Isolation In Margaret Atwood's Lusus Naturae

Margaret Atwood’s Lusus Naturae follows the life of the protagonist, an unnamed young girl whose monstrous body leads to isolation from her family and the rest of society. The term “lucus naturae” is Latin for “freak of nature” which the protagonist admits to being. From her early adolescent years, she accepts the fact that she is different than every one else. She can not control her physical appearance which causes her emotional distress and pain. Destined to a life of isolation, the young girl offers a civilized portrayal of monstrosity and evokes compassion among the audience through her situation. Atwood uses the young girl’s self-perception to illustrate how isolation affects her identity.
When the young girl first finds out about her

condition, she is in the stage where she is discovering her identity. Atwood uses imagery to describe the young girl as having “yellow eyes, pink teeth, red fingernails, and long, dark hair” (32-33). These characteristics are outside the norm than the rest of a civilized society. The protagonist never gets to explore her independence and develop a sense of her true self. She is never let outside of her home and stays in a dark room all day. She states her only friend is a cat that keeps her company when no one else would. She compares herself to a wart and hangnail. Typically, things that people to not have. The young girl states, “Our family has always been respected, and even liked, more or less. It still was. It still would be, if something could be done about me” (17-18). Although the protagonist tries to hold on strongly to her own pride, her disorder serves as a scapegoat of her own respectability and that of her family. To maintain their reputation, her family locks her away, isolating her from the rest of the outside world. Due to her physical appearance, her family selfishly decides to fake a funeral for her. This gives her more freedom than she could ever encounter as long she stays out of sight and no one sees her. She uses this as her advantage to discover the endless possibilities and begins to form her own identity based upon the outcome of her explorations. She uses her new-found freedom to educate herself by reading and learning about the outside world surrounding her.
Throughout the story, Atwood presents a tension between the young girl’s physical appearance versus her actual identity. At first glance the protagonist states, “I didn’t know what I looked like now. I avoided mirrors” (74). She avoids mirrors because she is ashamed of her outside image. Due to her diversity, she scares others and further isolates herself. As she begins to explore her limits, she stumbles across a woman who catches her roaming around freely. Atwood remarks the encounter of the young girl and woman. She comments, “I was a thing, then. I considered this. In what way is a thing not a person” (95-96). She continues to face issues around her identity, because she is still unsure who she really is. She faces attacks on her own mankind, though she continually defends her innocence.
The protagonist has never felt more free in her entire life.

She uses her time alone to find herself. She says, “They say dead people can’t see their own reflections, and it was true; I could not see myself. I saw something, but that something was not myself: it looked nothing like the innocent, pretty girl I knew myself to be, at heart” (111-114). Even after looking into a mirror and seeing her physical appearance, she could only see the good girl she was at heart. While she holds self-admiration of her own identity, she is surrounded by those who downgrade her and call into question the purpose of her existence that further isolates herself from every one else. The setting of the story takes place on a farm, most commonly known for being an isolated area away rather than cities that represent human

civilization.
The young girl is used to being isolated that she never had a real relationship with her own family.

Atwood includes a scene in the story in which the protagonist observes a couple engaging in a sexual act. The young girl is so naïve that she did not know what the couple were actually doing. She assumes the couple are just like her. She states, “Through the years I had hardened myself to loneliness; now I found that hardness dissolving” (131). The protagonist views this as the perfect cure to her isolation and loneliness. The protagonist is not satisfied with her life and wishes she was normal like the rest of society. However when she tries to copy what she viewed earlier, she bites him instead. She says, “I’m sorry to say I lost control. I laid my red-nailed hands on him. I bit him on the neck. Was it lust or hunger? How could I tell the difference” (135-137). Her senses told her to bite him, because that was the only thing she knew how to do. Due to her isolation, the young girl wanted to explore possible relationships with another companion. This ultimately leads to her own death once the townspeople find out she is in fact alive and not

dead.
As death approaches the protagonist, she looks forward to it. Life has been difficult for her that she believes death may be the better option. The young girl was not fully content with the life she had and wished she was normal like everyone else. She says, “Perhaps in Heaven I’ll look like an angel. Or perhaps the angels will look like me. What a surprise that will be, for everyone else! It’s something to look forward to” (154-155).
Atwood freely uses “lusus naturae” to understand the lifestyle of the young girl. When she escapes to the forest, she notices a couple engaging in intimacy. She builds curiosity and tries it herself. At that moment, she knew that her attempt of live was a fatal mistake. Ultimately, this would lead to the cause of her death.
Atwood does not only seek to humanize our notions of monstrosity. She also uses monstrocity as a narrative tool to challenge what we actually view as monstrous in society. She comes to a conclusion that diversity can scare others and further isolates those that are different from the rest of the world. The protagonist felt like she was dead inside and out. She didn’t think it would matter if she was in this world anymore.