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The Robber Bride (2)

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Roz and Mitch: Questions about choices at different moments of a love relationship ... good-looking, Roz, feels heavy' and wants to be a blonde, size 6, etc. p. 348 ... – PowerPoint PPT presentation

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Title: The Robber Bride (2)


1
The Robber Bride (2)
Lived City (4) Love and Desire on Cities
Margins -- or Center?
  • Identity, Love
  • and Surviving Obsession

2
Outline
  • Roz and Mitch Questions about choices at
    different moments of a love relationship
  • Rozs sense of identity
  • Roz and Zenia
  • Development of womens magazines
    (WiseWomanWorld).
  • Survival How Roz survives her trauma and her
    obsession by Zenia
  • Atwoods Style and Language
  • The Robber Bride as a whole

3
Starting Questions Roz and Mitch
  • What if you were Roz . . .
  • Whats Roz like in her 20s?
  • Working hard from the bottom and learning a lot
    from her father
  • Some sexual experience, but no lovers feels
    old
  • What kind of love does Mitch offers?
  • Would you accept Mitchs love?
  • Why does she accept the proposal?

4
Mitchs Pursuit of Roz
  • Starts out as a conservative guy, with flowers
    and in serious tone p. 348.
  • Difference in appearance Mitch too good-looking,
    Roz, feels heavy and wants to be a blonde, size
    6, etc. p. 348
  • Class difference Roz flatters his ego
  • Roz anxiously waiting for his move p. 350-51
  • Mitch tantalizing, delaying gratification. p.
    351 52.? sex-role stereotyping

5
Starting Questions (1) Roz and Mitch
  • What if you were Roz . . .
  • Would you allow Mitch to come back from his
    sexual astrays? Would you treat your marriage
    as a poken game (e.g. 338 424)
  • Why does Roz take him back into her arms in the
    past? And after Zenia leaves Mitch? (pp. 423
    thirsty 427) And why not at the last time (p.
    428)

6
Roz identity a Catholic and a mother at heart
  • Cannot leave Mitch because p. 398
  • cares about her children,
  • cannot stand the idea of divorce
  • cannot admit that shes made mistake
  • still loves Mitch because he is what she is
    not.

7
Roz identity a DP, a pastiche with a disloyal
father.
  • Rozs sense of deficiency 344-45
  • Roz used to treat her father as a hero (360),
    and, like the others, discriminate against
    displaced persons (365-66)
  • Finds out that her father is DP (374) ? Rozs
    life cut in two.
  • Roz takes on a Jewish identity. Roz as a hybrid
    (387-90).
  • Chap 44 the Fathers mistresses (like Mitch?)
    and his getting rich.

8
Starting Questions (2) Roz and Zenia
  • What if you were Roz . . .
  • Would you be taken in by Zenia?
  • Why makes Roz launch her?

9
Zenias identity
  • Rozs sense of lack
  • The fathers past as a crook ? Jewish histories
  • Her identity a pastiche
  • Her relationship with the feminist group with
    Mitch and her richness as obstacles pp.
    394-96-98
  • Her feeling of being trusted and confided to
    (399-400 411-12)
  • Her career problemthe magazine is not making
    money
  • Zenias story
  • pp. 404 -406 (Zenia war baby and a mixture,
    definition of Jews, living out of suitcase)
  • Her present abilities and her worldliness

10
The Development of Womens Magazines
  • 395- 96 a friend, a friend that combined high
    ideals and hope with the sharing of
    down-and-dirty secrets
  • 416 -17
  • Gone are the stories of female achievers and
    struggles articles on health care
  • Now fashion, sex,
  • Note development of feminism also implied on p.
    398 overalls ? business suits

11
Trauma and Survival
  • The seriousness of the blow this time?
  • Different from the past Mitch lives with Zenia,
    he does not ask Roz to help.
  • Slow torture of Mitch in moving his stuffs away
    slowly. Not a clear-cut breakup (or clean
    sweep).
  • Rozs attempts to salvage her marriage
  • with Harriets help? finds out that theres no
    person born with the name of Zenia a name
    her lies with false documents 420-21 her going
    out with one drug-dealer.)
  • p. 421 --holds her fire.
  • Going out with other men to make Mitch jealous.

12
Survival 1 Rozs adjustments self-healing
  • p. 425Going away
  • P. 430 satisfy herself with children? Snap out
    of it, she tells herslef. You are not old. Your
    life is not over.
  • Sees a shrink
  • Another serious blow when she starts to have
    hope. ? understanding Mitch and blaming herself
    434

13
Her deep sense of failure. (esp. about Larry)
  • The present time The one shes failed most is
    Larry. If shed only beenwhat? prettier,
    smarter, sexier even, better somehow or else
    worse, more calculating, more unscrupulous, a
    guerrilla fighterMitch might still be here. Roz
    wonders how long it will take for her kids to
    forgive her. . . (93).

14
Survival 2 increasing knowledge (the present)
  • Rozs awareness of the nature of her jealousy p.
    326
  • Can reject Mitch p. 345 p. 82 Screw you,
    Mitch. If it werent for him, she could relax,
    . . . be middle-aged.
  • 352 (her roles stereotyped)
  • 399 understands her pridetwo kinds
  • 416 Mitchs touching her at the parties with
    Zenia around Steadying himself.
  • 428 Hes begging

15
Survival 2 Rozs increasing knowledge (the
present) What does Mitch wants?
  • We dont know. We only know it through Roz.
  • P. 419 Zenia a vacancy? stray dog syndrome
  • P. 428-29 Zenia -- inflating his ego and then
    deflating it.
  • Chap 49 still a mother with conventional
    wishes still lonely (eating alone) and caring
    (about Tony and Charis)
  • a cynical view
  • Zenias of the world//the prevalence of male
    fantasies. 441-42
  • Between extremes, she keeps her good will.

16
Survival 3 Emotional Support
  • Friends Tony and Charis p. 436-37
  • offers support in their different ways
  • Charis massage, health foods, philosophy of
    reincarnation
  • Tony chocolate, casserole
  • Roz appreciates and shows her differences from
    them
  • Family members twins p. 443
  • Playful not very tender (use a dishtowel)
  • Learns from her to laugh away worries and burden

17
Rozs Survival
  • Zenia
  • You should give me a medal for getting him off
    your back . . . You babied him. 494-95
  • blackmail her with lies about Larry He is
    dealing . . . Hes been sampling the product
    pretty heavily too. (496)
  • Roz upon knowing that Larry is gay
  • Can handle it if she bit her tongue hard
    enough
  • Her own marriage not a good example of
    heterosexuality
  • Tomorrow shell be genuinely warm and accepting.
    For tonight, hypocrisy will have to do
    (511-12).

18
Note Atwoods Style and Language
  • Style intertextual, multiple plot, microcosm
    matched with a macrocosmic view.
  • Language humorous (p. 349 ), metaphoric (p.
    414) and witty use of puns (351).
  • p. 414 (sound//sense)
  • 351 Rape ??

19
p. 349 her mother with a bad taste Doily
everywhere
  • Rozs mother had a hard life -- running a
    rooming house, which she inherited from her
    mother (who was widowed when Rozs mother was 2).
  • After her husband comes back, she withdraws her
    influences on Roz and tends say, Ask your
    father(374-75)
  • Look at my hands.
  • Stricken look and bad taste
  • p. 349

20
Her-Stories in the Context of the City
His-Stories
  • in The Robber Bride

21
History Her-Stories
Zenia
U.S. versus Canada
Toronto

Rozs -- Oct23, 1990 and her past (WWII,
post-sixties commercialization)
Tonys
Chariss
  • Their Differences
  • Zenia her death
  • Views on each other
  • Position in the City

22
Examples of the Threes Differences
  • The Three Characters View of Zenia
  • For Tony, Zenia is a white Russian orphan 'a
    lurking enemy commando.'
  • For Roz, Zenia is a Berlin Jew 'a cold and
    treacherous bitch.'
  • For Charis, Zenia is a Romanian gypsy a kind of
    zombie, maybe 'soulless.'"
  • Their views of her first death
  • Tony thinks that Zenia is inoperational
    Charis feels peaceful
  • Roz feels kaput(broken) wants to take a dog
    to pee there

23
Rozs Views of the two friends in chap 49
  • Charis easy target for robbers a long-haired,
    middle-aged woman walking around covered with
    layers of printed textiles and bumping into
    things, she might as well has a sign pinned on
    er, Snatch my purse. (440)
  • Tony tiny, with her baby-bird eyes and her
    acidulated (sour) little smile the sex appeal of
    a fire hydrant.(441)

24
After Zenia re-appears Tony and Charis in Rozs
Eyes
  • Tony is so little, Charis is so thin, both are
    shaken. She feels as if shes hugging the twins,
    one and then the other, on the morning of their
    first day at school. She wants to spread her hen
    wings over them, reassure them, tell them that
    everything will be all right. . .Both smarter
    than she is. . .But neither one of them has any
    street smarts (115).

25
After Zenia re-appears Charis and Roz in Tonys
Eyes
  • Charis is shivering, despite her attempt at
    serenity
  • Roz is flippant and dismissive, but shes holding
    back tears.

26
Chariss View of Her Friends and Zenias
Reappearance
  • Goes to Tony for rational solution Goes to Roz
    for hug (69) Tony reminds her of snowflakes
    Roz with golden, many-colored and spicy aura
    (69-70)
  • Compassion for all living things, . . .Zenia is
    alive, so that means compassion for Zenia (79).

27
The Threes Positions in Toronto
  • Tony
  • at school surrounded by male colleagues.
  • Likes the mix of skins on the street but when
    she walks on the sidewalk, she keeps away from
    the ragged figures who lean against the wall
    (28)
  • her marching on the street as if on war fields.
  • Charis'
  • sees the city from afar pp.47 57-58
  • works in a store owned by one with mixed blood
    cannot understand the racism the latter
    experiences.

28
The Threes Positions in Toronto (2)
  • Roz The rooming house is now taken by the
    Chinese
  • --Now she has an overview of the city,
    drives most of the time has a bathroom some
    South-Asians could live in
  • Has a Filipino maid.

29
Canada in the context of Worldwide changes and
American Imperialism
  • The Soviet bloc is crumbling, old maps are
    dissolving . . . (p. 4)
  • Persian Gulf War Tony Dont think of it as a
    war, think of it as market expansion. . . .
    Canadas attendance will be required. If you
    take the kings shilling, you kiss the kings
    ass (33).

30
History and Her-Stories
  • His-Stories
  • the political histories of nations fighting
    against each other
  • Fairy tales
  • Atwood Where have all the Lady Macbeths gone? 
    Gone to Ophelias, every one, leaving the devilish
    tour-de-force parts to be played by
    bass-baritones. ? Stereotypes of women in
    traditional culture
  • Her-Stories History is a construct.
  • of a villainess using men to victimize women
  • Mixing the domestic with the political
  • Telling Story together to survive.
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