Identity and Margaret Atwoods Lady Oracle :: essays papers

Identity and Margargont Atwoods Lady Oracle The familys we hasten with different people through bug out our lives are strong influences on us all. Our relationships with one another can define who we are, as well as the quality of the lives we lead. Strenuous relationships cause stress and unhappiness, while close, loving relationships are a source of support and comfort. Joan Foster, the main character in Margaret Atwood=s Lady Oracle, is a complex woman who has had more than her share of riotous relationships during her life. From her childhood and teenage relationship with her mother, to her bond with her husband later in life, Joan=s relationships are rarely free of turmoil and drama. These relationships definitely gull an influence on Joan, impacting her as a person. The issue of Joan and her relationships reveals a caput How are Joan=s relationships important to her identicalness? The first major relationship in Joan=s life is the one with her mother. Joan fe els unwanted and unloved by her mother, who treats Joan coldly because of her weight problem. At first, Joan struggles to fit in with her mother=s perfect vision of her and tries to live up to her mother=s expectations. When she fails at this, Joan resents her mother=s unbearable attitude and becomes antagonistic toward her. Joan=s identity then becomes based on the opposite of what her mother expects and wants from her. At this age my mother gave me a clothing allowance, as an incentive to reduce. She thought I should subvert clothes that would make me less conspicuous, the dark dresses with tiny polka-dots and upright piano stripes favored by designers for the fat. Instead I sought out clothes of a peculiar and offensive hideousness, violently colored, horizontally striped. round of them I got in maternity shops, others at cut-rate discount stores I was especially pleased with a red felt skirt, cut in a circle with a black telephone appliqued onto it. The brighter th e colors, the more heavy the effect, the more certain I was to buy. I wasn=t going to allow myself be diminished, neutralizes, by a navy-blue polka-dot sack (Atwood 84). Joan went out of her way to buy clothes that she knew her mother would hate, and that become part of who she was.