Abstract
In Margaret Atwood’s Lady Oracle, Joan Foster has to forge multiple identities to protect herself from being pinned down by the logic of sexual dichotomy. The debates on the significance of her many identities usually concentrate on the fact that her identities, incongruous with the social conventions, are still used as strategies to deconstruct the patriarchal socialization. However, the concept of the tangents not only explains Joan’s behavior but also demonstrates her continuous efforts to deconstruct in order to survive in the patriarchal society. This thesis aims at examining the prevalent sexual dichotomy in patriarchy and the usage of women’s body and writing as the deconstruction strategies. Introduction deals with a survey of the scholarship on Lady Oracle. Based on Atwood’s espousal of Joan’s tangential relations with her society, I propose to use the concept of deconstruction to reconsider the relationship between women and society. Chapter One focuses on the concept of deconstruction. A brief survey of the history of misogyny will elucidate why women have to fight for equality by means of the deconstruction strategies. The incitement of sexual dichotomy results in women’s subordinate positions and leads them to be excluded from sharing the authority of center. Women’s alternity (otherness), as suggested in Lady Oracle, can be recuperated by the deconstruction strategies: body and writing. Chapter Two illustrates how Joan fights against her contaminated society through her body. Her multiple identities and fake suicide help her to reincarnate her body. The Fat Lady as a ballerina on a tight rope symbolizes that women’s body are straitjacketed by the fashion of “Dior’s New Look” around 1950. Joan’s willful suffering of bulimia and anorexia nervosa reflects her mother’s irresponsible behavior and men’s obsessions with women’s slim body. And her sexual experiences, dovetailing with Simone de Beauvoir’s analysis of the history of women’s suffering, reveal men’s morbid treatment of women. Chapter Three concerns Joan’s writings as a deconstruction strategy. Her various forms of writings also stand for her tangential relations with her society. She realistically records her friends’ fancy for the future constructed by patriarchy in her fifteen gothic romances. Her automatic writing, which relieves her from the bondage of the Symbolic Order, enables her to probe into her subconscious so that she can recognize the uneven power sharing between men and women. In addition, she projects her selfhood onto her latest work, Stalked by Love and makes it a parody. Conclusion discusses Joan’s expectations for her future, which indicate that she will continue to deconstruct the gender stereotypes in her life. Her strategies to fight against patriarchy are to subvert the status quo of her life. The avoidance of a fixed identity in patriarchy provides her with nomadic freedom to have identity-in-flux and to open up new possibilities for her life.