Surfacing 2
Gendered Identities and
Fragmented Bodies in Nature
Focus: chaps 13-14
Main Issues
• Main Issues:
– Quest for Lost Identities (Home and the Past)
 Her Fragmentary Selves
– Gendered Identities in patriarchal society
 Fragmented Bodies & Animals
– Nature and Humans’ Roles in Nature
 Fragmented Bodies in Nature
• For Next Week
Quest for Lost Identities
(Home and the Past: 1. Lost Father)
1. Suspense built by her ‘fear’ of the father;
e.g. Chap 7 (p. 59) “What I’m afraid of is
my father, hidden on the island
somewhere and attracted by the light
perhaps, looming up at the window like a
huge moth; or, if he’s still lucid, asking
her who she is and ordering her out of his
house. . . .”
2. Chap 12: “It was no longer his death but
my own that concerned me” (p. 107)
Quest for Lost Identities
(Home and the Past: 2. Approaching the
Past)
1. The past is ‘present’—
e.g. 1. fence marriage; 2. chap 6 (p. 49)
“Except for the bikini and the color of her hair, she
could be me at sixteen. . . Joe and David, . . .
Might be my brother and my father.”
2. Searching through scrapbooks and family albums;
chap 10 (p. 91)
•
•
All illustrations of ladies but not herself;
A lot of Easter eggs. “No monsters, no wars, no
explosions, no heroism.”
Quest for Lost Identities
(Home and the Past: 2. Approaching the
Past)
3. Gradual revelation of the truth about her abortion
Clue: chap 8 "I have to be more careful about my
memories, I have to be sure they're my own" (70).
Chap 5 -- 'remembers' her 'husband,' marriage and
divorce, "like an amputation, you survive but
there's less of you" (39)
Chap 10 --Joe's proposal; remembers her 'wedding';
sees herself as an invalid.
Chap 12 – her broken selves.
 Chap 17 – dives and faces the real past
Quest for Lost Identities
(Home and the Past: 3. Childhood and
Self-Alienation)
Childhood & Sunday School –
Chap 6: trying to conform and be a Christian;
Chap 8: quitting Sunday School; isolation from the
other children
End of Chap 12 (p. 108): family album “myself in
stiff dresses, crinolines and tulle, layered like
store birthday cakes; I was civilized at last, the
finished product.”
“After the formal dresses I disappeared; no
wedding pictures, . . .”
Quest for Lost Identities
(Home and the Past: 4. ‘Marriage’ and
Broken Selves)
Chaps 1 – 4: homecoming with a strong sense of
alienation:
Chap 3: memory of her brother’s drowning;
Chap 4: Upon arriving home, she 'remembers' her
baby and marriage.
Chap 5: marriage and divorce, "like an amputation,
you survive but there's less of you" (39)
The baby: "I have to behave as though it doesn't
exist, . . . it was taken away from me. . . . A
section of my own life, sliced off from me. . . ,
my own flesh cancelled" (45)
Lost Identities = Broken Bodies
e.g. 1
Chaps 12: pp. 108-109
“I didn’t know when it had happened. . . .but after
that I’d allowed myself to be cut in two. Woman
sawn apart ina wooden crate, wearing a bathing
suit, smiling, a trick done with mirrors, I read it
in a comic book; only with me there had been an
accident and I came apart. The other half, the
one locked away, was the only one that could
live; I was the wrong half, detached, terminal. I
was nothing but a head, or, no, something minor
like a severed thumb; numb.”
Lost Identities = Broken Bodies
e.g. 2
Chaps 9 (p. 75)
“The trouble is all in the knob at the top of our
bodies. I’m not against the body or the
head either: only the neck, which created
the illusion that they are separate. . . .”
What does the illusive separation of the
head and the body mean here?
Lost Identities = Broken Bodies
e.g. 3 Chaps 13 -14
Questions for close analysis:
1. What does she fear and needs rescue from
at night? (Chap 13 p. 112 --);
2. How does David treat women’s and
animals’ bodies? (Chap 14 pp. 120-21)
Gendered Identities
in patriarchal society
I. Anna and David:
Chap 10 pp. 89-90 David, a sexist, gives
compliment half-heartedly and makes sexist
comments on ‘her’ ass casually.
Chap 11 (pp. 98-99)—David as a womanizer;
“He said it’s being honest. What a turd. When I get
mad he says I’m jealous and possessive. . .he says
jealousy is bourgeois, it’s a leftover from the
property ethic. . .but really it’s to show me he
cdan do it and get away with it. . . . “
Gendered Identities
in patriarchal society
I.
Anna and David:
1. What do you think about the discussion of
Women’s Lib on pp. 112-13
--David: 1) failure to understand their causes, 2) fear
of their power
--the narrator: ‘ought to’ be superior, but actually not.
-- stereotypes in society
2. And the relationships between Anna and David?
(123)
David– bossy only to hide his inner depletion.
Gendered Identities
in patriarchal society
II. The narrator and Joe:
Chap 5: Joe’s nightmare;
Chap 10: Joe's proposal;
Chap 10: “When you can’t tell the difference between
your own pleasure and your pain then you’re an
addict. I did that, I fed him unlimited supplies of
nothing, he wasn’t ready for it, . . .” (84)
Chap 12: Joe’s question: “Do you love me?”(p. 107)
“It was the language again, I couldn’t use it because it
wasn’t mine.”
Gendered Identities
in patriarchal society
II. The narrator and Joe:
How can we characterize Joe? (pp. 111; 125)
--weak; in need of the narrator’s participation in his
self-love. But the latter is too preoccupied with
her past to love.
-- can feel and is not violent “’The truth is,’ he said
bitterly, ‘you think my work is crap, you think
I’m a loser and I’m not worth it.’ His face
contorted, it was pain: I envied him.” (p. 107)
Nature &
Fragmented Bodies in Nature
• Are there any passages you like in these two
chapters?
– Chap 13 p. 110 vs. p. 114 (the power company); p. 116; p.
118;
• How does the narrator respond to the scene of the
dead heron? How does David respond to it? (chap
14)
– p. 118, human destruction/possession of things which
they cannot possess alive;
– David – Random Samples – choice of the strange and
exotic without sympathy or understanding. P. 1
Nature &
Fragmented Bodies in Nature
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How does the narrator ‘live’ in Nature?
Sun-time;
Natural toilet; p. 119
Alert for possible dangers (e.g. 119; 125)
Feels alive – p. 114
For Next Week
•
Chap 15: the 'Americans' turn out to be from
Toronto p. 129
• "The trouble some people have being German,"
she says in reference to the Nazi atrocities, "I
have being human" (p. 131)
• Chaps 16 – 18 –
1. exploitation and power struggle between the two
pairs get intensified;
2. The narrator dives and faces her past.