Joe is the narrator’s boyfriend. A veteran of the Vietnam War, he works as a pottery teacher to supplement his income while working on his personal pottery, which the narrator finds ugly. He is surly and gloomy and doesn’t verbalize his emotions, barely speaking much at all. She watches as Anna is oppressed by her abusive husband, who traps her in a marriage characterized by emotional abuse, infidelity, and violent sex. Anna accepts his actions as the norm, never rebelling against or leaving him when he mistreats her. On the outside, their marriage looks happy and healthy, but the narrator soon realizes what she thought was romance is merely control and manipulation. A nameless protagonist is in northern Quebec, in a very remote area, in search of her father who has gone missing. She brings with her Joe (her boyfriend) and another couple, Anna and David (who are super effed up, btw). She also brings with her ghosts from her past, things that have haunted her her entire life and have somehow kept her separate from others, even from herself, even from the reader (who cannot hope to relate to her, and doesn't ever even learn her name). Claude tells them they can hire Evans to take them out to the cabin. Paul would take them for free, she knows, but she does not want him to misinterpret the men’s longish hair and beards and think they are trouble. Ever-insightful Margaret Atwood, who creates flawed and unlikable characters, projects us into their heads and makes us sympathize with them. I have yet to run into an Atwood novel I didn't enjoy, but I also think that this book is not quite the same caliber as some of her later work.

I can see how some people wouldn't like this kind of book: there's not much action, and it is extremely introspective, a hashing out of memories the reader can easily loose their way into. The immersive narrative puts you in the middle of this woman's inner monologue and that can get unnerving, but I enjoyed it. Atwood's prose is evocative enough to make you feel like the story is happening to you and if you don't mind feeling slightly uncomfortable at time, it's a fascinating experience.

Become a Member

The prot’s father has disappeared and that is why they go to the remote cabin. They think he had gone feral . The situation could be like Man Thing, which is a manga I have read, but it is not, as the Prot’s father does not became a Man Thing. I was thinking that if the father did become a Man Thing he would be waiting in the woods and catch them and rip them up to make more Man Things, but this does not happen. This book is way too I-hate-God and Single-Cell-Organisms-Rule for me. I love Nature, but I can't even begin to tell you how much I DON'T want to return to my primitive state of a pile of mud.

On a personal level, the narrator's society has alienated her from herself as well as others. The narrator doesn't seem to have any control over her memories or sense of reality. Her stories don't quite blend when she talks about her past with her husband and child. It's almost as though she has been told so many different things, she doesn't know how to separate fact from fiction anymore. The narrator's false memories of her husband and child have been used to distance herself from the guilt of the abortion and affair. But the narrator's complete acceptance of the lies as truth shows how little control she has over her own identity. During her time on the island, the narrator also works at her career as a freelance illustrator, currently creating artwork for a book of fairy tales, although she is too preoccupied with her father’s disappearance to focus properly. As the novel progresses, we begin to uncover more about David and Anna, observing their tumultuous relationship. David is often insulting to Anna and tells her what to do, such as demanding she wears makeup. The narrator describes how he is a womanizer and how it makes her uncomfortable to see Anna treated in that way. The main characters in Surfacing are the unnamed narrator, her boyfriend, Joe, and their friends, David and Anna. The Unnamed NarratorThemes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Language As Connection to Society