Deconstructing the Quest for Identity and Meaning in Margaret Atwood’s Surfacing

Margaret Atwood's novel, Surfacing (1972) addresses the Woman's Question through the point of view of young woman who travels with her boyfriend and two married friends and sets on a journey into her troubled past. The paper analyzes the different ways in which the novel portrays the growing distance of the protagonist's self-identity from her sense of language, history, and culture. It delves into the role of language, reason, and logic in imbuing as well as taking away the protagonist's self-belief. It also probes Atwood's portrayal of nature, especially wilderness, as an essential aspect of one's psychological development and realization of desires. The paper argues that the novel is a quest for female identity and meaning in which language and nature play extremely significant roles.