Autonomy, Identity, Narcissism, and Relationship in the Novels of Margaret Atwood

Abstract

<p>This study is an examination of all of Margaret Atwood's novels to date. In the first section of the thesis I argue that Atwood's first three novels concern themselves with a characteristically "feminine" form of heteronomy, and with the struggle to move away from a condition of heteronomy towards a state of autonomy. In the second section, I argue that Atwood's focus changes to a concern for the necessity of the Self to extend itself toward genuine relationship with the Other. The link between the two "periods" of Atwood's writing is the concept of narcissism. Different forms of narcissism are essential components in both the condition of heteronomy, and in the condition of tenuous, or on the other hand too-rigid, autonomy; once Atwood has explored the nature of "feminine" heteronomy and of woman's struggle for autonomy, she becomes interested in narcissism as a problem in itself, as it exists in various realms--personal, political, and academic. The ideological context of the thesis is eclectic, in that the assumptions underlying the development of my argument are rooted in feminist, existentialist, social-psychological, and religious discourses.</p>