Margaret Atwood
‘Spotty-Handed Villainesses’
1994
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Author:
• Born 1939
• Nobel prize winning Canadian author
• Poetry internationally acclaimed but best known for her
novels
• Feminist campaigner in the 1960s
• Writing praised in the1970s by feminists
• A feminist supporter but criticises extremism
• Not a ‘feminist author’- distances herself from that
ideological position
• Worked as English lecturer at University of British
Colombia
• Writer-In-Residence at numerous universities in the 70s
and 80s, e.g.
• University Of Toronto, Macquarie Univ. and Trinity Univ.
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Audience:
• Well-educated readers of fiction
• Middle-aged, intellectual, literary women
• Informed about contemporary social movements,
specifically the role of feminism in the changing
position of women in life and art
• Speech said at different events throughout 1994,
e.g. American Bookseller Convention
• Atwood often invited to attend literary festivals to
speak about her work as well as the role of
literature in society.
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Context For Speech:
• 1960s: strong feminist push (second wave feminism)
– Focus on fighting the oppression of women in society and
the need for equal rights
• 1990s: response to the backlash of second wave feminism
(third wave feminism)
– Reacted to new thoughts about equality, social structure
and gender
– Focus on accepting contradictions, as well as embracing
diversity and change
• Questions of what feminism meant and the changing roles
of men/women
• 1994: Canadian debate about its national identity
– Atwood universal writer
– Faced with globalisation of the world economy and culture
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Central Idea/Argument:
•
The speech focuses on the representation of women in literature over the
ages, in particular the presentation of evil or bad women.
– Evident in the title ‘Spotty-Handed Villainesses’
•
For this purpose she harnesses the personal anecdote of her young
daughter’s theatrical presentation, the help her illustrate what literature is
not
– “... Are you going to do anything except have breakfast?’ we said.
‘No’ they said. “Then this isn’t a play,’ we said. ‘Something else
has to happen’...
•
To rescue the representation of women in literature both from patriarchal
stereotypes and from ideological feminist stereotypes
– ‘Lets put a women at the centre of something-other-thanbreakfast, and see what happens....’
•
Her purpose is not to push for one side of the argument but to critique
other agendas and propose certain suggestions as to how the question of
wicked women in literature might be framed.
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•
A large section of the speech deals with the more general
question of what fiction aims to do, and how it is created.
– The word 'process' is very fashionable. All it really means, as
far as I can tell, is "how do you do it?" You have to
understand something about the form before you can do it at
all. (Atwood)
•
Atwood looks at the general question of fiction, its aims and
scope, and at the requirements of various genres of fiction. At
this point she moves to considering the women's movement:
– … part of the history we've had recently is the history of the
women's movement, and the women's movement has
influenced how people read, and therefore what you can get
away with, in art.
•
She negates this viewpoint with an overview of wicked women as
shown in the world's literature: “the murderers, the seducers,
the espionage agents, the cheats, the bad mothers and
stepmothers”. She concludes by claiming that as wicked
women exist in real life, so they have a place in literature; and
that the many-dimensionality of women needs to be given literary
expression.
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Values Explored
• Literature should reflect the diversity of life
and its moral complexity
– Atwood is portraying the notion that literature should
have characters that reflect the variety life offers as
that is what makes a story entertaining rather than
characters that are two dimensional
 “Create a flawless character and you create an
insufferable one; which maybe why I am
interested in spots” – spots refers to the guilt
Lady Macbeth felt after influencing her husband
to kill the King
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• Women are capable of evil, and this
should be recognised
– Atwood also emphasises that women too
can possess faults in terms of their moral
complexity and should not be stereotyped
within literature as being only virtuous
 “Evil women are necessary in story traditions…
why shouldn’t their many-dimensionality be
given literary expression?”
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• Evil characters in literature are the most
interesting.
– They are said to be the ‘lifeblood of literature’, meaning
no evil characters equals no literature
– Atwood points out in her speech that literature needs
‘something disruptive to static order’ in order to make
the text more interesting, engaging and unique.
– She further emphasizes on this point by using an anecdote,
turning out to be her daughter’s tedious play based on an
ongoing breakfast. Margaret then goes on to state that in
order to be literature, a novel or whatever form of writing
must consist of ‘more than breakfast’.
– She also says that ‘the difference between literature and
life is something else has to happen.’ Through this
anecdote and again her reference to literature having to be
‘more than breakfast’, it is easy to conclude that she
means that literature in fact need characters who bring
something different and diverse to a novel or piece of
writing, such as the spotty-handed villainesses or in basic
reference,
evil characters.
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• 1970s feminism has been good for society
– Margaret ‘summarises’ within her speech the benefits
to literature that the feminist movement supplied :
• “the expansion of the territory available to writers, both in
character and in language; a sharp eyed examination of the
way power works in gender relations, and the exposure of
much of this as socially constructed; a vigorous exploration of
many hitherto-concealed areas of experience.”
– Atwood also goes on to speak about the new kinds of
behaviours that were available to female characters,
exclaiming it to be yet another benefit of the Women’s
Movement in the 1970s:
• ‘The Women’s Movement has influenced how people read, and
therefore what you can get away with, in art’
– She also again summarises the benefits that she
thinks that have come to writing from feminism such
as expanded subject matter, the critical examination
of power relationships and the introduction of the
notion of the social construction of gender.
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Structure Of Speech
The speech opens with an introduction of the title and sub-title of the
speech and a Margaret’s use of first person opens the speech up to the
central idea and purpose; The portrayal of women in literature, in
particular evil women
Atwood then moves the speech forward and introduces a personal
anecdote of her daughters play in order to define what literature is not
Paragraph 11, is where Atwood begins to describe what a novel is, and
begins to criticises those who attempt to define what exactly a novel is
– “only a very foolish person would attempt to give a definitive
answer....”
She then goes on to further explain what a novel is but stating what a
novel is not
Paragraph 24 introduces the notion of women in literature, and Atwood
focuses on female protagonists
– “Lets put a women at the centre of something-other-thanbreakfast
Throughout the remainder of the speech Atwood makes reference to
other example of literature to further highlight her intentions and ideas on
women in literature and the different roles that they can and have played.
– “Henry James’ The Turn of the Screw and Bram Stoker’s
Dracula ... Both revolve around notions of female sexuality”
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Rhetorical Devices and Examples:
Quotes
“Spotty-handed
villainesses” – Title
Techniques
Allusion to Lady MacBeth – she
seemed to see spots (symbols of
guilt) on her hands after she
influenced her husband to murder
the king
“When my daughter was Personal anecdote
five…” – story of her
daughter putting on a
“play” that consisted of
the two characters eating
breakfast
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Effect
Witty and lightly toned way of
saying “evil women”
introducing her argument that
the advent of feminism has
made a problem of the
presentation of evil women in
literature
The ‘eternal breakfast’
functions throughout her
speech as part of her system
of reasoning – becomes a
motif that serves as a symbol
for the static order that she is
critiquing (illustrates through
the anecdote that in literature,
“something has to happen”
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Quotes
Techniques
“flogging a few dead horses…
Metaphor, imagery
galloping around as vigorously as
ever”
Effect
The extended metaphor creates
an image in the audience’s head
of deceased horses galloping
indicating that the “dead horses”
(settled arguments) are not dead
(settled) at all
“Only a very foolish person would Self deprecating irony
attempt to give a definite
answer…”
She is using humor and wit to
lower her status and appeal to
ethos
She also uses this technique to
undermine her own logical
arguments and therefore she is
able to expand the context of the
speech to apply to a long
standing issue of the limitations of
applying logic alone to
understand reality
“What kind of something... How do Hypophora, metabasis
I know this... first let me go over…
What is a novel, anyway?”
The beginning of three
consecutive paragraphs are
hypophora and along with the
metabasis (“Let me go over…”)
guide the listener through the
steps of her argument – leading
off from the tail end of each
previous paragraph to the next
rhetorical question
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Quotes
Techniques
“If you want power you have to Sententia
accept responsibility, and
actions produce
consequences”
Effect
Conveys broader and more
philosophical truisms that go
beyond the scope of the critique
she is making on the orthodox
feminist position (referencing the
well known correlation between
power and responsibility)
“Closed-off road… “
The metaphor of the ‘closed-off
road” refers to the lack of evil
women in recent fiction literature
– keeps with the perspective of
Atwood in that she is not
suggesting, she is merely
curious – just like the ‘closed off
road’ that raises curiosity
Metaphor
“Angel/Whore” “Women who
Juxtaposition/comparison
wore high heels and makeup
were instantly suspect, those in
overalls were acceptable”
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Challenges the stigma attached
to women who wear high heels
and makeup who are seen as
counter feminists, whereas
those extreme feminists dress
‘in overalls’ to escape from that
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Quotes
Techniques
Effect
“Women too have multidimensions, why doesn’t
literature portray this?”
Rhetorical questions
She is able to criticize the
collision between anti feminists
and extreme feminists and the
way literature portrays these
polarized views, it makes the
audience ponder on the
question and allows her to
influence their answers
“We have not enough evil in
us”
Quotation from Dame Rebecca The quote sums up her views
West
throughout the speech and
allows her to directly link with
the female audience – leaves
the audience with the lasting
impression of her speech
“Novels are not…”
Repetition
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Allows her to engage in a
process of elimination wherein
she describes what novels are
not to therefore arrive at a
description of what a novel is
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Link to other Speeches
• Margaret Atwood’s speech hold strong ideals
and values that link to those presented in
Aung San Suu Kyi’s Speech
– Aung San Suu Kyi expresses her main view of the
empowerment of women in society through the
removal of intolerance and prejudice.
– In a similar way Atwood approaches these values,
however expresses them through the medium of
literature, through which one can gage an
understanding of the changing nature of literature
and women.
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Critical Commentary:
• Engaging in discussion of feminist ideas, some
ideas particularly through the use of literary
allusions
– Necessity of evil (and often interesting) characters in
literature
– Some of them will be women
• Topics discussed as once being non-literary or
sub-literary have become even more prominent
over past 17 years
• Still relevant as women are still portrayed in a
variety of (sometimes conflicting) ways
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