Lady Oracle
Plot Summary & Time Line
Atwood, Margaret. Toronto: Doubleday, 1976.
---. Lady Oracle. Toronto: Seal, 1976. (pagination in square.)
by Sarita Chuang & Kate Liu
Chapter 1 -Joan Foster:
 faking her own death, arrives at Terremoto, in the Mediterranean,
 still cares about suntan
 thinking of the individuals she left behind (who “were smiling and waving at each
other”), esp. Arthur, her lover.
 Back to the same town; can’t change the past?
 Unwilling to die; feeling afraid of the present environment
Chapter 2 -Joan - hides her identity from the proprietor, Mr. Vitroni
 burns her hair, recalls Arthur liking to brush it, and she begins to cry.
 Meets Mr. Signor Reno Vitroni, who tries to sell her some paintings
 thinks again of Arthur and his personality,
 writes her name on the window, waiting to see her name spelled in ants.
Chapter 3 -
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Joan awakes, slightly hung-over, remembers Arthur again (his views of her clothes)
Joan thinks of never seeing Arthur again, and begins to cry.
begins writing a list of items she needs (hair dye and money, needles and thread).
Out shopping and sending a postcard to Sam
Coming back, she is convinced that somebody is inside her house.
Chapter 4 - Joan tries to establish the routine of her life alone;
 Sees her panties with 'Sunday' printed on the back.
 Under the panties, Joan finds her manuscript, which details the life of Charlotte, a
jewelry restoration specialist hired by Redmond, a wealthy nobleman. Charlotte is
slapped on the face by Felicia
 Joan suddenly notices the first eight pages of the manuscript are missing, and realizes
Fraser Buchanan must have taken them, but recalls she has his notebook as hostage.
 Joan tries to justify her writing of romance to allow women some modes of escape
 Joan realizes that the only thing which would have saved her marriage would have been more
dishonesty.
Part II
Chapter 5 –
 Mother -- Joan invents her mother as one who perished from lupus shortly after Joan and
Arthur's meeting. Arthur's mother is described as being demanding, religious, and orderly.
 Joan as a listener
 Joan gets chastised by her mother early on for her weight.
 Mothball episode “humiliation disguised as privilege”
Chapter 6—
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The Brownie episode – after Joan’s family move to a better living area
Ceremony and rituals of socialization
The three girls tormenting Joan by leaving her behind
The daffodil man –exhibitionist or a kind man
Joan’s being tied to a post, and then gets untied by a man who resembles the daffodil man.
Chapter 7 - 2 Dreams about the mother -- her mother on a bridge and her mother as a monster
1) Joan was on a collapsing bridge and called out to her mother for help, but her
mother didn’t even hear her.
2) Watching her mother put on makeup at the vanity table ( In reality, it was
considered a treat)
 In this dream, Joan’s mother had three heads, but this didn’t frighten Joan. It was
a confirmation of something she had always known.
 There was always a man outside the door: as Joan grew older, she hoped the man
would enter & wanted him to find out her mother’s secret (“My mother was a
monster”).
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1955: Joan tries eat an entire cake to displease her mother
1955: a man screams at her father about saving his life.
At a dinner party, the mother talks about her father’s killing people in cold blood during the war
Joan overhears the mother’s saying that she didn't want to have a baby.
Chapter 8---
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Joan’s being lonely and wanting a pet; ★ dolls vs being fat (78)
The mother’s views of movie and the death of the fish
Aunt Lou: her encouragement of Joan and her life.
The mother’s obsession with Joan’s weight
Canadian National Exhibition with Aunt Lou
Dream: the Fat Lady, knitting a scarf
Chapter 9 –
-- self-invention “Aunt Deirdre” –self-betrayal, or self-objectification p.106/88
-- Arthur’s attitude towards Joan (“inept and vulnerable” “compassionate smile” )
-- Every myth is a version of the truth
-- self-repression
p.107 – p.109/89-91
-- stifle the voices inside her
-- made it through high school on warmth and supportiveness
-- two other fat girls in the school:
Monica (accepted as a boy)
Theresa (had the traditional fat-girl reputation)
-- girls liked Joan for two reasons 1) she can serve as an obstacle; 2) she is very
understanding, leaving the couple when she’s not needed.
p.110/91
-- like s sponge 91-- The temptation to tell everything, all her hatred & jealousy, to reveal
herself as the duplicitous monster she knew herself to be.
- Though immersed in flesh, I was regarded as being above its desires, which of course was
not true.
 She gained a thorough knowledge of a portion of her future audience (of Costume
Gothic novels)
p.111/92
-started taking part-time jobs, opening a bank account, told Aunt Lou about leaving home.
-feeling guilty about Aunt Lou (fur-draped, hefty), afraid her friends would see her with
A.L. p. 112/92
her two early sexual experiences 931) the boy who liked her friend, Valerie, masturbated (?) by “burying his face against her
enormous stomach, kneeling down”  he must have perceived me as a single
enormous breast. Belly worship or thwarted love
2) Asked to be married by a foreign cook in the restaurant where she worked as a cashier.
p.119/98
her fantasy about the Fat Lady from the freak show at the Canadian National Exhibition
(walking on the high wire)
Chapter 10 –
p.130/107-108 <rf. 208>
the Spiritualists, Leda Sprott, special message to Joan about her mother’s astral body
--does not like the mother’s concern, or her following her around
-- automatic writing 109
Chapter 11 –
p. 138/113 shot at the behind, being pats on the knee. (her third sexual experience)
p. 139
Aunt Lou’s death (AL worked in the sanitary napkin company p.142)
p.146-148
Mother drinks more and more
Revealed she’s moving out – M’s reaction
Part II
Chapter 12 –
 [present time]Story of Charlotte resumed, Joan driving to Rome.
 [present time]Joan misses Arthur
Chapter 13 –
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Royal York Hotel – the source of her creative impulse
Presented herself as Miss L. Delacourt, the formal beginning of her second self (135)
Meeting the father, finding him hard to understand.
“lack” (138) – being fat, fear as a slim woman
Want “more than one life”
Chapter 14 –
 Stereotypes about nations 142, 145 (about English and English language)
 The Polish Count/ Joan thinking about the ambiguity of Goddesses 140
 How she met the Polish Count (an accident)
-- The Lady of Shalott (p. 170)
 Joan’s telling lies 145, 148
p.180/148 the reason she fabricated her life: “the truth was not convincing”
“I was no longer among the untouchables.” After sex with the Polish Count”
Chapter 15
 The Polish Count = Tadeo= Paul (=Mavis Quilp) (pseudonym for nurse novels he wrote
p.184153)
 Even Paul’s escape over the Polish border had been tidy.
Paul = Mavis Quilp
p.186 (according to Paul) Escape lit. should be an escape for the writer and the reader.
Quilp: a character from Dickens, a deformed, malicious dwarf
Joan: “It was Paul that I owed my choice of career.” (Paul mistook her for American)
fichu
Paletot
Pelisse 1771
Image sources:
http://www.originals-by-kay.com/learn_about/edballgown.htm
http://www.fashion-era.com/Coats_history/pelisse_history_1.htm
p.188/156: Joan’s first Gothic novel: The Lord of Chesney Chase/ Joan’s pseudonym:
Louisa K. Delacourt
p.189 /156 Paul: paternal and indulgent at first, reminds Joan of the daffodil man, Joan
couldn’t tell Paul’s identity, either (just as the identity of the daffodil man was still not clear
to her)
-- His stereotypical thinking: find her savage 157, “American” 158, feats of jealousy 158
p190/ started thinking about how to get out of this “sealed place”
p.192 the stalls on Portobello Street: “I was living”: joy of living, immersed in age/history
(going out with Arthur when still living with Paul)
Chapter 16
 never told Arthur about Paul
 met Arthur (a left wing political rebel, involved in ban-the-bomb movement then
<already 2 years>)in July 1963 (Joan 21 yrs old) when pacing as Samantha Deane, the
heroine of Escape from Love
 Arthur reminds her of Lord Byron p.198/164 (so does the Royal Porcupine p.309)
 Joan vs. Paul’s sexism 165;
 Joan’s more practical and fictional way of thinking p.201/ “What about Mrs. Marx?”
(gave Lord Russell<Bertrand Russell> a part in Escape from Love, fantasizing about
Castro and Mao)
couldn’t tell if Arthur likes her at all/couldn’t tell what A felt, if anything
 p.205/ moved in with A. (leaving a note to Paul)
Chapter 17
 [end of chap 16, and beginning of chap 17]Her mother’s astral body (rf. p.130)
Mother’s death
 p.211 Samantha Deane flew back and forth across London (like Joan)
 p.213/176, 177 conversation with Father
 p.213-219/.176-: rethinking mother-daughter relationship:
overcome by a wave of guilt/started devouring food/couldn’t write, feeling deserted
…
Chapter 18
– back to Terremotto, dye her hair, read fotoromanzo/photonovella
 talked to by a stranger
-- writing Stalked by Love (Redmond having three wives)
 someone outside 187
p.220-221 still thinking about transforming A’s appearance, liked lots of adjectives in her
cosmetics box  fantasy life, the birth of her new personality
p.223 Stalked by Love: the maze
188 I am not afraid of you… (fiction or reality?)
Part IV
Chapter 19
Beginning with the text of Stalked by Love (written in Terremoto)
p.233-234 recalling how Arthur went to Toronto to find her after the movement collapsed,
and he agreed to accept his parents’ money / going back to the Univ. of Toronto  not just
a longing to see Joan, but also inertia and the absence of a sense of purpose
p.236 Arthur aloof-hero (in Joan’s concept) “the hidden depth should remain hidden;
facades were at least as truthful” / 1964 (22 yrs old): marriage proposal: the gap of
understanding between A and J about their relationship: Joan should keep working so he
won’t accept so much money from his parents. (Joan working on Love Defied then)
p.239 fear prevailed over vanity: terrified that she would be exposed as a fraud, liar, and
imposter.
1964: p. 243/201 married by Eunice P. Revele = Leda Sprott
p.246/204 her mother / p.247-248/204-205 Leda Sprott: about Joan’s great power
Chapter 20
About marriage life – suitcase life /p. 209 A’s personality
Cooking 208Writing – being two persons 212
p.257/212: “It was only after I got married that my writing became for me anything more
than an easy way of earning a living  “two people at once” (?or actually four? The fat one,
<adolescent>, the thin one <before marrying Arthur>, Mrs. Foster (Joan Foster), & Louisa
K. Delacourt ↔ multiple selves)
p. nightmares 213 two kinds of people—the fat ones and thin ones
258 drank too much – like her mother
dreams about her mother: three-headed mother, her vanity table
** the worst dream: can’t see Mother at all, feeling helpless, backing into the farthest
corner of the cubicle and wedged herself in, pressed her arms against the walls, digging her
heels against the floor…
p. 259/213 the mirror
Chapter 21
Joan (Went to great length to prevent Arthur from understanding her) vs. the other
housewives p.262/215
the Little Mermaid in the Anderson fairy tale (a dancer with no tongue)
Moira Shearer in The Red Shoes
p. 216 -- Joan did her dancing behind closed doors (her writing)
-- playing house with A. / wanted to be acknowledged, but …
p.263
Love, My Ransom: Penelope, her vanity table (like her mother’s), Automatic Writing
p.266-270 Automatic Writing
need to find someone
Bow
The mirror won
A narrow passage
The sentences centered around the same woman.
(Lady of Shallot)
another person, a man
p. 274/p. 221, 225 her book Lady Oracle published (Lady of Shallot) under the name of
Joan Foster (“female Leonard Cohen” 224)
Chapter 22
Arthur dismayed at her book
Met Don and Marlene (from Brownies)
Arthur wrote for Resurgence, viewed Marlene as his muse/Marlene had an affair with Sam
Chapter 23
p.290 met the Royal Porcupine (a con-create poet)
Chapter 24
p. 245 “This was the beginning of my double life.”
“But not twin even, for I was more than double, I was triple, multiple, and now I could see
that there was more than one life to come, there were many.”
Marlene’s trouble 246-47
p.304 /250 her old daydreams about the Fat Lady returned
p.307 /253 Diana of Ephesus
Chapter 25
p. 309/254 the RP reminds her of Byron (rf. P.198)
257 Arthur – “a halo in reverse”
Playing games with RP
p. 313 / 258 met Fraser Buchanan
p. 317 remark to Arthur’s activity – blow up the Peace Bridge plan (Marlene, Sam, &
Joan – never had any intention on carrying out their plan.)
Chapter 26
The Royal Porcupine—real name: Chuck Brewer (p.322)
Change in RP (p.325) /270 Joan: “Was every Heathcliff a Linton in disguise?”
**p.329/270 “For him, reality and fantasy were the same thing, which meant that for him
there was no reality. But for me it would mean there was no fantasy, and therefore no
escape.”
p.330/270 -- the ending of their relationship: RP returned to Chuck
-- Joan feeling like a monster
Chapter 27
decided to confess to A. about RP, but didn’t 
p.331 fear again that she is some kind of mutation, like in her childhood
p. 333/273-74the Fat Lady fantasy /Watching the Fat Lady skate
p.338 /274 phone call from Paul (the Polish Count), dined at the restaurant where she once
worked as a cashier (the owner now once proposed marriage to her; he used to be called
John, now Zerdo)
Chapter 28
p. 283 Reflection on love, felt she never really loved anyone
p.346 / 283-84 in the bathtub, reading Paul’s gift: Nurse of the High Arctic
mysterious visitor 285
p.348/p. 286 confronted Fraser Buchanan – he found out at least two of her secret identities:
a fat woman & Louisa K. Delacourt
p.350 /287 “I would rather dance as a ballerina, though faultily, than as a flawless clown.”
p.357/292 “Every man I’d ever been involved with … had had two selves”:
her father (healer and killer)
the man in the tweed coat (daffodil man?)
RP (=Chuck Brewer)
Paul (another sinister side/life?)
“Why should Arthur be any exception?”  fear of A.  “I have to die.”
Chapter 29
Set up a suicide scheme with Sam and Marlene
p.258 “The truth was out of the question, as usual.”
p.360 Sam’s escape fantasy finally came to life.
Part V
In Terremoto
CH 30
p.376-377 contemplating about old and new life
p.381 Lady of Shallot
p.382 I pretended to die so I could live (the mothball she played? A cocoon transforms, and
a butterfly just dies)
CH 31
Writing Stalked by Love, with eyes closed (always so when writing Gothic novels)
something was blocking it/ had taken Charlotte through several narrow escapes (but not so
easy this time) / couldn’t get rid of Felicia (Redmond’s third wife) this time
p.385 Felicia: long red hair, her vanity table / p.387 Felicia: gazing up at herself from
beneath the surface of a river  more and more like Joan herself (Joan moved her
identification from with Charlotte to with Felicia, p.387, 390, 413/ or actually, Charlotte
and Felicia are one??)
p.388 the Fat Lady fantasy
CH 32
Beginning with Stalked by Love
p.391 Felicia reappeared after her death as a fat woman, resurfaced from the river, &
uttered “Arthur” – t. reality penetrates into her gothic novel.
CH 33
p.398 saw her mother again: “could she see I love her? I loved her but the glass was
between us …” (p.399 the Lady of Shallot)
considering stop trying (to please anyone?)
CH 34
Decided Charlotte had to go into the maze
p.404 somehow her writing no longer seemed right
p.405 “I might as well face it… I was an escape artist”
p.406 the real red shoes – blood
CH 35
A female monster
CH 36
Felicia entered the maze
Saw four women
CH 37
The ending, decided to go back to Toronto, getting Marlene & Sam out of jail (suspected of
killing Joan), explaining to Arthur
Time Line
Year
1942
Age
1
1945
1947
1948
1949
3
5
6
7
1950
8
1955
13
1957
15 &
onward
1957
15 &
onward
1961
19 &
onward
1963
21
1964
1968
22
26 &
onward
Events
Abortion? ( Ch 7 p. 73)
Mother named her after Joan Crawford (Ch 5 p. 38)
WWII ended
Father came back (Ch7, p.78/65)
Joan’s photos stopped abruptly (Ch 5 p. 39)
Enrolled in a dancing school
Mothball event (Ch 5)
--Moved to a bigger house (Ch 6 p. 49)
--Enrolled in Brownies: “an alien from beyond the
borders” (Ch 6 p. 49)
--the ravine (*the maze)
--her tormentors: Elizabeth, Marlene, Lynne (p.60/52)
-- first conception of a man being both good and evil
(p.72/60)
-- eating steadily ( Ch 7 p. 65) – the war between Joan &
Mother
-- Father: an anesthetist
-- the dinner party: learned about Father. as both killer
and healer ( Ch 7 pp. 65-71)
-- continued to eat not only to defy Mother, but also from
panic (knew she was not meant to be born)
-- Mother sent her to a psychiatrist (Ch 8)
-- Mother entered her “laxative phase”
-- freak shows in the Canadian National Exhibition with
Aunt Lou
-- the Fat Lady Show
-- High School: her early three sexual experiences &
taking part-time jobs
-- visited Jordan Chapel with Aunt Lou: the first
manifestation of Mother’s “astral body”
-- Aunt Lou’s death
-- started losing weight
-- revealed she’s moving out & stabbed by Mother
-- “the beginning of my second self” (p.163/)
-- traveled in the U.S. & moved to England (inheriting
Aunt Lou’s money)
-- met Paul (=the Polish Count=Mavis Quilp)
-- met Arthur (political activist)
-- Mother’s death (the 2nd manifestation of her astral
body) (CH 17)
Married Arthur
-- honeymoon
-- tried Automatic Writing again
-- Lady Oracle published
-- affair with the Royal Porcupine (= Chuck Brewer, a
con-create artist)
-- became acquainted with Sam & Marlene, plotting her
suicide
-- fled to Terremoto (Chaps 1-4)
-- final resolution