Interdisciplinary Study of Margaret Atwood’s Novel Surfacing

VarshaPatil

Department of English,

JET’sZ.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 20^thcentury, 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.
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