Margaret Atwood: Education and Influences on a Literary Icon

Margaret Atwood, a celebrated Canadian novelist, poet, literary critic, and environmental activist, has left an indelible mark on contemporary literature. Her work is known for its intellectual depth, linguistic prowess, and exploration of timely and relevant themes. This article delves into Atwood's early life, education, and the various influences that have shaped her into the literary icon she is today.

Early Life and Formative Influences

Margaret Eleanor Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, on November 18, 1939, the second of three children to Carl Edmund Atwood, an entomologist, and Margaret Dorothy (née Killam), a former dietitian and nutritionist. Atwood's early life was significantly shaped by her father's work, which led her to spend much of her childhood in the backwoods of northern Quebec, exploring and observing nature. She also travelled back and forth between Ottawa, Sault Ste. Marie and Toronto. This immersion in the natural world profoundly influenced her writing, evident in the imagery and depth of her works, as well as her advocacy for the environment. She did not attend school full-time until she was 12 years old. She became a voracious reader of literature, Dell pocketbook mysteries, Grimms' Fairy Tales, Canadian animal stories, and comic books. As a child, she also participated in the Brownie program of Girl Guides of Canada. Atwood realized she wanted to write professionally when she was 16.

Education and Literary Development

Atwood pursued higher education to deepen her understanding of writing. In 1957, she began studying at Victoria College in the University of Toronto, where she published poems and articles in Acta Victoriana, the college literary journal, and participated in the sophomore theatrical tradition of The Bob Revue. Her professors included Jay Macpherson and Northrop Frye. She received her bachelor's degree in English in 1961. The same year, her first work, Double Persephone (1961), gained popularity. Later, in 1962, she received her master's degree from The Harvard Radcliffe College. She continued to pursue her doctorate when Atwood later was enrolled at Harvard University for English, however for unknown reasons Atwood pulled back from the program before finishing.

Her formal education at the University of Toronto and Harvard Radcliffe College provided her with a strong foundation in literature and critical theory. Her studies exposed her to a wide range of literary traditions and intellectual perspectives, which influenced her writing style and thematic concerns.

Literary Career: Successes and Awards

Margaret Atwood has led a highly successful and rewarding career through her life. She has written several award winning novels, poetry, and short stories, such as The Circle Game (1966), The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), The Blind Assassin (2000), Oryx and Crake (2003), and The Tent (2006). Atwood’s famous works have been translated in many different languages and have had several in screen adaptations with The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace. These adaptations of her works allow for people all around the world to enjoy her works expanding her audience throughout the world. She, too, has received several awards for her novels in her life as an author. Along with the television series adaptation, the Governor General’s Award was awarded to her book The Handmaid’s Tale. The Commonwealth Literary Prize was also awarded for not the success of The Handmaid’s Tale but for the beauty and diverseness of Atwood’s writing. She was presented with her first Man Booker Prize in 2005 for The Blind Assassin after not receiving the award for her many nominations with The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye, and Alias Grace, and Oryx and Crake in previous years. Later, she received, once again, another Booker Prize in her work of The Testament. Her accomplishments continue as she was awarded in the year 1993 for her writing of the The Robber Bride with The Canadian Authors’ Association Award. Margaret Atwood obtained several honorary degrees from many prestigious colleges such as: Cambridge, Oxford, and the National University of Ireland in Galway. Along with her recognition in 1990 when Harvard awarded her the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Centennial Medal. In 1991, 1993, and 1995, she was given the Trillium Book Award. Most recently in 2005, The Edinburgh International Book Festival awarded her the Enlightenment Award.

Read also: From Teacher to Wicked Witch

Atwood's first book of poetry, Double Persephone, was published as a pamphlet by John Robert Colombo's Hawkshead Press in 1961, and won the E. J. Pratt Medal. While continuing to write, Atwood was a lecturer in English at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, from 1964 to 1965, Instructor in English at the Sir George Williams University in Montreal from 1967 to 1968, and taught at the University of Alberta in Edmonton from 1969 to 1970. In 1966, The Circle Game was published, winning the Governor General's Award. This collection was followed by three other small press collections of poetry: Kaleidoscopes Baroque: a poem, Cranbrook Academy of Art (1965); Talismans for Children, Cranbrook Academy of Art (1965); and Speeches for Doctor Frankenstein, Cranbrook Academy of Art (1966); as well as The Animals in That Country (1968). Atwood's first novel, The Edible Woman, was published in 1969. Atwood taught at York University in Toronto from 1971 to 1972 and was a writer in residence at the University of Toronto during the 1972/1973 academic year. Atwood published six collections of poetry over the course of the decade: The Journals of Susanna Moodie (1970), Procedures for Underground (1970), Power Politics (1971), You Are Happy (1974), Selected Poems 1965-1975 (1976), and Two-Headed Poems (1978). Atwood also published three novels during this time: Surfacing (1972); Lady Oracle (1976); and Life Before Man (1979), which was a finalist for the Governor General's Award. Surfacing, Lady Oracle, and Life Before Man, like The Edible Woman, explore identity and social constructions of gender as they relate to topics such as nationhood and sexual politics. In particular, Surfacing, along with her first non-fiction monograph, Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature (1972), helped establish Atwood as an important and emerging voice in Canadian literature. In 1977 Atwood published her first short story collection, Dancing Girls, which was the winner of the St. Atwood's literary reputation continued to rise in the 1980s with the publication of Bodily Harm (1981); The Handmaid's Tale (1985), winner of the Arthur C. Clarke Award and 1985 Governor General's Award and finalist for the 1986 Booker Prize; and Cat's Eye (1988), finalist for both the 1988 Governor General's Award and the 1989 Booker Prize. Despite her distaste for literary labels, Atwood has since conceded to referring to The Handmaid's Tale as a work of science fiction or, more precisely, speculative fiction. As she has repeatedly noted, "There's a precedent in real life for everything in the book. Atwood's reputation as a writer continued to grow with the publication of the novels The Robber Bride (1993), finalist for the 1994 Governor General's Award and shortlisted for the James Tiptree Jr. Award, and Alias Grace (1996), winner of the 1996 Giller Prize, finalist for the 1996 Booker Prize, finalist for the 1996 Governor General's Award, and shortlisted for the 1997 Orange Prize for Fiction. Although vastly different in context and form, both novels use female characters to question good and evil and morality through their portrayal of female villains. As Atwood noted about The Robber Bride, "I'm not making a case for evil behavior, but unless you have some women characters portrayed as evil characters, you're not playing with a full range." The Robber Bride takes place in contemporary Toronto, while Alias Grace is a work of historical fiction detailing the 1843 murders of Thomas Kinnear and his housekeeper Nancy Montgomery. In 2000, Atwood published her tenth novel, The Blind Assassin, to critical acclaim, winning both the Booker Prize and the Hammett Prize in 2000. Atwood followed this success with the publication of Oryx and Crake in 2003, the first novel in a series that also includes The Year of the Flood (2009) and MaddAddam (2013), which would collectively come to be known as the MaddAddam Trilogy. The apocalyptic vision in the MaddAddam Trilogy engages themes of genetic modification, pharmaceutical and corporate control, and man-made disaster. As a work of speculative fiction, Atwood notes of the technology in Oryx and Crake, "I think, for the first time in human history, we see where we might go. In 2005, Atwood published the novella The Penelopiad as part of the Canongate Myth Series. The story is a retelling of The Odyssey from the perspective of Penelope and a chorus of the twelve maids murdered at the end of the original tale. On November 28, 2018, Atwood announced that she would publish The Testaments, a sequel to The Handmaid's Tale, in September 2019. The novel features three female narrators and takes place fifteen years after the character Offred's final scene in The Handmaid's Tale. In 2008, Atwood published Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth, a collection of five lectures delivered as part of the Massey Lectures from October 12 to November 1, 2008. In March 2008, Atwood accepted a chamber opera commission. In 2016, Atwood began writing the superhero comic book series Angel Catbird, with co-creator and illustrator Johnnie Christmas. The series protagonist, scientist Strig Feleedus, is victim of an accidental mutation that leaves him with the body parts and powers of both a cat and a bird.

Themes and Literary Style

Atwood's works often explore themes of gender, identity, power, and environmentalism. Her writing style is characterized by its sharp wit, vivid imagery, and thought-provoking social commentary.

Gender and Identity

Atwood's exploration of gender and identity is central to many of her novels, including The Edible Woman, Surfacing, Life before Man, Bodily Harm, and The Handmaid's Tale. These works examine the social constructions of gender and their impact on individual lives. Atwood's interest in female experience also emerges clearly in her novels, particularly in The Edible Woman (1969), Surfacing (1972), Life before Man (1979), Bodily Harm (1981), and The Handmaid’s Tale (1985). Even later novels such as The Robber Bride (1993) and Alias Grace (1996) feature female characters defined by their intelligence and complexity.

Power and Politics

The dynamics of power and politics are recurring themes in Atwood's works, particularly in The Handmaid's Tale, where she depicts a dystopian society controlled by a repressive theocratic regime. In Handmaid’s Tale, a timeless dystopian novel set in a world that may feel uncomfortably realistic to the female readers of the book describing the issue involving the freedom of a women’s reproductive system and why it isn’t morally and politically right for the government to control.

Environmentalism

Atwood's concern for the environment is evident in her works, such as Oryx and Crake, which explores the consequences of environmental degradation and genetic engineering. She has strong views on environmental issues, and she and Graeme Gibson were the joint honorary presidents of the Rare Bird Club within BirdLife International. Atwood celebrated her 70th birthday at a gala dinner at Laurentian University in Sudbury, Ontario. She stated that she had chosen to attend the event because the city has been home to one of Canada's most ambitious environmental reclamation programs: "When people ask if there's hope (for the environment), I say, if Sudbury can do it, so can you. Having been a symbol of desolation, it's become a symbol of hope."

Atwood's Perspective on Canadian Identity

Atwood's contributions to the theorizing of Canadian identity have garnered attention both in Canada and internationally. In Survival, Atwood postulates that Canadian literature, and by extension Canadian identity, is characterized by the symbol of survival. This symbol is expressed in the omnipresent use of "victim positions" in Canadian literature. These positions represent a scale of self-consciousness and self-actualization for the victim in the "victor/victim" relationship. The "victor" in these scenarios may be other humans, nature, the wilderness or other external and internal factors which oppress the victim. Atwood's Survival bears the influence of Northrop Frye's theory of garrison mentality; Atwood uses Frye's concept of Canada's desire to wall itself off from outside influence as a critical tool to analyze Canadian literature. According to her theories in works such as Survival and her exploration of similar themes in her fiction, Atwood considers Canadian literature as the expression of Canadian identity. Atwood's contribution to the theorizing of Canada is not limited to her non-fiction works.

Atwood's Views on Feminism

Despite her rejection of the label at times, critics have analyzed the sexual politics, use of myth and fairytale, and gendered relationships in Atwood's work through the lens of feminism. Before the 1985 publication of The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood gave an interview to feminist theorist Elizabeth Meese in which she defined feminism as a "belief in the rights of women" and averred that "if practical, hardline, anti-male feminists took over and became the government, I would resist them." In 2017, she clarified her discomfort with the label feminism by stating, "I always want to know what people mean by that word [feminism]. Some people mean it quite negatively, other people mean it very positively, some people mean it in a broad sense, other people mean it in a more specific sense. Therefore, in order to answer the question, you have to ask the person what they mean." Speaking to The Guardian, she said "For instance, some feminists have historically been against lipstick and letting transgender women into women's washrooms. I am, of course, not a real activist-I'm simply a writer without a job who is frequently asked to speak about subjects that would get people with jobs fired if they themselves spoke. You, however, at Equality Now are real activists. I hope people will give Equality Now lots and lots of money, today, so they can write equal laws, enact equal laws and see that equal laws are implemented.

Speculative vs. Science Fiction

Atwood has resisted the suggestion that The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake are science fiction, suggesting to The Guardian in 2003 that they are speculative fiction: "Science fiction has monsters and spaceships; speculative fiction could really happen." She told the Book of the Month Club: "Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction, not a science fiction proper. In 2005, Atwood said that she did at times write social science fiction and that The Handmaid's Tale and Oryx and Crake could be designated as such. She clarified her meaning on the difference between speculative and science fiction, admitting that others used the terms interchangeably: "For me, the science fiction label belongs on books with things in them that we can't yet do …

Personal Life

Besides writing, Atwood has invested some of her time working at a marketing research firm. She also finds herself combining her passion of education and English by teaching at several colleges in Vancouver, Edmonton, Montreal, and Toronto. Jim Polk was Atwood’s partner from 1968 to 1973. However, Atwood today isn’t alone, Graeme Gibson, together with her “soul-mate” they presently live on a farm north from Toronto with their daughter Elenor Jess Atwood who was born in 1976. Atwood and Graeme Gibson are both writers and are said to build and grow their writings together. The family returned to Toronto in 1980. Atwood and Gibson were together until September 18, 2019, when Gibson died after suffering from dementia. She wrote about Gibson in the poem Dearly and in an accompanying essay on grief and poetry published in The Guardian in 2020. Atwood said about Gibson "He wasn't an egotist, so he wasn't threatened by anything I was doing.

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