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.

Critical Article #3

"Atwood, Margaret (Eleanor)." Britannica Concise Encyclopedia, v 3.0. 2009. eLibrary. Web. 26 Apr. 2011.

Critical Article Summary #2

After having written two short fiction books she published her most amazing novel, The Robber Bride. This novel looked at lifestyles in Toronto  and the friendships of women.  She then Co-won the 1994 Trillium Award, also in 1993 she won the Canadian Authors Association Novel of the Year Award and the Commonwealth prize for Canadian and Caribbean Region. She then proceeded to write many more novels, short stories, fiction etc. She has continued critical success since the 1960's and has received many awards and many honours in her writing career.

Critical Article #2

"Atwood, Margaret Eleanor." Canadian Encyclopedia. 2002. eLibrary. Web. 26 Apr. 2011.

Critical Article Summary #1

Atwood has written several novels, which is why she has now earned an international reputation.  Her first novel, The Edible Woman. This was written in 1969. This novel then introduced a series of female characters in all of her novels. Her novels have a futuristic outlook on women. In the Robber Bride, it looks at the nature of women’s friendships with one another, life in Toronto and feminism. This novel is a great example of feminism as it is a strong theme throughout the entire novel.

Critical Article #1

"Atwood, Margaret Eleanor." Junior Canadian Encyclopedia (2002). 2002. eLibrary. Web. 25 Apr. 2011.

Summary

Atwood has written several novels, which is why she has now earned an international reputation, first, The Edible Woman. (1969) This novel then introduces a series of female characters in all of her novels. Her novels then have a futuristic look at women. In The Robber Bride, it looks at the nature of women’s friendship and life in Toronto, and feminism.

Fear

FEAR: be afraid or feel anxious; be scared or frightened.

Fear comes up alot throughout the novel this is because Zenia has ruined all of the women's relationships which makes some of them more self concious, or some of them unable to trust someone. In this novel especially because Zenia has had a cheating relationship with all of her "friends" significant others the other women now have a hard time trusting men. However, that is exactly the lesson the Zenia wanted to teach the other women. She wanted to show them that you can't just go around and trust anyone, especially when it comes to trusting men, because they are basically untrustable. This then brings up the theme of feminism again.

Survey of Authors and Secondary Sources

1. Author: Maragret Atwood        Title: The Robber Bride

2. I was interested in this author after I had spoken to my English teacher and also after talking to some of my friends, and look through my book list choice. Ms.Breivik recommended this book and said that it was quite good and interesting. Also i noticed that Maragret Atwood's name was mentioned on the book choice list multiple times which made me more confident in choosing her as my author for my independent study novel.

3.  Maragret Atwood was born in Ottawa in 1939. She grew up in nothern Ontario, Quebec and Toronto. Her undergraduate degree was obtained at Victoria College at the University of Toronto. She also obtained her master`s degree at Radcliffe College. She has recieved many awards and honourary degrees. She has been a full-time writer since 1972. Her first published book was a book of poetry called The Circle Game in 1964

4. Published works: The Edible Woman, Surfacing, Lady Oracle, Life Before Man, The Circle Game, Interlunar, Morning in the Burned House, Eating Fire: Selected Poetry.
Genres: Chidren, Fiction, Non-fiction, Literary Critism, Poetry, Radio Drama, Screenplay and Short Stories.

5.  Canada is an influencial place in Atwood's writing, almost all of her novels, short stories, and poems etc. are set in Canada. I think that it is this way because she is Canadian, and beafuse she was born and raised here, and lived her for most of her life. The majority of her novels take place in the present time with very few of them dating in the past or in the future. Most of her novels are set in the current time beacuse she likes to focus on current events and issues  that are going on. Feminism is a major theme in more then one of her novels,  I think this is because of when she wrote most of her poetry in the 60's, it was during the feminist movement. Also, from then on, alot of her writing had to do with feminism.

6. Atwood is most well known for writing about the theme of feminism, this theme can be found in almost everything she has written.

7. Some other authors you may be interested in if you are interested in Margaret Atwwod include: Ann Beattie, Gail godwin, Doris Grumbach etc.

Conflict in the Novel

The main conflict in the novel is Zenia. She was the trouble maker who pretened to be the other women's friend. However, she managed to ruin all of their relationships or marriages with men by having a relationship of her own with all of them. She tends to be a feminist, this is why she has these relationships with men that are already taken because she wants to prove to the other women that you can't trust men. After all of this, the other women loose thier significant other, and Roz even looses hers to suicide, after Zenia, all on her own, ruins everyones life, its then up to themselve to try and put them back together, which Zenia then makkes even harder for them to do because even though she is dead she comes back on a daily basis to haunt the other women.

Characters

There are four main characters in the book in which I am going to focus on


Zenia: Arch nemisis, she has had an impact on all the other three women in a negative way. Now that she is gone, she is still influencing their daily life, and she continues to torment them on a daily basis.

Tony: She works in the history department at the university and has a husband, she has had some issues with her husband, this is because he and Zenia used to have a relationship while Tony and West were still married. 
           

• West: Tony's husband; Used to have a relationship with Zenia while he was still married to Tony.

Charis: She has a free spirit look on life which makes her somewhat of a pushover. She is unable to stand up for herself, especially when it comes to dealing with her daughter Augusta. Shr feels like the reason Zenia keeps showing up, and the reason for why it seems she hasn't really died is all her fault. She had a relationship with a man named Billy, but it didn't last long because Billy had cheated on her with Zenia. She is also some what self concious, and she watched very closely at what she eats and she is always counting calories.

• Augusta: Charis's daughter, pushes her mother to do things because she knows she will always  agree and say yes.

Roz: She is a very successful business women, and she also had a husband that cheated on her with Zenia, once Zenia left Roz's husband Mitch, Roz refused to take him back.

• Mitch: Roz's husband, once Zenia left him and Roz refused to take him back, he committed suicide.

(Main Characters = BOLDED, Less important smaller characters, BULLETED)

Theme: Anger

In the novel, Ros, Tony, and Charis are all angry at Zenia because yes they used to be best friends, but Zenia was one nasty nasty woman. She was horrible to all of the other girls. The Three other girls always meet each other in their usual coffee shop. Some times when they are there, whether they are talking about Zenia, or just out of nowhere they will get this feeling that she is there listening in on their conversation. As if she was haunting them, and as if she hadn't caused enough damage when she was alive and as if she would like to cause more. This is a major theme in the novel because the girls are all thinking the same thing. That she is haunting them. Sometimes when they are at the coffee shop, they turn around, to see if she is actually there because of how real the feeling is that she is actually there.

"What she needed was a bowl of blood. A bowl of blood, a bowl of pain, some death. Then maybe she would stay buried." (page15)


This quote goes along with the theme of anger because it is expressing how Tony feels about Zenia, and how she thinks that she should stop coming back and stop with all of the haunting she is doing because all she is really doing is causing pain for everyone else.