Rereading Atwoods Surfacing :: Atwood Surfacing Essays

Rereading Atwood's Surfacing The class touched on a multitude of different subjects during the class time for the second discussion of the novel, Surfacing. These discussions were much deeper than the previous one, asking questions on motivation and symbolism rather than plot and language. Two of the most popular subjects were characterization and the validity of the narrator and the information she gives the reader. Other topics were discussed including religion, the bird motif that has appeared throughout our readings this semester, and the narrator's artistic frustration among many others. To begin with one of the most prominent subjects, the class discussed character-ization at length. Many students wondered what the narrator's friends added to the story, whether they were symbolic of something, reflections of the narrator's characteristics, or representatives of other individuals. Daniel suggested that the narrator was projecting the identities of her parents onto her friends. For instance, David was representative of the narrator's brother ("fascist pig yanks") with his militancy and Joe was the narrator's father, capable of love and close to her heart. Erin echoed this idea, saying that Anna was representative of the narrator's mother who concealed all of her pain and unhappiness throughout the story. Other students, though, had different ideas. Stephanie thought that the narrator's friends were symbolic, Joe as nature, David as the city, and Anna as the "icky" things about being a girl. As these were discussed, other ideas "surfaced" and the narrator's brother was thought to represent absolutism while her mother, like Joe, represented nature. Judy expanded on this, saying that David was perhaps representative of the narrator's previous lover. All of these ideas were well backed and well stated, leaving each individual student to decide which characters represented who or what. Another topic that was discussed at length was the narrator herself. In Forum II, Mandy began by questioning the narrator's humanness and what, exactly, constitutes being human. The discussion picked up these thoughts and began to question whether the narrator was actually domesticated or wild. She cooks and cleans for the others, taking care of them basically the whole time, but it was argued that she seemed to be hardly one predisposed to subservience.