Atwood & Davies

         The archetypal theme of death-and-rebirth plays a prominent role in the transformation of protagonists in Margaret Atwood's The Edible Woman and Robertson Davies' The Manticore. As Canadians, both authors advocate an emotional and technological detachment from the United States in order for their country to develop its own personality. To Atwood, a young woman's psychological involves her refusal to be victimized by a narcissistic technological society bent on consuming human emotions like marketed commodities. Marian's struggle reflects the author's criticism that Canada has sacrificed her identity to its superpower neighbor and consequently must reject the deceptive ideology of progress in order to restore its original dignity. Davies' hero Robert Staunton also searches for self as he recuperates from a mental breakdown induced by the sudden death of his wealthy father. Thus, Staunton's quest involves a subconscious introspection as he undergoes psychiatric assessment to recover from the initial shock and unravel the mystery behind his father's demise. In essence, while Marian becomes coldly detached as a means of coping with American consumerism, David resorts to Jungian archetypes and primitivism for spiritual fulfillment. In this respect, the initiation of both heroes denotes their progress from loss to redemption. Both characters undergo a  quest for meaning , as they attempt to restructure own psychological past and present into a purposeful existence.

            Atwood and Davies both employ the victimization theme   as a pre-eminent theme. For example, in The Edible Woman, Atwood  sharply criticizes the characters' inability to communicate effectively on any physical or intellectual level, and thus, the victor-victim cycle produces human beings who regard others as mere objects or saleable items. In her book Survival, Atwood classifies the victor-victim motif as a predominant characteristic of Canadian literature and divides the motif into three basic components: !0 those who deny the fact that one is a victim, 2) those that acknowledge victimization but view it as an act of determinism, and 3) those who acknowledge victimization but refuse to accept its inevitability. (Atwood Survival 61-64). Clearly, Marian falls within the third category in that recognizes Peter's narcissistic abuse of her, and in return, discontinues their affair following his refusal to eat a slice of her symbolic sponge cake (Atwood 271). Interestingly, the philosophy of existentialism presupposes the insignificance of man as a victim of a meaningless existence. As a despairing creature, wandering and alienated, he only confirms his existence through the faces of those he encounters. Such is the case with Marian and her boyfriend Peter, who manipulates her into a field, onto a rug, and into the bathtub in order to vent his desire for sexual gratification rather than establishing an emotional bond (Atwood 59-62). Marian suggests that perhaps Peter compares her personality to the tub itself as a symbolic gesture of consumability: "Or maybe-- and the thought was chilling--he had intended it as an expression of my personality. A new corridor of possibilities extended itself before me; did he really think of me as a lavatory fixture. What kind of girl did he think I was (Atwood 62). 

            Marian's roommate Ainsley also participates in the victor-victim pattern as she seduces Len Slank, an ill-famed seducer himself, and by creating the episode, Atwood emphasizes how every member of society is guilty and subjected to the evil in humanity (Garebian 1-9). Notwithstanding, Duncan, a student of English "escapes" from the tensions of graduate school by secretly meeting   (Atwood 183) and sleeping with Marian (Atwood 263), on which occasions he openly refers to the rendezvous as simply his "alternation of distractions," and evinces no emotional involvement (Atwood 190). Similarly, Marian is "gobbling" Duncan as she occupies the student's time (Atwood 185). In retrospect, rather than becoming involved in the relationship, the characters detach themselves from the situations and become coldly objective--as Marian was about the tub, as Ainsley was in her plot to seduce Len (Atwood 119), and as Duncan was in his narcissistic affair with Marian (Atwood 190). Atwood's criticism must be viewed in it proper perspective,however;   the author is criticizing the technological society that produces victims unable to express themselves altruistically. Unable to expiate the guilt and evil from their lives, the characters feel trapped; consequently, the victim position becomes a passive escape from responsibility. Critic Keith Garebian suggests Marian's tragic dilemma in the following passage: "Confronted by such abundant evidence of victimization, the heroine is convinced that she herself is a victim. As a woman , she feels biologically handicapped in a man's world . . . as a Canadian she feels exploited in a country that is a sell out, and as a human being she thinks her ineluctable legacy is guilt in a world where evil proliferates like the pieces of a tapeworm  (Garebian 4).

            In comparison, David Staunton sees himself as a helpless victim, not only to the unexpected death of his father and the implied plot surrounding the events, but also as a foolish pawn at the mercy of the mystic Eisengrim who foretells the future through the brazen head, the Frankenstein-like Liesl who leads him into the mysterious recesses of a paleolithic  temple, and history-minded Ramsay who admonishes him not to delve into the details "since the reality of your father's past is much more complex than anything you can uncover" in a rational way (Davies 288). Furthermore, Ramsay responds by telling Davey that "he is behaving like an amateur sleuth in a detective story" (Davies 288). Thus, as Staunton's quest progresses, the complexity intensifies. For example, how did a stone become lodged in Judge Staunton's mouth before his drowning? Not even in the novel's conclusion is the question resolved. Eisengrim cleverly implied that the judge would not have allowed such an encumbrance against his own will, yet to the factual-minded Staunton, no conclusive evidence is provided (Davies 287). Similarly, as each character is interrogated, David receives a different perspective to the truth, in terms of the events. 

             Nevertheless, whatever available evidence or truth to be obtained depends upon the interpretation of the lines spoken by the brazen head in response to Staunton's inquiry: "Who killed Boy Staunton?" The lines run thus:  "He was killed by the usual cabal: by himself, first of all; by the woman he knew; by the woman he did not know; by the man who granted his inmost wish; and by the inevitable fifth, who was keeper of his conscience and keeper of the stone (Davies 282). In answer to the question, Ramsay"thinks" the "Usual cabal" refers to "the woman he knew and the woman he did not know" as the same individual, Staunton's real mother (Davies 288); and that "the inevitable fifth, who was keeper of his conscience and keeper of the stone" was Ramsay himself (Davies 290).  David is then urged to "stop being a two-bit Hamlet, clinging to your father's dead ghost until you are destroyed. Boy is dead; dead of his own will; if not wholly his own doing. Take my advice and get on with your own concerns" (Davies 290). In testing Liesl, however, she replies that she only knows "what Ramsay has told [her] at one time or another" but then proceeds to interpret "the woman he knew"   as Staunton's mother and"the woman he did not know" as his stepmother (Davies 283). The disparity is obvious. Finally, as Staunton discusses the circumstances with Magnus, the magician informs him that "the woman he did not know" was his [Magnus'] mother. David is then left totally confused and much farther from his objective than when he began. Moreover, Staunton ultimately realizes, as his quest for self continues, that he not only fails to discover the mystery involving Boy's death, but he also is uncertain as to the identity of his true father, after learning that Ramsay loved his mother before his parents' marriage (Davies 289). Consequently, the protagonist concludes that much of the sought-after information can only be revealed through the past experiences of Eisengrim, his parents, and Ramsay during their early years in Depford (Davies 280). Even the stone in Boy's mouth can be traced to an earlier conflict between Ramsay and Judge Staunton (Davies 290). In essence, the protagonist views himself as a victim of the subjective truths encompassing the entire affair. Like Oedipus, his quest for fatherhood lies buried in his past. 

             Existentially, both Marian and David suffer a seemingly meaningless existence, the result of which they can never completely comprehend nor entirely overcome. The relative passivity of both characters mirrors the authors' criticism of Canadian unaggressiveness, as related inits historical and psychological makeup. As Northrup Frye explains, "Historically, a Canadian is an American who rejects the Revolution. Canada fought its civil war to establish its union first, and its wars of independence,which were fought against the United States and not Europe came late" (Frye, in Bradbrook 155). Notwithstanding, the identity quest apparent in The Manticore and The Edible Woman can be culturally attributed to the Canadian search for self-identification, since as a nation Canada never actively severed ties with Great Britain. Margaret Atwood writes that "every country or culture has a single unifying and informing symbol at its core . . . [and] the central symbol for Canada . . . is undoubtedly Survival . . .[whereas] possibly the symbol for America" is the conquerable "Frontier" (Atwood Survival 31). As Rosemary Sullivan notes in "Surfacing and Deliverance": The image she [Atwood] offers is that of a collective victim struggling for survival, of a culture obsessed with feelings of self-depreciation and insignificance and which often seeks to escape the responsibility of self-definition through its victim roles (Sullivan 7). 

             In retrospect, Atwood's The Edible Woman and Davies' The Manticore manifest similarities in their protagonists' quests for self; yet of greater importance is the implicit call for a distinctly Canadian identity as the pillar of national unity and pride. No more appropriate lines can be cited to summarize this motivating desire than the passage from Lister Sinclair which reads: "We are beginning to realize our position in the world and it is precarious. We lie between the greatest and grimmest of the great grim powers . . . and in the midst of the night we sometimes dream of the hot breath quietly playing on the backs of our necks . . . W e are very small in population . . .yet we wish it to be heard (Bradbrook 159).

                                                                              Works Cited

Atwood, Margaret. The Edible Woman. Toronto: McClelland and Stewart Limited, 1969.

Atwood, Margaret. Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. Toronto: House of Anansi               Press Limited, 1972.

Bradbrook, M.C. Literature in Action: Studies in Continental and Commonwealth Society. New                   York: Barnes & Noble, Inc., 1972.

Davies, Robertson. The Manticore. Middlesex, England: Penguin Books, Ltd., 1972.

Garebian, Keith. "Surfacing: Apocalyptic Ghost Story." Mosaic. 9, No. 3 (Summer 1976) 1-9.

Onley, Gloria. "Power Politics in Bluebeard's Castle." Canadian Literature. No. 60 (1974), pp. 21-               42.

Sullivan, Rosemary. "Surfacing and Deliverance." Canadian Literature. No. 67 (1976), pp. 6-20.

Tillotson, Geoffrey; Paul Fussell, Jr.; and Marshall Waingrow: eds. Eighteenth-Century English                    Literature. New York: Harcourt, Brace & World, Inc., 1969.