A police officer arrives and talks to David, Anna, and Joe while the narrator watches from a distance. David breaks the news that the narrator’s father is dead, and they have found his body. She refuses to believe this, as she is still certain he is alive. In her manic state, she decides that she has forgiven Joe for cheating on her and the two have sex. The narrator is certain she has conceived a child from this encounter. The narrator discovers that the wall paintings are under the lake. David maliciously teases Anna, humiliating her by demanding she take her clothes off for his film project. Anna tells the narrator David is unfaithful to her and she is unhappy. The narrator later asks David why he is horrible to Anna, and he says he does it because she often cheats on him.

A character who never appears in person. The narrator’s brother fled from his parents years before the novel takes place. The narrator finds it difficult to imagine him as an adult. He nearly drowned as a child, and the narrator constantly reflects on the image of his drowning. He was loving toward his sister, but he had a rather dark childhood. He kept a laboratory on the island, running experiments on animals in jars. The “Fake Husband” Atwood digs deep into the female psyche, as well as the human psyche, probing and poking in all the dark underwater caves that the modern world has separated us from. Her unnamed protagonist is searching for her missing father in a remote area of northeast Canada. She has brought along her current lover and a married couple whom, removed from their city life in Toronto, she is able to see clearly and critically, and bit by bit she comes to measure how far removed she has become from the more conscious life of her childhood.

Summary

The narrator and protagonist of the novel, her name is never actually revealed. A woman in her 20s-30s, she works as a freelance artist and is illustrating a children’s book during the course of the novel. She is stoic and guarded, not often showing her emotions openly. She grew up on an island in a remote area of Québec with her mother, father, and older brother. As English speakers, they were further separated from the French-speaking townspeople and the family lived an isolated existence. He is the son of the owner of the village motel and bar. In addition to helping his father run the bar, he works as a fishing guide. Malmstrom The male characters in "Surfacing" are obnoxiously misogynistic: given that this was written around the same time it is set in, it makes me really angry to think that women were subjected to this sort of talk on a daily basis (from their husbands!) and that this was considered perfectly normal. You begin to sympathize with the main character's revulsion at the idea of marriage if this is what she can be expected to deal with... Feminism, a theme in many of Atwood's novels, is explored through the perspective of the female narrative, exposing the ways women are marginalized in their professional and private lives. [6] Allusions to other works [ edit ]

A remote island in the Canadian wilderness, a missing family member, an abusive marriage, and an unstable narrator— Surfacing (1972) has all the makings of a horror novel, but the intensity of Margaret Atwood's (1939-present) novel is psychological, not physical. Atwood's second novel, Surfacing follows a group of characters who venture into an island near Quebec to find the narrator's missing father. Instead of uncovering the missing man, the narrator uncovers parts of herself that have long since been repressed. Surfacing examines themes such as the domination and alienation of women and the reclamation of identity. Keep reading for a summary, an analysis, and more. Surfacing SummaryHe’s enjoying himself, he thinks this is reality . . . He spent four years in New York and became political, he was studying something; it was during the sixties, I’m not sure when. My friends’ pasts are vague to me and to each other also, any one of us could have amnesia for a year and the others wouldn’t notice. Separation is a major theme of Surfacing. This is established in the first chapter, when the narrator is shown to be politically dispossessed as an English-speaker in Quebec, at a time in which Quebec was aspiring to become an independent French-speaking nation. [3] The narrator also feels disconnected from the people around her, equating human interaction with that of animals. For example, while overhearing David and Anna have sex, the narrator thinks "of an animal at the moment the trap closes". [4]

A young boy working at a generic bar attached to a new motel in the village. Claude gives fishing licenses to David and to other tourists and also guides American tourists on fishing expeditions. He speaks in a yokel dialect. Evans The main themes in Surfacing are identity and otherness and the domination and reclamation of identity. The Alienation and Domination of Women The central protagonist is a woman in her late twenties. She is unnamed and the narrator of the story. She is searching for her missing father, who had been residing on an island in a lake in northern Quebec. She travels there with a lover and another wed couple. It is on this island that she herself grew up. Returning there, leads her to reexamine her life.

Surfacing - Key takeaways

The novel could be classified as a psychological thriller, and as such it does not appeal to me. It is intended that the reader be confused. Repeatedly pronouns are used in an ambiguous fashion; often whom they refer to is not clear. The reader is to be kept guessing. We are to be tantalized by the mystery. We are meant to be left in the dark but egged on to search for understanding. I prefer writing that is clear. I don’t like guessing games. The narrator is extremely damaged from her past which she is not completely honest with herself about. The couple have a marriage that is crumbling.