Literary Works of Margaret Atwood

Literary Works of Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood is an acclaimed poet, novelist, and short story writer. With such a variety of works in different types of writing, it is difficult to grasp every aspect of Atwood's purpose of writing. A comparative analysis of Rape Fantasies reveals the Atwood's writing is varied in many ways yet soundly consistent especially when comparing a particular set of writing such as a group of her other short stories. Atwood's background plays a large part in her writing. Atwood was born in Ottawa, Canada in 1913. Her father was an entomologist, so she spent much of her childhood in the wilderness and other various urban places around Canada. Throughout her life, she lived in numerous Canadian residences as well as several towns in the United States. She has also lived in England, France, Italy and Germany. With this extensive background, Atwood displays a vast knowledge of the world around her, although large portions of her writing are based on Canadian settings. As a young girl, she started reading many books and even writing poems and comics. After deciding that she wanted to become a writer, Atwood attended the University of Toronto and earned her bachelor's degree in 1961. Following this, she went on to receiver her master's degree from Harvard University.

Since 1961, Atwood has produced a highly acclaimed body of work that includes fiction, poetry and literary criticism. Atwood published her first volume of poems, Double Persephone, in 1961 (Toronto), followed by many more throughout the next three decades, interspersed with novels, including The Edible Woman, Surfacing, Lady Oracle, Life Before Man, Bodily Harm, The Handmaids Tale and The Robber Bride. (Contemporary Literary Cri...

... middle of paper ...

...oth male and female and female-to female.

Margaret Atwood offers no ending to the underlying question that she poses throughout the short story, "Rape Fantasies", of whether a man could rape a woman if she were to strike up a conversation with him. She leaves that entirely up to the woman to decide. Most of her writing will deal with a social problem, yet never offer any sort of solution. Atwood likes to write about social afflictions that cause an unequal attitude between men and women. Overall, a comparative analysis of Atwood's works have proven that she does consistently use similar subject matter, themes, and style to express her feelings and complete her stories. "Rape Fantasies" was written in Atwood's typical framework for which she has written other pieces, but it is very possible to also prove that "Rape Fantasies" is in a category of it's own.