Margaret Atwood, Lady Oracle

Ellen McWilliams (University of Exeter)

The Literary Encyclopedia. Volume 3.1.2: Canadian Writing and Culture (Anglophone): The Twentieth Century and beyond, 1900-present.
Vol. editors: Sarah Henzi (Simon Fraser University), Kerry Myler (Birmingham Newman University), Glen Nichols (Mount Allison University), Wendy Roy (University of Saskatchewan), Denis Salter (McGill University), Karis Shearer (University of British Columbia)

Dates

First circulation or publication 1976

Places

Canada (Country of Origin)

Genres and Modes

Novel

Resources

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Margaret Atwood's

Lady Oracle

(1976) marks an important milestone in Atwood's literary representation of the woman artist. While later novels such as

Cat's Eye

(1988) and

The Blind Assassin

(2001) return to this key interest in the life of the female artist,

Lady Oracle

is the novel most concerned with the woman writer at work, in particular focusing on the relationship between the woman writer and the Gothic genre. The protagonist of the novel, Joan Foster, undergoes a series of transformations in the course of the narrative, constantly reinventing her personal identity and her identity as a writer. The novel begins with Joan hiding out in a remote Italian village, reflecting on having just faked her own death. This paves the way for a series of metamorphoses that begin with her…

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1375 words

Citation: McWilliams, Ellen. "Lady Oracle". The Literary Encyclopedia. First published 25 October 2006 [https://www.litencyc.com/php/sworks.php?rec=true&UID=4169, accessed 25 April 2024.]

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