Margaret Atwood – Good Bones

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian writer born on November

18, 1939 in Ottawa, Canada. The internationally-known
author has written award-winning poetry, short-stories and
novels, including The Circle Game (1966), The
Handmaid’s Tale (1985), The Blind Assassin (2000), Oryx
and Crake (2003) and The Tent (2006). Her works have
been translated into an array of different languages and
seen several screen adaptations, with both Handmaid's
Tale and Alias Grace becoming miniseries in 2017.
Good Bones is a collection of short fiction (most stories only a few pages long)
originally published in 1992.
The collection explores the sinister side of classical myths,
traditional Anglo-European folklore and literary
archetypes. Through the stories, Atwood gives voice to the
"bad girls": the stupid, ugly or wicked stepmothers and
stepsisters who feature as antagonists in the archetypes
Atwood explores. For example, the Little Red Hen, the
stepsisters from 'Cinderella', and Gertrude from William
Shakespeare's Hamlet get their say. Ultimately, these
stories explore the danger of life (which inevitably ends in
death) and the power of telling one's own story.
The book was republished in 1994, in combination with another Atwood work
called Murder in the Dark, as part of the expanded collection Good Bones and Simple
Murders.
 Read the following stories excerpted from Good Bones and note down all the
vocabulary you don’t understand:

I'm the plot, babe, and don't ever forget it.

BAD NEWS
The red geraniums fluorescing on the terrace, the wind swaying the daisies, the baby's
milk-fed eyes focusing for the first time on a double row of beloved teeth-what is there
to report? Bloodlessness puts her to sleep. She perches on a rooftop, her brass wings
folded, her head with its coiffure of literate serpents tucked beneath the left one,
snoozing like a noon pigeon. There's nothing to do but her toenails. The sun oozes
across the sky, the breezes undulate over her skin like warm silk stockings, her heart
beats with the systole and diastole of waves on the breakwater, boredom creeps over her
like vines.

She knows what she wants: an event, by which she means a slip of the knife, a dropped
wineglass or bomb, something broken. A little acid, a little gossip, a little hi-tech
megadeath: a sharp thing that will wake her up. Run a tank over the geraniums, turn the
wind up to hurricane so the daisies' heads tear off and hurtle through the air like bullets,
drop the baby from the balcony and watch the mother swan-dive after him, with her
snarled Ophelia hair and addled screams.

The melon-burst, the tomato-coloured splatter-now that's a story! She's awake now, she
sniffs the air, her wings are spread for flight. She's hungry,
she's on the track, she's howling like a siren and she's got
your full attention.

No news is good news, everyone knows that. You know it,

too, and you like it that way. When you're feeling bad she
scratches at your window, and you let her in. Better them
than you, she whispers in your ear. You settle back in your
chair, folding the rustling paper.

2
THERE WAS ONCE
"There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked
stepmother in a house in the forest."

"Forest? Forest is passé, I mean, I've had it with all this wilderness stuff. It's not a right
image of our society, today. Let's have some urban for a change."

"There was once a poor girl, as beautiful as she was good, who lived with her wicked
stepmother in a house in the suburbs."

"That's better. But I have to seriously

query this word poor."

"But she was poor!"

"Poor is relative. She lived in a house,

didn't she?"

"Yes."

"Then socio-economically speaking, she was not poor."

"But none of the money was hers! The whole point of the story is that the wicked
stepmother makes her wear old clothes and sleep in the fireplace-"

"Aha! They had a fireplace! With poor, let me tell you, there's no fireplace. Come down
to the park, come to the subway stations after dark, come down to where they sleep in
cardboard boxes, and I'll show you poor!"

"There was once a middle-class girl, as beautiful as she was good-"

"Stop right there. I think we can cut the beautiful, don't you? Women these days have to
deal with too many intimidating physical role models as it is, what with those bimbos in
the ads. Can't you make her, well, more average?"

"There was once a girl who was a little overweight and whose front teeth stuck out,
who-"
3
"I don't think it's nice to make fun of people's appearances. Plus, you're encouraging
anorexia."

"I wasn't making fun! I was just describing-"

"Skip the description. Description oppresses. But you can say what colour she was."

"What colour?"

"You know. Black, white, red, brown, yellow. Those are the choices. And I'm telling
you right now, I've had enough of white. Dominant culture this, dominant culture that-"

"I don't know what colour."

"Well, it would probably be your colour, wouldn't it?"

"But this isn't about me! It's about this girl-"

"Everything is about you."

"Sounds to me like you don't want to hear this story at all."

"Oh well, go on. You could make her ethnic. That might help."

"There was once a girl of indeterminate descent, as average-looking as she was good,
who lived with her wicked-"

"Another thing. Good and wicked. Don't you think you should transcend those
puritanical judgmental moralistic epithets? I mean, so much of that is conditioning, isn't
it?"

"There was once a girl, as average-looking as she was well-

adjusted, who lived with her stepmother, who was not a very open
and loving person because she herself had been abused in
childhood."

"Better. But I am so tired of negative female images! And

stepmothers-they always get it in the neck! Change it to

4
stepfather, why don't you? That would make more sense anyway, considering the bad
behaviour you're about to describe. And throw in some whips and chains. We all know
what those twisted, repressed, middle-aged men are like-"

"Hey, just a minute! I'm a middle-aged-"

"Stuff it, Mister Nosy Parker. Nobody asked you to stick in your oar, or whatever you
want to call that thing. This is between the two of us. Go on."

"There was once a girl-"

"How old was she?"

"I don't know. She was young."

"This ends with a marriage, right?"

"Well, not to blow the plot, but-yes."

"Then you can scratch the condescending paternalistic terminology. It's woman,
pal. Woman."

"There was once-"

"What's this was, once? Enough of the dead past. Tell me about now."

"There-"

"So?"

"So, what?"

"So, why not here?"

5
UNPOPULAR GALS
1. The Ugly Sister
Everyone gets a turn, and now it's mine. Or so they used to tell us in kindergarten. It's
not really true. Some get more turns than others, and I've never had a turn, not one! I
hardly know how to say I, or mine; I've been she, her, that one, for so long.

I haven't even been given a name; I was just the ugly sister; put the stress on ugly. The
one the other mothers looked at, then looked away from and shook their heads gently.
Their voices lowered or ceased altogether when I came into the room, in my pretty
dresses, my face leaden and scowling. They tried to think of something to say that
would redeem the situation-Well, she's certainly strong-but they knew it was useless. So
did I.

You think I didn't hate their pity, their forced kindness? And knowing that no matter
what I did, how virtuous I was, or hardworking, I would never be beautiful. Not like
her, the one who merely had to sit there to be adored. You wonder why I stabbed the
blue eyes of my dolls with pins and pulled their hair out until they were bald? Life isn't
fair. Why should I be?

As for the prince, you think I didn't love him? I loved him more than she did. I loved
him more than anything. Enough to cut off my foot. Enough to murder. Of course I
disguised myself in heavy veils, to take her place at the altar. Of course I threw her out
the window and pulled the sheets up over my head and pretended to be her. Who
wouldn't, in my position?

But all my love ever came to was a bad end.

Red-hot shoes, barrels studded with nails. That's
what it feels like, unrequited love.

She had a baby, too. I was never allowed.

Everything you've ever wanted, I wanted also.

6
2. The Wicked Witch

A libel action, that's what I'm thinking. Put an end to this nonsense. Just because I'm old
and live alone and can't see very well, they accuse me of all sorts of things. Cooking and
eating children, well, can you imagine? What a fantasy, and even if I did eat just a few,
whose fault was it? Those children were left in the forest by their parents, who fully
intended them to die. Waste not, want not, has always been my motto.

Anyway, the way I see it, they were an offering. I used to be given grown-ups, men and
women both, stuffed full of seasonal goodies and handed over to me at seed-time and
harvest. The symbolism was a little crude perhaps, and the events themselves were-
some might say-lacking in taste, but folks' hearts
were in the right place. In return, I made things
germinate and grow and swell and ripen.

Then I got hidden away, stuck into the attic,

shrunken and parched and covered up in dusty
draperies. Hell, I used to have breasts! Not just two
of them. Lots. Ever wonder why a third tit was the
crucial test, once, for women like me?

Or why I'm so often shown with a garden? A wonderful garden, in which mouth-
watering things grow. Mulberries. Magic cabbages. Rapunzel, whatever that is. And all
those pregnant women trying to clamber over the wall, by the light of the moon, to
munch up my fecundity, without giving anything in return. Theft, you'd call it, if you
were at all open-minded.

That was never the rule in the old days. Life was a gift then, not something to be stolen.
It was my gift. By earth and sea I bestowed it, and the people gave me thanks.

7
3. The Stepmother

It's true, there are never any evil stepfathers. Only a bunch of lily-livered widowers,
who let me get away with murder vis-à-vis their daughters. Where are they when I'm
making those girls drudge in the kitchen, or sending them out into the blizzard in their
paper dresses? Working late at the office. Passing the buck. Men! But if you think they
know nothing about it, you're crazy.

The thing about those good daughters is, they're so good. Obedient and passive.
Sniveling, I might add. No get-up-and-go. What would become of them if it weren't for
me? Nothing, that's what. All they'd ever do is the housework, which seems to feature
largely in these stories. They'd marry some peasant, have seventeen kids, and get 'A
dutiful wife' engraved on their tombstones, if any. Big deal.

I stir things up, I get things moving. 'Go play in the traffic,' I say to them. 'Put on this
paper dress and look for strawberries in the snow.' It's perverse, but it works. All they
have to do is smile and say hello and do a little more housework, for some gnomes or
nice ladies or whatever, and bingo, they get the king's son and the palace, and no more
dishpan hands. Whereas all I get is the blame.

God knows all about it. No Devil, no Fall, no Redemption. Grade Two arithmetic.

You can wipe your feet on me, twist my motives around all you like, you can dump
millstones on my head and drown me in the river, but you can't get me out of the story.
I'm the plot, babe, and don't ever forget it.

Excerpted from Good Bones. Reprinted by permission of the author. Copyright © 1995 Blip Magazine
Archive
8
Answer the following questions, then we will discuss about them in class.
Bad News

1. What do you think is happening to the protagonist?

2. What does she want?

3. What do you think the expression “no news is good news” mean? Do you agree with
that?

There Was Once

4. What do you think the author is trying to do through this story? What tone does the
author use?

5. Who do you think are the protagonists of the story?

6. What is the meaning of the expression “Mister Nosy Parker”?

The Ugly Sister

7. Who do you think is the protagonist of this story?

8. What is she complaining about? What does she want?

9. What is the author trying to do with this story?

10. What is the meaning of “put the strees on ugly”?

The Wicked Witch

11. Who is the protagonist?

12. Of what is she accused? What does she want?

13. What is the meaning of “Waste not, want not”?

The Stepmother

14. What is the meaning of “Passing the buck”?

9
15. Who is the protagonist?

16. What does she complain about?

17. Which story did you like the most? Why?

18. Do the stories have points in common? Which ones?

19. What do you think about this kind of stories?

20. Seek information about the author and her work and vision on feminism.

10