Searching Within a Female Body for the One Beyond Control Texts: The Female Body Holy

Tentative Thesis Atwood satirizes the way how the female body is treated differently from the male one and insinuates a possible escape from women to get away from men’s control is through her power within, like the speaker in Holy that searches for the purity and a serene sense of self even though the cost is her life.

Margaret Atwood’s The Female Body A practical and useful female body ( ) A female body attached with items that define femininity (2+4) The objectified female body (5+4+3) The body which is biologically different from the male body (3+6+7)

A practical and useful female body Body is like a machine –A machine that works without a break (p.40-1) –A machine with a reproductive system (p. 41-3) Female body as a model –A model of discipline (p. 40-2, 41-4, 42-4) –A model of biological function (p. 41-3) –A model that gives definition of femininity (p. 40-2, 41-3, 42-4)

A female body attached with items that define femininity The female body that is to be trained –Accessories used to “normalize” women into disciplined one that fits the society and the definition of “femininity” –The image of an idealized woman been miniaturized so as to cultivate the young generation and carry on the traditional and cultural definition of femininity The female body that is taught to bear sexual implication

The objectified female body The female body being objectified –as a biology mannequin whose body parts can be taken away, learned from –as some token and symbol (p st paragraph) –becomes exchangeable item (p rd paragraph) The biology mannequin indicates similar body structure between man and woman –implying the equality between both sexes?

The body which is biologically different from the male body There is difference, but not much –The removable productive system –Biological structure of brain The binary opposition of chromosome pairs Biological difference might be over-emphasized –Irony –Historical conception of opposition: men are reasonable, rational and objective whereas women are unreasonable, emotional and perhaps subjective

The body which is biologically different from the male body A bound body but a free mind – is it possible? –Women are expected to be domestic, be bound, disciplined and controllable –Though body being bound, her imagination and mind could be uncontrollable.

Holy by The Golden Palominos The concept of “holy anorexia” Sense of serenity, purity and essence Free from want, free from need, free from fear Free from judgment, ideology and authoritative instruction

The concept of “holy anorexia” –A religious asceticism which was especially performed in the later middle ages. –Margery Kempe and St. Catherine of Siena –“self-starvation offered both a renunciation of the ties of kinship and marriage and a route to mystical union with God” (Benson 137). –“[S]tarvation is framed by a religious discourse which permitted these women to redefine the mortification of the flesh” (138).

Sense of serenity, purity and essence The speaker is detached from the material world –She is transcendent to the fear of death –She passes only by water, sleep and air –She feels herself being purified like water The speaker communicate only with the self that she ascertains her own existence through the mirrors. –Image in the mirrors: formation of her sense of self

Free from want, free from need, free from fear She lives off the parts of herself and throws out things that she doesn’t need anymore Body becomes the church and the temples where she stays inside. She is not afraid of pain or other threat –She is the source of power; she is the master of her body

Free from judgment, ideology and authoritative instruction As a self-mastery anorexic, the speaker is not affected by the ideology of beauty She imagines people’s judgment and opinions on her would remain a doubt whereas she herself knows the answer of herself dying form anorexia. She wonders what the actresses that play the role of her would feel.

Questions In Atwood’s The Female Body –In Part 2, why does Atwood include “bed” and “head” in the accessories of the basic female body? –In Part 4, why does the male speaker concludes, “I guess we’re safe”? What do you think the girl is like? –In Part 5, the 3 rd paragraph, what does that “it” mean? –In Part 7, do you think Atwood suggests that female body is abusable and manageable?

Questions In Holy –When the speaker says, “this is my greatest performance,” who do you think she is addressing to? To whom is the performance showing? –Is that God the speaker mentions the male omniscient God with authority indicated in Bible? –In the last part of the lyrics, where do you think the speaker is going to as she mentions that “I’ll go outside”?