In tragic life, God wot,
No villain need be! Passions spin the plot:
We are betray'd by what is false within.

~George Meredith, "Love's Grave"

I got that off a Margaret Atwood interview where she quoted it herself, in relation to her latest book "Oryx and Crake" I believe. That quote in relation to "Othello" (which is what it reminds me of) would make for rather interesting discussion, I think.

"If you love something, set it free. If it doesn't come back, hunt it down and kill it."
~Something Tabby read in a book, "Kissing Frogs"

Am working hard now on my Margaret Atwood presentation even though I have no idea what it's supposed be like - a bad way to start - but I'm thankful that whatever I have to do, this is at least the subject I know best and love best, so Zettai Daijoubu Daiyo, as Sakura likes to say. Everything will be all right. I like her themes - they always start out with the protagonist, most frequently a woman, losing control of her life and identity and unaware of it, then going through a period of growth and discovery... emerging at the end as someone much wiser and independent, though not necessarily happier. The journey to self-discovery, you might say.

There's lots of gender relationships stuff in there too. It makes me seriously frightened of marriage. It's a bit like a trap you fall into without knowing it, being subjected to becoming a package. Something neat, and tidy, for someone else to handle... like in The Edible Woman. An "us" instead of "I"; the process of being assimilated, like food. And I don't even want to think about having children. They'll hate me, and I expect it, and I expect to be afraid of them too.

I used to find it perfectly natural that I'd just grow up, get married and have some kids - happiness not being an issue here - but now with Sylvia Plath and Margaret Atwood, I'm reconsidering. The function of women, I think. What is our function now, please? Things were a lot more clear-cut before women's lib. and stuff, though it doesn't make sense to talk of people as having functions as though they were biological machines. (The function of men: Creating more women. That was an idea in The Handmaid's Tale that I read with considerable glee.)

Of course, I know I still will probably get married and (although I think, "Heaven forbid") have children. I know I will do these things, an attempt at normality, with a sort of detached scientific interest coolly observing everything from the back of my head. And whatever goes wrong, I'll be giving "that invisible nod, like something [I've] always suspected has come true after all" (Cat's Eye).

I wonder what I will do when things go wrong. It must feel like being caught up in a whirlwind.

I wonder what the rage will feel like; what I will do to him with it.