Margaret Atwood's Power: Mirrors, Reflections and Images in Select Fiction and Poetry

Alan Thomas is a professor of English at the University of Toronto.

Hengen’s approach to Atwood’s work is political, or perhaps
cultural. The prominent position Atwood occupies in Canadian letters has
made her a public figure; she has expressed an outspoken nationalism and
a sympathy for social cooperation (which might be termed socialism), and
since, in her fiction, she displays an interest in relations between the
sexes, feminist analysis is also justified. The nexus of nationalism,
socialism, and feminism in Atwood’s expressed opinions and in her
writing forms the ground for Hengen’s discussion. To this ground she
brings a further “ism,” narcissism, a psychological condition and
also, evidently, a therapy, the importance of which has been asserted by
both American and French psychoanalysts, though with different emphases.
Hengen argues that narcissism of the proper kind, “progressive”
narcissism, serves women as a means of empowerment.

Although Atwood does not ever discuss or mention narcissism, except in
the usual dismissive manner of received opinion, Hengen shows that an
interest in narcissism makes itself known in Atwood’s use of the
mirror as a concept and as an image in her poetry and prose fiction. It
is a common rhetorical figure that reveals a preoccupation with identity
on the part of women and Canadians; Hengen argues that both are going
through a “mirror” stage. There is much to be said for a broad
analysis of Atwood’s presentation of self-perception among the female
protagonists of her novels, and there is no reason why the Canadian
context should not be involved in the discussion. But Hengen’s
argument, though possessing its own elaborations, is essentially crude
and its application tendentious. Crudity is revealed on those occasions
when passages from the novels find their way into her pages. A scene
from Edible Woman, for instance, shows Atwood registering the world with
such sharpness, subtlety, and complexity of attitude as to instantly
render the surrounding critical argument blunt and, to a degree, false.
As to tendency, scenes showing the startling cruelty of young females to
each other in Cat’s Eye—scenes which surely reflect conditions of
power—are ignored, while the continuing assumption that Atwood should
be doing her duty as a Canadian female left-nationalist and creating
positive models obliges Hengen to regret lapses in the female
protagonist’s attitude toward other women.

Generally, Hengen is tolerant while expressing the expectation and hope
that Atwood will improve her creation and articulation of female
characters who can “achieve political efficacy.” The power of
Margaret Atwood the writer is evidently regarded as a mere instrument in
women’s struggle for power.