About this guide
Lady Oracle is Margaret Atwood's third novel, a comic masterpiece in its
parodies of literary forms and subversion of literary expectations.
Our heroine is Joan Foster, who has spent her life on the run, albeit quietly.
Her adolescent obesity and the constant criticisms of her disapproving mother
inspire her to flee to England. A continent away, Joan begins to find her own
voice through her pseudonymous career as a romance novelist, an undertaking that
she hides from Arthur, her manic-depressive, revolution-hungry husband. When
Joan's writing finds its ultimate expression in a collection of feminist poetry
that becomes the sleeper hit of the country, she is overwhelmed by the sudden
rush of publicity and notoriety.
Unable to juggle her crumbling marriage, her madcap affair with an unpredictable
performance artist, and her feud with an insidious celebrity blackmailer, Joan
feigns her own death and flees to Italy, determined to start again incognito.
But Joan, who has spent her whole life hiding, soon finds that the invisibility
that once plagued her is now impossible to regain.
For discussion
- The specters of the circus Fat Lady and Joan's perfectly coifed mother are
the twin specters that haunt Joan throughout the novel. How does each of these
visions alter with each subsequent encounter? What does each represent for Joan?
- Examine the parallels between Joan's life and the adventures of her Gothic
heroines. How does Atwood use excerpts from the novel to illuminate turning
points in Joan's own story?
- Atwood devotes the first half of the novel to detailing Joan's childhood.
How do her experiences surviving her mother, her obesity, and the torments she
suffers at the hands of her peers affect her adult life? Her development as a
writer?
- Although Joan has long made a consistent living as a novelist and becomes a
runaway success as a poet, she is still ashamed enough of her novels to keep
them a secret from Arthur and is quick to side with the detractors who disdain
her poetry. Why is Joan unable to accept and embrace her achievements?
- "Nice men did things for you; bad men did things to you," is Joan's mother's
motto. Compare the various men that dot Joan's life; do you find any truth in
this syllogism?
- In addition to Joan's own host of identities, this novel is laden with other
secret dualities: Joan's daffodil man/rescuer, her murderer/resurrectionist
father, the Royal Porcupine/Chuck Brewer, and Leda Sprott/E.P. Revele. What is
Atwood's purpose for creating this mosaic of multiplicity? Can truth exist when
there are so many versions of each story?
- "I discovered there was something missing in me. This lack came from having
been fat; it was like being without a sense of pain, and pain and fear are
protective, up to a point. I'd never developed the usual female fears," notes
Joan soon after she's shed the hundred pounds. Obesity confers on Joana certain
invisibility. Discuss the implications of this phenomenon in her adolescence and
later life.
- Throughout her childhood, Joan views Aunt Lou as the only adult who offers
her unconditional love, but it is Aunt Lou who makes her the most conditional
offer of her life: she will inherit the money only if she loses the weight. What
does this offer reveal about Aunt Lou and her relationship with Joan? Joan's
childhood perceptions of Lou?
- "I decided that passionate revelation scenes were better avoided and that
hidden depths should remain hidden; facades were at least as truthful," Joan
reports. Today, confessional memoirs are all the rage: the more outre, damaging,
and abusive one's past, the better. From high-brow literature to talk-show
television, the urge to tell-all is pervasive. What compels Joan to not only
hide but fabricate her entire past ? Is her shame and compulsive secrecy
personally or sociologically motivated?
- "I'd given up expecting [Arthur] to be a cloaked, sinuous, and faintly
menacing stranger . . . Strangers didn't leave their socks on the floor . . . I
kept Arthur in our apartment and the strangers in their castles and mansions,
where they belonged," claims Joan. How successful is she at separating her
desires from her expectations? At compartmentalizing her romantic and domestic
needs? What catalyzes her affair with the Royal Porcupine? Causes the breakdown
of her and Arthur's marriage?
- Although Joan claims to be seeking an entirely new, incognito life, she very
nearly gives herself away by returning to a place where she is readily
recognized. Does she run with the primary hope of being caught, like one of her
Gothic heroines? Throughout the novel, Joan's frequent solution to her problems
is flight. What happens in the few instances when she chooses to fight?
- How does your view of the Resurgenites influence your view of Arthur? How
effective is he as a husband, a political rebel, a companion and lover for Joan?
- "The future," Joan claims," doesn't appeal to me as much as the past, but
I'm sure it's better for you." Ultimately, Joan resolves to disclose the secrets
of her past in order to protect her friends. Do you believe this disclosure will
enable her to begin living in the present? If so, what might her next step be?
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