The Theory of Appropriation 

As the Oxford Dictionary states, to adapt is to “make suitable for a new use or purpose” (Soanes & Stevenson, 2005). Perhaps a more accurate definition of adaptation lies in the biological explanation of it, which is “the process by which organisms undergo modification so as to function more perfectly in a given environment” (King, Stansfield, Mulligan, 2007) In lieu of this, the adaptation of a text has three functions. Firstly, it reworks the previous text to provide a new reflection upon the ‘original’ ideas and themes. Secondly, it re-positions these ‘original’ ideas to appeal to a new audience. Thirdly, it potentially challenges the ideologies both within the prior text, as well as the contemporary context. In doing so, it becomes better suited to its environment, as well as for a new audience and purpose.  

The relationship between new texts to their ‘originals’ is central to the ideas of adaptation and appropriation.  Julie Sanders (2006) identifies the difference between adaptation and appropriation. She suggests that adaptation signals an obvious “relationship with an informing sourcetext or original” (p.26). An example of this would be the adaptation of Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet to Zeffirelli’s film Romeo and Juliet. In contrast, an appropriation invokes a more subtle collaboration of ideas and characters from the ‘original’ text, frequently affecting “a more decisive journey away from the informing source into a wholly new cultural product and domain” (Sanders, 2006, p.26).  

There are two techniques most commonly used in literary adaptations and appropriations. The first is bricolage, which is a French term for ‘Do-it-yourself’ (DIY). It involves the invocation of other texts, assembling “a range of quotations, allusion, and citations from existent works of art” (Sanders, 2006, p.4). This technique is more commonly known as intertextuality, a term coined by Julia Kristeva (1980). Secondly, as a subcategory of intertextuality, pastiche is considered as more of an imitation. Satirists often employ pastiche by taking fragments of information, plot line, characters and even direct quotations to re-position them often as a mockery of the former text1.  

There are two reasons that old texts are most commonly appropriated. Perhaps most obviously, a text is re-worked simply because the initial story has remained popular and well known. Particularly in times of economic hardship, composers of texts are able to ‘play it safe’ by appropriating aspects of previously admired texts. Their past popularity is often a testament to their success in any context if grafted effectively. Secondly, appropriations are commonly considered to be politically motivated. As Sanders (2006) suggests, appropriation “frequently adopts a posture of critique, even assault” (p.4) on the prior text. Commonly, the act of ‘writing back’ or appropriating gives voice to those characters that were marginalised in the initial texts, challenging the authority of the sourcetext.  

Indeed the study of appropriations in an academic context has in part been spurred on by the recognised ability of adaptation to respond or write back to an informing original from a new or revised political and cultural position, and by the capacity of appropriations to highlight troubling gaps, absences, and silences within the canonical texts to which they refer. Many appropriations have a joint political and literary investment in giving voice to those characters or subject-positions they perceive to have been oppressed or repressed in the original. (Sanders, 2006, p.98) 

What is postcolonialism? 

Writers from post-colonial nations often employ techniques of appropriation in order to highlight the injustices that have commonly been overlooked in the original texts. A famous example is Jean Rhys’s The Wide Sargasso Sea (1966) which explores and sympathises with the subjugated character of Bertha Mason from Charlotte Bronte’s Jane Eyre (1847). The horrifying, gothic images of Bertha Mason in Jane Eyre are well known. She is likened to a devil, a hyena and a maniac, being described as she “snatched and growled like some strange wild animal” (Bronte, 1996, p.327-328). In highlighting Bertha’s darker features and referring to her as “it”, Bertha Mason’s racially foreign and therefore sub-human status is generated within this context. Hilary Jenkins (2001) highlights the post-colonial influences upon Rhys’s text, as her “disastrous relationship” with Rochester serves to reflect the “disastrous relationship between England and her colonies” (p.x). Rhys consequently appropriates Jane Eyre to “expose what she saw as the latent racism at the heart of one of the great novels in the canon of English literature” (Jenkins, 2001, p.ix). As James Joyce’s Ulysses also demonstrates, a problematic historical context such as Joyce’s Ireland often provides a strong basis for re-constructing texts. Joyce’s famous “hypertext” (Sanders, 2006, p.6) reflects the traumas Joyce experienced during World War I, as well the long and difficult history of Ireland. After witnessing the worst of human nature, his method of writing back enables him to demonstrate his discontentment with seeing any human, such as Odysseus or Ulysses, being portrayed as a great hero possessing an almost divine status. As a result, “the very ordinariness of the modern Ulysses, Mr Leopold Bloom, becomes a standing reproach to the myth of ancient military heroism” (Kiberd, 1992, p.x). 

Appropriation is also particularly useful for the feminist writer, who also has motives to explore and challenge the sexist, patriarchal attitudes within these classic texts. Jean Rhys’s novel also demonstrates this, as “Wide Sargasso Sea is a rewriting of the classic text from the point of view of the most marginalised character in Bronte’s novel: Bertha Mason is not only mad and female, the imprisoned, rejected wife, but also she comes from Jamaica, one of Britain’s colonies” (Jenkins, 2001, p.vii). Thus, post-colonial and female writers are often able to generate different perspectives to politically challenge the inherent injustices in previous texts that have simply been accepted. 

Atwood has long been an appropriator, questioning the ideas that influence the often unsuspecting consumer of fairytales and folklore. Like Jean Rhys, Margaret Atwood is a feminist, post-colonial writer. A common ramification of post-colonisation is a sense of cultural dislocation, which often plagues the inhabitants of the new nation. This leads to what Atwood describes as a “distinctly Canadian condition of living with a violent duality” (Stanes, 2006, p.17) of being torn between two countries. Atwood attempts to challenge the victimisation of various groups within society, yet rarely chooses to appropriate stories where any group or individual is completely subordinated. She believes that if one only considers the oppression of a group, then this is simply reinforcing the powerlessness of that particular group or individual.  

If you define yourself as innocent then nothing is ever your fault – it is always somebody else doing it to you, and until you stop defining yourself as a victim that will always be true. It will always be somebody else’s fault, and you will always be the object of that rather than somebody who has any choice or takes responsibility for their life. And that is not only the Canadian stance towards the world, but the usual female one. (Qtd from Atwood in Gibson, 1973, pp. 22-23)  

In this extract, Atwood does not see liberation as resulting from only reinventing characters that are subjugated. Instead, Atwood chooses stories where some degree of power is held by all the characters. Consequently, Atwood uses her status as a Canadian, as well as a feminist to appropriate texts and provide new insights towards them. In particular, Atwood’s fascination with fairy tales and myth allows her a podium to challenge traditional roles of gender and class in classical texts. 

The appropriation of fairy tales and myth 

Atwood’s appropriation of the fairy tales The Fitcher’s Bird and Bluebeard into The Bluebeard’s Egg gives some insight into her approach. The fairy tale form is particularly attractive to literary appropriators because of “their essential abstraction from a specific context” (Sanders, 2006, p.84). As Sharon R. Wilson (1993) suggests, “authors of feminist fairytales ‘challenge conventional views of gender, socialisation, and sex roles… [and] map out an alternative aesthetic terrain for the fairy tale as genre… the feminist fairy tale conceives a different view of the world and speaks in a voice that has been customarily silenced’” (p.30). Atwood’s appropriation of fairy tales often retells the stories from the female perspective; however she often appropriates stories that are not typical for a female writer with feminist motivations. The versions she appropriates seldom place females in positions completely lacking power. In doing so, she provides very interesting perspectives towards the power politics between men and women.  

There are various versions of The Fitcher’s Bird and Bluebeard, which is significant as Atwood chooses certain ones to suit her purpose in The Bluebeard’s Egg. In Charles Perrault’s version of The Fitcher’s Bird, La barbe bleue, the sorcerer appears at a house where three beautiful daughters lived. When the sorcerer touches her, the oldest sister is forced into his pack basket. When he leaves the house for a few days, he tells her she can enter any room she wants, except one on pain of death. She must also take good care of an egg he gives her. Being consumed by curiosity, she is unable to resist entering the room, discovering a basin that was “filled with dead people who had been chopped to pieces” (Zipes, 2007, p.205). Shocked, she drops the egg into a basin of blood and is unable to clean it off, therefore betraying to the sorcerer her inability to resist the temptation of entering the room. Her punishment is in fact, death by physical mutilation. A similar fate befalls the second sister. However, the third sister captured by the sorcerer places the egg aside, discovering the cut up bodies of her sisters in the forbidden room. Upon saving them by putting their limbs back together, she sends them to attain help from their brothers and relatives who subsequently burn the sorcerer to death. This ending where the male relatives come to rescue the women is specific to Perrault’s version of the tale. This theme follows through Bluebeard, focusing on the motif of the forbidden room as a symbol of feminine temptation and the dangers of curiosity. Upon disobeying their husband or potential husband’s wishes, the women are subjected to violence. In this fairytale, the curious female discovers the mutilation of the Bluebeard’s past wives. Another important detail about these two fairytales is that they diverge from the common fairytale depiction from the events leading up to a marriage, instead focusing on those occurring after.  

Perrault’s version of the story is the most well known, bolstering contemporary views of fairytales as affirmations of patriarchal dominance. Fisher and Silber (2000) explore how commonly known fairy tales reaffirm patriarchy through gender construction. They represent “true female experience under patriarchy”, exerting a “noticeable influence on cultural ideals of goodness, images of evil, models of manhood and womanhood, and fantasies about ‘true love’” (Fisher & Silber, 2000, p.121).  

However, Atwood is never quick to adopt the feminist line of thinking, which often idealises women as being the victims of traditional patriarchy. She herself attests to this in an interview with Karla Hammond. 

The unexpurgated Grimm’s Fairy Tales contain a number of fairy tales in which women are not only the central characters but win by using their own intelligence. Some people feel fairy tales are bad for women. This is true if the only ones they’re referring to are those tarted-up French versions of “Cinderella” and “Bluebeard,” in which the female protagonist gets rescued by her brothers. But in many of them, women rather than men have the magic powers. (Qtd in Wilson, 1993, p.11-12)  

In light of this, Atwood chooses to appropriate the Grimm’s version of the fairy tale. Although this tale still ends with the males coming to rescue the girls, the intelligence of the third sister is what truly saves her, as she gains power over the Sorcerer before the male relatives arrive. This is directly quoted in The Bluebeard’s Egg after the Sorcerer marries the third sister and loses his power.  

The wizard no longer had any power over her, and had to do whatever she asked. There was more, about how the wizard met his come-uppance and was burned to death, but Sally already knew which features stood out for her. (Atwood, 1983, p.158)  

In carefully choosing a version that is unconventional for a feminist writer, Atwood foregrounds her gendered perspective as one that does not assign a purely good or evil stereotype to either one of the sexes. She highlights that simply because many fairytales and myths have been viewed as affirming patriarchy, “that doesn’t mean that we should desacralize men and that women should be made sacred” (Qtd in Wilson, 1993, p.23). Consequently, Atwood pays equal consideration towards the wicked and benevolent roles each gender can play. 

The notion of gendered behaviour is Atwood’s central focus in The Bluebeard’s Egg. While most fairy tales “feature a young girl’s halting progression to royal marriage” (Fisher & Silber, 2000, p.121), Atwood (1983) has her heroine Sally consider how “the stories didn’t say what happened to the women the princes had already married, though Sally wondered about it” (p.156). Atwood plays with the narrator’s point of view through Sally, appropriating the omniscient storyteller from the fairytale into the perspective of the heroine, allowing her to “tell the untold and muted female subtexts of the old, great stories” (Wilson, 1993, p.23). Focusing on Sally and Ed’s lives post-marriage, Wilson (1993) questions “what does it feel like to be caught in a “fairy tale” where one’s fate depends on a “prince” not only falling but staying in love with you?” (p.14)   

Atwood’s Bluebeard’s Egg opens with a traditional, domestic image, as “Sally stands at the kitchen window, waiting for the sauce she’s reducing to come to a simmer” (Atwood, 1983, p.133). In contrast, her husband Ed is introduced as the hegemonically masculine figure. He is attractive and wealthy with a highly respected vocation as heart surgeon. Sally acknowledges that “the fact that he’s a heart man is a large part of his allure. Women corner him on sofas, trap him in bay windows at cocktail parties, mutter to him in confidential voices” (Atwood, 1983, p.139). Yet Atwood catches the reader off-guard through Sally who tells us that “He is just so stupid” (Atwood, 1983, p.134). In the reverse of typical fairy tales such as Perrault’s renditions, Sally had “hunt(ed) him down” (Atwood, 1983, p.135), as Sally likens herself to the leading woman in Agatha Christie’s novels.  

The clever and witty heroine passes over the equally clever and witty first lead male … in order to marry the second-lead male, the stupid one, the one who would have been arrested and condemned and executed if it hadn’t been for her cleverness. Maybe this is how she sees Ed. (Atwood, 1983, p.135) 

Atwood furthers her problematic portrayals of marriage through the character of Marylynn, who “is in fact divorced, and she can list every single thing that went wrong, item by item” (Atwood, 1983, p.136-137). She claims that “her divorce was one of the best things that ever happened to her” suggesting that her identity was stifled within the marriage as “I was just a nothing before… it made me pull myself together” (Atwood, 1983, p.137).  

Within Sally and Ed’s relationship, Atwood maintains an ambiguity that is not present within the fairytales, it is not clear who is the dominant and subservient individual. Atwood constantly reverses the roles of Sally and Ed. Although she establishes Sally as dominant and clever at the outset, she contradicts this later with the idea that “She knows she thinks about Ed too much. She knows she shouldn’t ask, “Do you still love me?” in the plaintive tone that sets even her own teeth on edge” (Atwood, 1983, p.153). Sally is depicted as insecure and dependent within her relationship, and her initial confidence from the opening is finally shattered when she enters the metaphorical ‘forbidden room’ and discovers Ed’s lack of faithfulness (Wilson, 1993, p.268). Atwood thus transforms “the heart man” Ed into the emotional mutilator of female bodies from the original tales. This signifies a further confusion in gender roles, as Sally believes “possibly Ed is not stupid. Possibly he’s enormously clever” (Atwood, 1983, p.165). Resounding on a final note of uncertainty, Sally ponders on the egg’s future as much as her own, asking “what will come out of it?” (Atwood, 1983, p.166) While Bluebeard and the wizard in each fairytale get their “come-uppance” (Atwood, 1983, p.158), Sally is never completely sure of Ed’s unfaithfulness. This question is never rectified for the Sally or the reader, and therefore no narrative resolution is attained through the assignment of guilt or securing of justice.  

Therefore, Atwood applies four key methods in appropriating Bluebeard and The Fitcher’s Bird into The Bluebeard’s Egg. The first is with Atwood’s ambiguous distribution of power between men and women, which is displaced from the clearly defined power roles in the original texts. Secondly, she shows a fascination with the intricacy of marital relationships, as she proceeds beyond the typical perception that once married, the couple will live ‘happily ever after’. Thirdly, Atwood’s playfulness with her narrator always provides another perspective towards the original text, as she “displaces the original plot line so that the silent or marginalised subtext of female experience is central” (Wilson, 1993, p.32). Finally, while the original text clearly defines the moral of its story, Atwood’s adaptations retain a significant level of ambiguity. This is true throughout the story, as well as in the endings that are deliberately positioned to bring no closure for the reader or the protagonist. These ambiguities are continued through her sequence of Circe/Mud Poems. 

Atwood’s appropriation of The Odyssey into the Circe/Mud Poems 

In her appropriation of Homer’s The Odyssey into the Circe/Mud Poems, Atwood takes an analogous approach to that used in her fairytale reconstructions by choosing another unusual representation of gender to appropriate. In this instance, she does not select a portion of The Odyssey where women are utterly victimised. Instead, she appropriates the character of Circe, a Goddess renowned for her dominance over men. In The Odyssey, this section is told from Odysseus’s perspective, and Circe is illustrated as both powerful and cunning. 

In the original text, Circe lures men to her island with her beautiful song, drugs those who seek her out, and turns them into pigs. She is noted to have “flung them some forest nuts, acorns and cornel-berries – the usual food of pigs that wallow in the mud” (Homer, 2003, p.131). She is labelled as untrustworthy and cunning, having “evil in her heart” (Homer, 2003, p.133). She asserts her sexual dominance when threatened, seducing her prey so that “when she has you stripped naked she may rob you of your courage and your manhood” (Homer, 2003, p.132). This has typically been viewed as a warning towards men of female sexuality and its power to dominate.  

Initially, Circe strips Odysseus of his masculine “sword” through her sexual allure, commanding him to “come with me to my bed, so that in making love we may learn to trust one another” (Homer, 2003, p.128). Of course Odysseus concedes to her request, yet only temporarily, which is typical of Odysseus, who is unable to remain committed to one person or place. Although at one point Odysseus does command Circe not to play any more tricks on him, Circe remains dominant throughout this section. Even upon his departure, Odysseus asks her permission to “send me home” (Homer, 2003, p.137).   

Atwood appropriates this story to portray Circe’s point of view. The Circe/Mud Poems are structured in twenty-four parts within Atwood’s book of poems You are Happy. Atwood fulfils three key objectives in this appropriation. The first is to challenge the original power of Circe and suggest the oppression that has been faced by women over the centuries. The second is to detail the progression of a post-colonial nation that has experienced a problematic history. The third is to question the notion of ‘versions’, as original stories may not always be accurate. However, even if they are accurate, they are often told from subjective viewpoints which usually favour a dominant party.    

In the Circe/Mud Poems, Atwood depicts Circe as far more vulnerable than she appears in Homer’s Odyssey. Throughout the poem-sequence, Circe denies the power and allure she is said to have, suggesting that:  

I had no choice 

I decided nothing 

One day you simply appeared in your stupid boat, 

your killer’s hands, your disjointed body, jagged 

as a shipwreck, 

skinny-ribbed, blue-eyed, scorched, thirsty, the usual, 

pretending to be – what?  a survivor? (Atwood, 1998, p.160) 

Circe is portrayed as a victim here, perhaps even being unaware of her oppression as things simply happen to her. However, the sixth poem asserts a sense of subjectivity, as Circe becomes aware of her oppressed situation. In contrast to The Odyssey, which presumes her utter power, Circe is portrayed as vulnerable, asking Odysseus “will you hurt me?” (p.163) Violent images litter the poems, as Circe regrets the fact that “you unbuckle the fingers of the fist, you order me to trust you” (p.166). Consequently, the reader is aware that Atwood re-imagines the mythical goddess of Circe to demonstrate traditional gender roles, where even women who have been considered as powerful may have been misrepresented. This is comparable to Charlotte Bronte’s portrayal of Bertha as an oppressive lunatic who has caused Rochester to suffer, whereas Rhys re-positions Bertha as a character that has been victimised. Yet Atwood continues the gendered ambiguities in The Bluebeard’s Egg. The reader is still presented with images of Circe’s power, as she claims that she can “create” and “manufacture” men into pigs, although she conveys a sense that she is bored with this and is searching for something else. However, the traditional overarching power of males is clear, despite small sections where these roles are reversed.  

As Jeri Kroll (2001) suggests through the progression of the poems, Atwood “raises the possibility of breaking the repetitive cycle of gender relations” (p.122). This possibility is enabled as Circe no longer discusses her experiences alone, but rather her experience with her lover.  

We walk through a field, it is November,  

the grass is yellow, tinged 

with grey, the apples 

are still on the trees, 

they are orange, astonishing, we are standing (Atwood, 1998, p.178) 

Thus, in demonstrating a landscape that has revived itself in contrast to the previous barren images, Atwood suggests the future hope for an equal, harmonious relationship between men and women. 

Also like to Rhys, through her appropriation Atwood illustrates the difficult journey of post-colonial country (in their core, Canada). According to Kroll, the character of Circe comes to serve as a metaphor for a “desert island”. This implies that the country innocently existed prior to colonisation which disrupted the natural landscape and brought much hardship. As Circe states, “one day you simply appeared in your stupid boat, your killer’s hands” (Atwood, 1998, p.160). Circe also conveys the greed and selfishness, with which the settlers came.  

Those who say they want nothing 

want everything. 

It was not this greed that offended me, it was the lies. 

Nevertheless I gave you 

the food you demanded for the journey 

you said you planned; but you planned no journey 

and we both knew it. (Atwood, 1998, p.160) 

Consequently, the progression of the poem reflects the problematic past of both men and women, as well as a post-colonial nation, going on to suggest a hope for future harmony. This is also demonstrated through the shift in imagery, initially being barren but becoming lush and invigorating towards the end.  

Atwood’s fascination with versions of influential classical myths is also evident in the Circe/Mud Poems, where she challenges the validity of previous stories. This is obvious as she appropriates The Odyssey, a text whose origins and reliability have often been called into question. There are several inconsistencies evident within oral poetry, and The Odyssey is no exception. The poem’s authorship has often been questioned, as Peter Jones (1991) explains, “if Homer was in fact an oral poet, how did the poems come to be written down, and – given the freedom with which the oral poet adapts his material – what relation does our version bear to any version that Homer sang?” (Jones, 1991, xxx). Consequently, details within the storyline, character and context have revealed various inconsistencies.  

Capitalising on the instability of the prior text, Atwood challenges the acceptance of Homer’s story as the true or authentic ‘version’. This is made clear in the Circe/Mud poems as she shifts from the perspective of Circe to that of Penelope,  

She’s up to something, she’s weaving histories, they are never right, she has to do them over, she is weaving her version, 

The one you will believe in, the only one you will hear. (Atwood, 1998, p.173) 

In suggesting that Penelope is “weaving her version”, Atwood implies that readers have typically just accepted one version as the true recount of the story. Yet Atwood reminds her reader that “all advertisements are slanted, including this one” (Atwood, 1998, p.162), and this generates an awareness of the power author’s have to persuade the reader that their version is the true one. The unorthodox style Atwood adopts also demonstrates her method of appropriation, as she uses a blend of free verse and poetry, shifting between the perspectives of Circe and Penelope to re-position the ideas from the original. In this way, “Circe believes that they do not have to be trapped by a culture that remembers only one way to tell the story” (Kroll, 2001, p.126). Consequently, in the Circe/Mud Poems, Atwood foregrounds attitudes towards gender, post-colonial tensions and versions of original stories that are continued within The Penelopiad.   

The Question of ‘versions’ in The Penelopiad  

The Penelopiad is both an adaptation and appropriation. An adaptation is suggested as she retains the same characters from the original, such as Penelope, Odysseus, Helen and the maids. However, this text is considered more as an appropriation, as ideas and characters from the original have certainly been re-worked to suit a new audience and context, thereby functioning “more perfectly in a given environment” (King, Stansfield, Mulligan, 2007). Using a technique similar to The Bluebeard’s Egg and Circe/Mud Poems, Atwood re-tells the story from Penelope’s perspective. She reveals her suspicions about the authenticity of the original at the introduction of The Penelopiad.  

Homer’s Odyssey is not the only version of the story. Mythic material was originally oral, and also local – a myth would be told one way in one place and quite differently in another.  I’ve chosen to give the telling of the story to Penelope and to the twelve hanged maids. The story as told in The Odyssey doesn’t hold water: there are too many inconsistencies. (Atwood, 2007, p. xiv-xv) 

Thus, in adapting this volatile text, Atwood takes this as a perfect opportunity to present a mischievous appropriation of The Odyssey. From the opening of The Penelopiad, Atwood makes it clear that she will be challenging two central representations from The Odyssey. The first is the virtuous role of women that has been propagated through the image of Penelope. The second is the injustice faced by the maids who are hanged by Telemachus in the original. The opening of The Penelopiad focuses on Penelope’s image to challenge the authenticity of The Odyssey.  

Shrewd Odysseus! … You are a fortunate man to have won a wife of such pre-eminent virtue! How faithful was your flawless Penelope, Icarius’ daughter! How loyally she kept the memory of the husband of her youth! The glory of her virtue will not fade over the years, but the deathless gods themselves will make a beautiful song for mortal ears in honour of the constant Penelope. (Qtd in Atwood, 2007, prefatory pages) 

Although this passage praises Penelope, Atwood unsettles the reader about what she is being praised for. It is the fact that she is “faithful”, “flawless” and in possession of “pre-eminent virtue” that she is so revered. Like the manner in which Atwood challenged accepted versions of fairytales such as Perrault’s representation of gendered relationships, Atwood acknowledges Robert Graves as a key source for her suspicions towards Homer’s text. In Graves’ Greek Myths (1955), he proposes that Penelope was not as faithful as Homer’s version has portrayed.  

Some deny that Penelope remained faithful to Odysseus. They accuse her of companying with Amphinomus of Dulichium, or with all the suitors in turn, and say that the fruit of this union was the monstrous god Pan – at sight of whom Odysseus fled for shame to Aetolia after sending Penelope away in disgrace to her father Icarius at Maetinea. (Graves, 1955, p.373-374)  

This notion is insinuated throughout The Penelopiad by Penelope herself, yet no clear answers are ever given. However, Atwood’s point is not to prove whether or not Penelope was faithful, but rather to communicate her scepticism that any one version of a story can be accepted as truth. Consequently, she portrays Penelope’s attitude to the praise Homer gives her.   

[Odysseus] was always so plausible. Many people have believed that his version of events was the true one, give or take a few murders, a few beautiful seductresses, a few one-eyed monsters.  

I knew [Odysseus] was tricky and a liar, I just didn’t think he’d play his tricks and try out his lies on me. Hadn’t I waited, and waited, and waited, despite the temptation – almost the compulsion – to do otherwise? And what did I amount to, once the official version gained ground? An edifying legend. A stick used to beat other women with. Why couldn’t they be as considerate, as trustworthy, as all-suffering as I had been? (Atwood, 2007, p.2)  

Deploring the fact that Homer’s original has been made into an “edifying legend”, Atwood humorously uses pastiche to appropriate Penelope’s glorified reputation from the opening into the metaphor of a “stick” that has been used “to beat other women with”. This notion was first introduced by Atwood within her speech Spotty Handed Villainesses, where Atwood introduces her discontentment with this glorification of women. Almost adopting the exact lines from this speech, she explains that “female characters who behave badly can of course be used as sticks to beat other women with – though so can female characters who behave well” (Atwood, 2005, p.135). Addressing the reader directly in The Penelopiad, Penelope urges the reader: “Don’t follow my example, I want to scream in your ears – yes yours!” In her reconstructions, Atwood thus creates different worlds to challenge the accepted ideas and themes from the original.  

Carol Ann Howells (2008) provides similar insights about Atwood’s choice of texts to appropriate, as “Atwood’s use of mythological materials refocuses the grand narratives of classical myth through women’s True Confessions in ways that are both parodic of and complicitous with the old patriarchal texts” (p.58). Through the manner in which Atwood destabilises the authority of Homer’s myth from the outset, Howells demonstrates that “Odysseus’s adventures with monsters and goddesses are reduced to the level of gossip and tall tales” (p.65). This degradation is furthered by Atwood herself, as Penelope claims the original composers of her story to merely be “the singers, the yarn-spinners” (Atwood, 2007, p.2). Thus, in establishing her appropriating method, Atwood attempts to “spin a thread of her own” (Atwood, 2007, p.2) through Penelope.  

Atwood’s purposes for appropriating texts have a clear political focus. Being influenced by her post-colonial origins and feminist values, she creates appropriations to give voices to individuals that have seldom been heard in the originals. As evidenced through Jean Rhys’s The Wide Sargasso Sea and James Joyce’s Ulysses, the process of ‘writing back’ can powerfully destabilise the authority of an original text. These original texts have often oppressed female voices, as well as voices of the lower class that have been disadvantaged either through birth, or through racist attitudes from the context in which the original was constructed. However, Atwood’s The Penelopiad is a particularly powerful example of re-writing, as she not only uses these various techniques of appropriation, she also invades the male centric genre of satire, a politically potent and often inflammatory technique of composition.  

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