The Road Of Self-search—A Lacanian Reading Of Atwood’s Wilderness Tips

Margaret Atwood is lauded as "the queen of Canadian Literature", and Wilderness Tips is widely treated as her most successful collection of short stories. Many scholars study this collection from the perspective of feminism, ecologism and narratology since its publication. In addition, some critics study it with Freud’s conscious and unconscious theory. However, few scholars have ever resorted to Lacanian theory when study this collection. This thesis aims to fill this research gap by using Lacan’s Mirror Stage and Three Orders theories to analyze the identity crisis and self-reconstruction reflected in this collection. Among that, "The Bog Man", "Isis in Darkness", "Death by Nature", and "Hairball", the four topic pertinent stories in it, are the main research focus of this thesis. The related analysis and study will develop through three levels, namely, individual, women and nation.This thesis is mainly divided into five parts. The first part is about Atwood’s life experience, Wilderness Tips’literature review, and Lacan’s Mirror Stage and Three Orders theories. The second part discusses the three main characters’ self-searching journey on individual level. Julie loves and admires her married professor, desiring to identify with him to construct an ideal self, but this illegal relationship receives opposition from the outside world. Finally, Julie accepts the social mainstream concept and establishes a "social self in Symbolic Order. Lois considers Lucy as her perfect self, so when Lucy dies by landscape, Lois loses a part of herself accordingly. Hence, she collects landscape pictures to recover Lucy, retrieves the part she loses and builds an integrated self in Real Order. Selena symbolizes Richard’s ideal self and literary dream. As Selena gives up her literary works and dies later, Richard feels he loses hope and self. So he decides to rewrite Selena, brings her rebirth and realizes his self-reconstruction. The third part analyzes women’s identity crisis in gender relationship, work, and family. As for the reason of it, Atwood points to the "invisible mirror" in women’s life-other’s gazes. She considers that other’s evaluations and expectations build a virtual mirror world for women, which leads to women’s lost of themselves. To construct an ideal self, women should transcend the mirror images, release themselves from the perspective of men and realize self-reconstruction. The four part discusses Canadian identity on national level, mainly about Canada’s relationship with Britain and America as well as its national literature’s construction. Atwood points out that Canada’s historical localization should break away from its former British colony identity, and hold a rational attitude towards America’s influence as well. Meanwhile, Canada’s national literature should get rid of the following and imitation of British and American literature. It’s necessary to discover and create Canadian local mythology, and further establish Canada’s own cultural spiritual homeland. The five part is the conclusion which summarizes the views of this thesis.