To truly delve into Surfacing by Margaret Atwood, the reader must understand the symbolic meaning of a mirror in the novel as well as its function as an object of symbolization itself. same implementation through the characters, their interrelationships and the faculties of the mind, such as memory and perception. After an examination of the mirror as a physical object in the novel, this article offers an interpretation of its figurative meaning. On the other hand, the second part of the essay focuses on the abstract representation of the mirror which manifests itself through the relationship between the main character and her partner as well as through the protagonist's own perception of herself . The final part of the present work aims to apply the conclusions drawn in the previous paragraphs of the analysis to the ending and title of the novel.Say no to plagiarism. Get a tailor-made essay on "Why violent video games should not be banned"? Get an original essay In their study of the role of duality in Atwood's works, Constance Classen and David Howes remark on "his frequent references to mirrors,” found in a variety of writers’ poems and novels [1] (par. 2). In Surfacing, the image is also incorporated into the plot, deeply imbued with symbolic meaning. This becomes more evident at the end of the novel when the protagonist, at the height of her nervous breakdown, realizes that "she has to stop being in the mirror" so that "it doesn't trap her anymore", because she manages to understand the subjective. and the distorted reality that the mirror offers him, “reflection interfering between… the eyes and the vision” (Atwood 138). By imagining it as "Anna's soul locked in the golden pact", the narrator thus reveals her perception of the mirror as a mirror. tool to conform individuals to social expectations (Atwood 138). Her subsequent refusal to use it can therefore be seen as a symbol of the protagonist's protest against the submission of her own desires and wills to those of society. In retrospect, the scene is foreshadowed in the narrator's episode of introspection on her life before and after marriage when she remarks: "Woman sawn into a wooden box... smiling, a trick done with mirrors... only with me , there had been an accident and I collapsed” (85). Here the mirror image is overtly associated with an illusion which, characteristically, is perceived by the narrator as not working for her. We can therefore conclude that in the novel the mirror is used as an example of social constraints, which the main character implicitly rejects through his attitude towards the physical representation of the symbol. Yet this distorted reality imagery caused by social pressure is not limited to mirrors as physical objects only. Because the characters themselves are reflections of each other, as the protagonist points out, in an attempt to justify her reluctance to marry Joe: "He didn't love me, it was an idea of ​​himself that he loved” (Atwood 87). ). However, it is not only the other characters, but the narrator herself, who resorts to the falsification of reality, in her case, by rewriting her own story, creating a mirror made of her fictional memories of the past and , as the character's instability progresses, manifesting itself through the nature of his appearances as well. Commenting on the subject in her interview with Linda Sandler, Atwood observed: "She is obsessed with finding ghosts, but once she finds them, she is free of that obsession... my character can see these ghosts but they cannot not see her” (qtd. in Royappa 123). Thisnon-reciprocity of the relationship between the character and her appearances echoes the same type of relationship that she maintains with the other heroes - that of the simple reflection, of which, to conclude, the narrator becomes an object for the other characters and that she - even to which she resorts during her quest for self-identification. Nevertheless, as Kokotailo noted in his essay on the form of the novel, "the whole structure falls to pieces...when the narrator dives" into the lake, the surface of which has previously been in the novel analogous to that of the "black mirror". » (23; Atwood 53). Thus, one possible explanation for the book's title is that it alludes to the mirror effect of sliding water, and surfacing therefore implies the breaking of this reflection. For the main character, this means above all getting rid of his delusions by admitting to having fabricated his memories: “A fake album, fraudulent memories like passports; but a paper house was better than nothing and I could almost live there, I had lived there until now” (Atwood 112). The next step in his recovery process involves separating himself from the apparitions of his deceased parents or, as Burkhard Niederhoff describes it as "witnessing their decline and accepting their deaths, in other words, mourning and burying them" ( 72). By recognizing the inner inconsistency of her character's perception of herself, she becomes able to cope with the external false representations imposed on her by society, which manifests itself through her newfound ability to look at herself in the mirror. The change in her perception, when she sees in the mirror "a creature neither animal nor human", indicates the narrator's persistent refusal to yield to the prism of social lenses, the refusal to discern between animals and humans, as she has already affirmed, because “whatever we could do to animals, we could do to each other: we practiced on them first” (Atwood 149; 95). Finally, the final stage of the character's recovery involves reestablishing her relationship with Joe by breaking the "false peace" of "mutual avoidance" and choosing true communication, "the intercession of words" (Atwood 151) . The manufactured reality that the protagonist of Surfacing is exposed to consists of several levels: those constructed by society are symbolized by the physical forms of the mirror, while those created by the narrator herself as a means of coping mechanism are demonstrated by the specular nature. of his delusions and his relationship with Joe. As the character faces a real state of affairs in his life, he begins to gradually extricate himself from the illusions, and this takes the form of a reevaluation of the distorted reality that is present in the reflection of the mirror, its memories, appearances and representations in society. The title of the novel, as has been suggested, serves as a symbol for "breaking the surface", which, in turn, could be interpreted as both an idiom for "floating" (thus bringing back to the idea of ​​surfacing ) and a figurative breaking of the surface of a mirror, so that the protagonist, as she says: “Not see myself but see” (Atwood 138). Keep in mind: this is just a sample. Get a custom paper now from our expert writers.Get a custom essay[1] Like, for example, “Tricks with Mirrors”, “The Circle game”, Alias ​​Grace, The Journals of Susanna Moodie and Survival, which are briefly analyzed in the Classen mentioned above. and Howes’s essay, “Margaret Atwood: Two-Headed Woman.” Works Cited Atwood, Margaret. Surface. McClelland and Stewart, 1972. Web. Accessed April 18, 2017. Classen, Constance and David Howes. “Margaret Atwood: woman with two heads. » Canadian icon. Accessed April 19, 2017.,. 2017.