Citation
Varsha
Patil
Department of English,
JET’s Z. B. Patil College, Dhule-424002
(MS)
E-mail: varshapatil.vp.100@gmail.com
Abstract:
Margaret Atwood’s novel Surfacing is
a landmark novel in Canadian literature. It presents a richly layered narrative
that lends itself to interdisciplinary interpretation. The paper examines the
novel through the critical frameworks of eco-criticism, gender studies,
psychoanalytic theory, postcolonial discourse and mythological studies.The
young and unnamed protagonist comes back to Northern Quebec, the wilderness in
search of her father who disappears. Her journey into the Quebec wilderness in
search of her father transforms into a search for her identity. The novel
throws light on gender oppression, cultural imperialism, environmental problems
and psychological issue. Surfacing is immensely relevant in the present
scenario of environmental crisis, gender oppression and cultural crisis. Atwood
proposes that authentic survival necessitates confronting truth, reclaiming
fractured identity and restoring an ethical relationship with Nature.
Keywords:Interdisciplinary
studies,eco-criticism, psychoanalysis, mythological studies
Research
Objectives:
1.
To examine Surfacing
through an interdisciplinary framework.
2.
To analyze the
representation of ecological consciousness.
3.
To investigate the
critique of patriarchal structures within the narrative.
4.
To explore the
psychological dimensions of repression, trauma, and self-recovery as reflected
in the narrator’s journey.
5.
To evaluate the novel’s
engagement, its critique of American cultural imperialism.
6.
To examine the mythic and
archetypal patterns that structure the narrator’s symbolic descent and rebirth.
7.
To show how survival
operates as a multidimensional concept, encompassing ecological responsibility,
gender autonomy, psychological integration, and cultural sovereignty.
Introduction:
Margaret Atwood is the most
distinguished contemporary Canadian novelist, poet,environmentalist and human
activist. Her novel Surfacing was published in 1972. It was a period during
which second wave feminism was at the height of its momentum and influence.The
novelSurfacing throws light on the social- political issue of the late 20thcentury,
such as the environmental degradation, second wave feminism, Canadiannationalism.The
young and unnamed protagonist comes back from Toronto to Northern Quebec, the
wilderness to search for her father, who disappears. Her friend, DavidAnna and
Joe have accompanied her. She is a commercial artist. She has come back to Northern
Quebec Bush after 9 years. Her coming to the wilderness becomes the arena, for her
psychological crisis and regenerative self-realization. It function as the
locus of her psychological fragmentation and eventual integration.
An interdisciplinary reading of thenovel
Surfacing foregrounds its structural and thematic complexity.Surfacing emerges as
a dynamic narrative that operates andconceptualizesmeaning on multiple
levelssuch as ecological consciousness, gender theories, postcolonial unease
and mythic symbolic coverage.The novel’s central motif is survival which goes
beyond physical endurance.It encompasses ecological accountability,
psychological reconciliation and cultural sovereignty. It critiques environmental
exploitation, gender oppression,cultural imperialism, and psychological suppression.
Annis Pratt a feminist archetypal criticconsiders
the novel in terms of “a quest for rebirth and transformation”.Prof.CoomiV.Vevaina
from University of Mumbai, India discusses the novel from”Jung's psychoanalysis”.To
SushilaSingh, the novel is “a significant nationalist and feminist work of art”.
Russell Brown finds in Surfacing “implications of the artist in the myth-makingprocess”.Surfacing
has been interpreted by applying various disciplines.
Interdisciplinary study of Surfacing
enables to analyse the text by applying multiple theoretical lenses such as humanities,
social sciences, environmental studies, psychology, gender studies. The
synthesis of these theoretical frameworks enable more comprehensive
understanding of Atwood’s strategy.
Eco-criticism studies the
representation of Nature. It also studies the relationship between Nature and
human beings. The northern Quebec wilderness brings about the protagonist’s
transformation and self- realization. The dead heron symbolises cruelty done
towards Nature. The crucificationimagery reminds us of religious sacrifice. The
dead heron symbolizes ecological violence .By doing harmfulact the human world
is alienated from the natural world. The gulf between these two worlds becomes
increasingly pronounced over time. She criticises the Americans who fish and
litter in the lake. To her this act symbolizes capitalistic exploitation.
The novel Surfacing advances, a
sustained critic of American imperialism, representing it as a force that commodities
and victimizes the natural world. The protagonist identifies herself with the Nature.
She says:
I am not an animal or tree, I amthe thingin
which the trees and animals move and grow. I am a place. (236)
The mystical assertion
signalsrepudiation of anthropocentric supremacy as she reconceives herself as
an organic participant within a broader ecological continuum.
To become one with the Nature, she
renounces everything. She rejects clothing and canned food. She comes back to
the Nature, which enables her to regain her wholeness andrealize her strength.
Her stay on the Northern Quebec Island enables her to regain her consciousness
of victimization of natural elements. The lake symbolizes the ecological depth.
The narrator’s dive into the lake is the symbolic immersion into primordial
origins. The landscape is polluted and destroyed by the colonisers, the
Americans. She feels that the act of eating of the herons is an exercise of
power.
Her search is the search for herself, identity.She rejects
to be victimized. Psychoanalysis interprets the novel as narrative of
separation. The protagonist looks ather relationship with art teacher as a blow
from patriarchy. She sacrifices everything for him. The art teacher seduces her
and makes her pregnant. The forced abortion keeps her always restless. She considers
herself as a murderer and suffers from a guilt consciousness. She says:
But I bring with me from the distant
pass five nights ago, the time traveller, the premaevalone who will have to
learnshape of a goldfish now in my belly, undergoing its watery changes.Word furrowspotential
already in its proto-brain untravelled paths (249).
She is no more than a dead onedue to
the act of an enforced abortion. She feels that her ‘self’ has been divided
into two halves. After this betrayal and forced abortion, she decides to live
on the Northern Quebec Island to forget the past and its memories.
Postcolonial criticism examines power
relations between the colonizers and colonized.The American tourists in Surfacingsymbolizecultural
imperialism. She observes them who reduce the sacred landscape to a resource
for consumption. They pollute the lake. The wilderness is Canadian identity,
which is threatened by technology, moral corruption and capitalist expansion.
The quest of the protagonist is a
mythic quest. The lake functions as a womb. Her dive into the lake symbolizes immersion
into the womb. Her coming out of waterleads towards the process of
transformation. Water purifies her in totality and leads to her survival in the
real sense. She is a transformed soul.
The protagonist’s imagination to shed
human skinand the repression shows archetypalreturn to origin of life. Her
emergence from the wilderness symbolizes the resurrection.
Surfacing is a very wonderful text for
interdisciplinary study by applying various disciplines. The novel is a comment
on survival, identity and moral responsibility.Through interdisciplinary
synthesis Surfacing, conceptualizes survival as a multidimentional construct.
Atwood shows that individual,ecological, national healing requires facing truth
and cultivating a harmonious relationship with Nature.In the present context of
environmental precarity, gender inequalities and accelerating cultural homogenization,
Surfacing retains urgent contemporary resonance.
References:
1.
Atwoodb Margaret.
Surfacing. London: Virago Press, 2009. Print.
2.
Pratt Annis.“Surfacing
and the Rebirth Journey”.The Art of Margaret Atwood:Essays in Criticism. Ed. Cathy
N. Davidson and Arnold E.Davidson. Toronto Anansi Press,1981.Print.
3.
VevinaCoomi S. Re/MemberingSelves
Alienation and Survival in the Novels of Margaret Atwood and Margaret Laurence.
New Delhi: Creative Book, 1996.Print.
4.
Singh Sushila. Joyce
Carol Oates and Margaret Atwood: Two Forces of the Two World Feminism. Punjab
University Bulletin 18.1(1987) Print.
5.
McCombsJudith.Critical
Essays on Margaret Atwood.Boston: G.K.Hall,1988.Print.
6.
RigneyHill. Madness and
Sexual Politics in the Feminist Novel: Studies in Bronte,Woolf,Lessing and
Atwood. Wisconsin: University of Wisconsin, 1978.Print.
7.
MalashriLal. “Canadian
Gynocritics: Context of Meaning in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing”. Perspectives on
Women: Canada and India. Ed.AparnaBasu.New Delhi: Allied Publishers,1995.Print.
