The House on the Island

The house on the island belonged to Charis. While Charis is at the house on the island, Karen keeps coming back and Charis can not keep her out of her mind. Karen is who Charis used to be. She was 26 years old when she changed her name. She thought it was the right thing to do. She gathered up everything that she didn't want or that was associated with the name and threw it in a bag and tied it shut. she didn't want to be Karen anymore and she didn't even want to hear the name. However, when she was at the house on the island, everything started coming back into her head and she could establish what parts of it were Charis and which parts of it were Karen. then the next thing she knew, Karen was inside of Charis's body. She couldn't establish who was who and at what time.

Illusion

There is a lot of illusion in this novel because at the beginning when Tony, Charis, and Roz are all at Toxique talking about their lives, and what they used to be when Zenia was still around. All of a sudden either all three women or even just one of them, would get a chill or a feeling that they weren't the only three people in their conversation, then all of a sudden they would turn around and see Zenia. It was like she was always there, looking over them and tormenting them even though she wasn't alive anymore. She was there to haunt them. She was doing a good job at it to.

Just Some Pictures Relating to the Detail!

These tights are like the ones being described by Roz when the women are at Toxique.




The aftermath of "last weekends party" also what Tony thinks of Anthea's breath....





The brisk winter day that Charis is experiencing, and the chickens too!

A Few Quotes Relating to: Detail in the Novel

"She glances at the leopard-skin tights of the waitress, wrinkles in her nose.." (page 69)

• Roz is great at making discoveries and noticing the details that most people would miss. This is a quote from chapter 10 when the three women are at Toxique and when Roz is noticing the waitresses outfit, and her apperance.

"When she says it her breath smells the way it does now, of smoke and of the empty glasses left on the kitchen counter in the mornings after parties, and on other mornings as well." (page 158)

• In chapter 21, Tony and Anthea are having a conversation, all Tony can do is think of the smell of Anthea's breath. This is the way she described it, as if it were last weekend's party leftovers.

"The winter wore on. It wore them down. Taking a bath was an arctic experience, feeding the chickens was a polar expedition: trudging through the snow, battling the fierce winds that swept in off the lake." (page 307)

• Another great example of detail! Describing the cold winter days that Charis was going through. In the rest of the chapter it goes on about the chickens and Charis's own health. But i found this to be the most descriptive quote for the winter days she was going through.

These are just a few examples of the various places detail is used throughly throughout the novel!

Interesting Chapter

While reading chapter 36 i found some very interesting things. Zenia and Charis are having a converstion about cards. Zenia says that she can read what it is the cards are saying. It gets to the point where according to Zenia the cards are about Charis's parents, and where they came from. However she gets thre readings wrong. It gets to the point where Zenia then picks up her own cards and starts reading them. She comes across the queen of spades.

"The Queen of Spades is bad luck. Some say it's the death card." - Zenia (page 306)

Then Charis thinks that it is all too negative and that they should put the cards away, Zenia agrees in a tone as if she doesn't really care what she does and then goes to bed.

Theme: Feminisim

Feminism is a huge factor in many of Margaret Atwood's novels. Especially in The Robber Bride. She portrays the main character Zenia to be some horrible person who goes behind her so called "friends" backs and she cheats with every single one of their significant others. She does this to show the other women that you can not trust anyone, especially men. She does this because she is a feminist and doesn't think that her friends should have faith or believe in men because she doesn't. However, after trying to show her friends that you can't trust men, they all grow to hate her because they are now all without husbands and boyfriends because they all cheated with Zenia. Once Zenia dies, the other three women, Roz, Charis, and Tony all still meet each other at their local coffee shop and talk about what is going on in their lives and sometimes they talk about Zenia, however, whenever they talk about her they always get this feeling that she is in the room, or listening in on their conversation because Zenia has come back to haunt them.

Critical Article Summary #3

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian poet, novelist, and critic.  She attened the University of Toronto and also Harvard University. She has a poetry collection as well as many novels. The Robber Bride along with some of her other novels are noted for their feminism and their Canadian nationalism.