The Robber Bride (2)

1. Lived City (4): Love and Desire on Cities‘ Margins -- or Center? The Robber Bride (2) Identity, Love and Surviving Obsession

2. Outline • Roz and Mitch: Questions about choices at different moments of a love relationship • Roz’s sense of identity • Roz and Zenia • Development of women’s magazines (WiseWomanWorld). • Survival: How Roz survives her trauma and her obsession by Zenia • Atwood’s Style and Language • The Robber Bride as a whole

3. Starting Questions: Roz and Mitch • What if you were Roz . . . • What’s Roz like in her 20’s? • Working hard from the bottom and learning a lot from her father; • Some sexual experience, but no lovers; feels old; • What kind of love does Mitch offers? • Would you accept Mitch’s “love”? • Why does she accept the proposal?

4. Mitch’s “Pursuit” of Roz • Starts out as a conservative guy, with flowers and in serious tone p. 348. • Difference in appearance: Mitch too good-looking, Roz, ‘feels heavy’ and wants to be a blonde, size 6, etc. p. 348 • Class difference: Roz flatters his ego • Roz anxiously waiting for his move p. 350-51 • Mitch – tantalizing, delaying gratification. p. 351 – 52. sex-role stereotyping

5. Starting Questions (1): Roz and Mitch • What if you were Roz . . . • Would you allow Mitch to come back from his sexual astrays? Would you treat your marriage as a poken game (e.g. 338; 424) • Why does Roz take him back into her arms in the past? And after Zenia leaves Mitch? (pp. 423 ‘thirsty’; 427) And why not at the last time (p. 428)

6. Roz’ identity: a Catholic and a mother at heart • Cannot leave Mitch because p. 398 • cares about her children, • cannot stand the idea of divorce • cannot admit that she’s made mistake • still loves Mitch –because he is what she is not.

7. Roz’ identity: a DP, a pastiche with a disloyal father. • Roz’s sense of deficiency: 344-45 • Roz used to treat her father as a hero (360), and, like the others, discriminate against “displaced persons” (365-66); • Finds out that her father is DP (374)  Roz’s life cut in two. • Roz takes on a Jewish identity. Roz as a hybrid (387-90). • Chap 44: the Father’s mistresses (like Mitch?) and his getting rich.

8. Starting Questions (2): Roz and Zenia • What if you were Roz . . . • Would you be taken in by Zenia? • Why makes Roz launch her?

9. Zenia’s story – pp. 404 -406 (Zenia war baby and a mixture, definition of Jews, living out of suitcase) Her present ‘abilities’ and her worldliness Roz’s sense of lack The father’s past as a ‘crook’ Jewish histories Her identity – a pastiche Her relationship with the feminist group with Mitch and her richness as obstacles pp. 394-96-98; Her feeling of being trusted and confided to (399-400; 411-12) Her career problem—the magazine is not making money Zenia’s identity

10. The Development of Women’s Magazines • 395- 96: ‘a friend, a friend that combined high ideals and hope with the sharing of down-and-dirty secrets • 416 -17 • Gone are the stories of female achievers and struggles; articles on health care • Now: fashion, sex, • Note: development of feminism also implied on p. 398 overalls  business suits

11. Trauma and Survival • The seriousness of the blow this time? • Different from the past: Mitch lives with Zenia, he does not ask Roz to help. • Slow torture of Mitch in moving his stuffs away slowly. Not a clear-cut breakup (or ‘clean sweep’). • Roz’s attempts to salvage her marriage • with Harriet’s help finds out that there’s no person born with the name of ‘Zenia’; a name; her lies with false documents 420-21; her going out with one drug-dealer.) • p. 421 --holds her fire. • Going out with other men to make Mitch jealous.

12. Survival 1: Roz’s adjustments & self-healing • p. 425Going away • P. 430 – satisfy herself with children? “Snap out of it, she tells herslef. You are not old. Your life is not over.’ • Sees a shrink • Another serious blow when she starts to have hope.  understanding Mitch and blaming herself 434

13. Her deep sense of failure. (esp. about Larry) • The present time: “The one she’s failed most is Larry. If she’d only been—what?– prettier, smarter, sexier even, better somehow; or else worse, more calculating, more unscrupulous, a guerrilla fighter—Mitch might still be here. Roz wonders how long it will take for her kids to forgive her. . .“ (93).

14. Survival 2: increasing knowledge (the present) • Roz’s awareness of the nature of her jealousy p. 326 • Can reject Mitch p. 345; p. 82 “’Screw you, Mitch.’ If it weren’t for him, she could relax, . . . be middle-aged.” • 352 (her roles stereotyped) • 399 understands her pride—two kinds • 416 Mitch’s touching her at the parties with Zenia around “Steadying himself.” • 428 –”He’s begging”

15. Survival 2: Roz’s increasing knowledge (the present) What does Mitch wants? • We don’t know. We only know it through Roz. • P. 419 – Zenia a vacancy ‘stray dog’ syndrome • P. 428-29 – Zenia -- inflating his ego and then deflating it. • Chap 49 – still a mother with conventional wishes; still lonely (eating alone) and caring (about Tony and Charis); • a cynical view • Zenias of the world//the prevalence of male fantasies. 441-42 • Between extremes, she keeps her good will.

16. Survival 3: Emotional Support • Friends: Tony and Charis p. 436-37 • offers support in their different ways; • Charis: massage, health foods, philosophy of reincarnation; • Tony: chocolate, casserole • Roz: appreciates and shows her differences from them • Family members: twins p. 443 • Playful; not very tender (use a dishtowel) • Learns from her to laugh away worries and burden

17. Roz’s Survival • Zenia: • “You should give me a medal for getting him off your back . . . You babied him.” 494-95; • blackmail her with lies about Larry; “He is dealing . . . He’s been sampling the product pretty heavily too.” (496) • Roz – upon knowing that Larry is gay • Can handle it “if she bit her tongue hard enough”; • Her own marriage “not a good example of heterosexuality” • “Tomorrow she’ll be genuinely warm and accepting. For tonight, hypocrisy will have to do” (511-12).

18. Style: intertextual, multiple plot, microcosm matched with a macrocosmic view. Language: humorous (p. 349; ), metaphoric (p. 414) and witty use of puns (351). p. 414 (sound//sense); 351 Rape –油菜 Note: Atwood’s Style and Language

19. p. 349: her mother with a bad taste Doily everywhere • Roz’s mother – had a hard life -- running a rooming house, which she inherited from her mother (who was widowed when Roz’s mother was 2). • After her husband comes back, she withdraws her influences on Roz and tends say, “Ask your father”(374-75) • “Look at my hands.” • Stricken look and bad taste; p. 349

20. Her-Stories in the Context of the City & “His”-Stories in The Robber Bride

21. Zenia History& Her-Stories U.S. versus Canada Toronto Roz’s -- Oct23, 1990 and her past (WWII, post-sixties’ commercialization) Tony’s Charis’s • Their Differences: • Zenia & her death; • Views on each other • Position in the City

22. Examples of the Three’s Differences • The Three Characters’ View of Zenia • For Tony, Zenia is a white Russian orphan; 'a lurking enemy commando.' • For Roz, Zenia is a Berlin Jew; 'a cold and treacherous bitch.' • For Charis, Zenia is a Romanian gypsy; a kind of zombie, maybe 'soulless.'" • Their views of her first death • Tony: thinks that Zenia is “inoperational”; Charis feels “peaceful” • Roz: feels “kaput”(broken); wants to take a dog to pee there;

23. Roz’s Views of the two friends in chap 49 • Charis – easy target for robbers “a long-haired, middle-aged woman walking around covered with layers of printed textiles and bumping into things, she might as well has a sign pinned on er, Snatch my purse.” (440) • Tony – tiny, with her baby-bird eyes and her acidulated (sour) little smile; the sex appeal of a fire hydrant.(441)

24. After Zenia re-appears: Tony and Charis in Roz’s Eyes • Tony is so little, Charis is so thin, both are shaken. She feels as if she’s hugging the twins, one and then the other, on the morning of their first day at school. She wants to spread her hen wings over them, reassure them, tell them that everything will be all right. . .Both smarter than she is. . .But neither one of them has any street smarts” (115).

25. After Zenia re-appears: Charis and Roz in Tony’s Eyes • Charis is shivering, despite her attempt at serenity; • Roz is flippant and dismissive, but she’s holding back tears.

26. Charis’s View of Her Friends and Zenia’s Reappearance • Goes to Tony for rational solution; Goes to Roz for hug (69); Tony reminds her of snowflakes; Roz – with “golden, many-colored and spicy aura” (69-70) • “Compassion for all living things, . . .Zenia is alive, so that means compassion for Zenia” (79).

27. The Three’s Positions in Toronto • Tony • at school; surrounded by male colleagues. • Likes the mix of skins on the street; but when she walks on the sidewalk, she keeps “away from the ragged figures who lean against the wall” (28) • her marching on the street as if on war fields. • Charis' • sees the city from afar pp.47; 57-58 • works in a store owned by one with mixed blood; cannot understand the racism the latter experiences.

28. The Three’s Positions in Toronto (2) • Roz – The rooming house is now taken by the Chinese; --Now she has an overview of the city, drives most of the time; has a bathroom some South-Asians could live in; • Has a Filipino maid.

29. Canada in the context of Worldwide changes and American Imperialism • “The Soviet bloc is crumbling, old maps are dissolving . . .” (p. 4) • Persian Gulf War– Tony: “Don’t think of it as a war, think of it as market expansion. . . . [Canada’s] attendance will be required. If you take the king’s shilling, you kiss the king’s ass” (33).

30. History and Her-Stories • His-Stories = • the political histories of nations’ fighting against each other • Fairy tales • Atwood “Where have all the Lady Macbeths gone?  Gone to Ophelias, every one, leaving the devilish tour-de-force parts to be played by bass-baritones.” Stereotypes of women in traditional culture • Her-Stories = History is a construct. • of a villainess’ using men to victimize women • Mixing the domestic with the political • Telling Story together to survive.