this love, the narrator filters Joe’s actions through her own biases, making his true character unknowable.
She struggles with society’s expectations of women and femininity and lives unmarried with her boyfriend Joe. She has delusions about having abandoned her child with her ex-husband but this is later revealed to be a delusion. The truth is that she had an unwanted abortion after being convinced by her lover, an already married man with a family. Her false memories have been a way for her to cope with the pain in her past, but it all comes to a head when she discovers that her father has died alone in the remote wilderness.
She appears to delve further into madness after being left alone on the island, having kept so much of her emotions bottled up over the years. Eventually Joe comes back for her and she seems to realize that she does in fact love him.
In parallel David and Anna's relationship first of all, one can quickly learn that Anna's marriage is far from perfect. In fact, her husband revels in humiliating her, and she and David are both unfaithful to each other.
The relationship between Anna and David portrays the image of what a woman's role should be in a marriage. During her nine-year marriage, Anna lives a life of submission to David, constantly trying to please him. She always wear makeup, otherwise she is afraid that David will use sex as a weapon to punish her .David is the model of male dominance in Surfacing. David initially appears to be an ideal husband, as he jokes and flirts with Anna.
She also battle with her husband: "her body her only weapon and she was fighting him because if she ever surrendered the balance of power would be broken and he would go elsewhere. When the narrator asks Anna about marriage, Anna’s comparison of marriage to skiing blindly down a hill helps solidify the narrator’s fear of marriage. Also, Anna’s admission that David either withholds sex or hurts her during sex helps the narrator to see the way men use sex as a weapon.
Anna’s relationship with David represents the more traditional view of women in society, that they should be subservient to their husbands. He is extremely bullying and controlling toward his wife, often making negative comments about her weight and her intelligence. Her character portrays that servility and contrasts with the narrator, who fights against this submissive role. Hers is, indeed, a pathetic character clinging on to an insecure marriage.
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