A Study Guide for Margaret Atwood's "Rape Fantasies" (Short Stories for Students)

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Estelle, during the course of these conversations, makes observations about the women, subtly revealing her method of focus and her sense of the important, telling less about the characters of the women and more about Estelle herself. These constant, critical, and often silly observations are the very thing that clearly draws the character of this narrator. Written in 1977, "Rape Fantasies" appears to be a recap of a conversation among several women during their lunch hour, a few of them playing bridge, one--Chrissy the receptionist--reading aloud from a tabloid. When Chrissy asks the question, "How about it, girls, do you have rape fantasies?" the story unfolds with each woman’s response, all retold from the perspective of Estelle, who’s doing her best to deflect the entire conversation by concentrating on her bidding. I don’t know why I’m telling you all this,” Estelle says in the next-to-last paragraph, “except I think it helps you get to know a person, especially at first, hearing some of the things they think about.” Her entire nervous spiel, start to finish, now reminds us far too much of her fantasies. In the story’s last lines, Estelle says, returning to the subject of rape, “once you let them know you’re human… I don’t see how they could go ahead with it, right?” But, as before, there is no indication of how the man at the bar responds or whether he responds at all. Perhaps he is a danger to vulnerable Estelle, perhaps not, but the story’s comic tone now goes swirling down the drain of Estelle’s essential solitude. It appears that she has failed to make a human connection, and she has come no further in understanding the ugliness of rape: “I mean, I know it happens, but I just don’t understand it.” With her usual wit, Margaret Atwood uses elements of humor to lighten the mood of "Rape Fantasies" at the same time introducing the seriousness of the topic. The reader is introduced to the first person narrator, a young woman by the name of Estelle, who works in the filing department of her company. From the beginning of the story, Estelle shows the reader just how difficult it is for women to laugh at themselves when they have been conditioned by society and mass media to fit into certain perceived stereotypes. She points out tha... Estelle has a clouded vision of herself and how she appears to others; she seems unaware that the judgements she levies against her co-workers may be one reason she is friendless.”

Questa raccolta di racconti mi lascia un'impressione duplice: da un lato è veramente bella, i temi, lo stile, le riflessioni infinite dei protagonisti, le ansie e le fantasie. The first collection of short stories by the ever prolific Margaret Atwood. When I started my #summerofwomen, one of my big goals was to bootstrap myself on the works of both Atwood and Toni Morrison, two authors I'd embarrassingly missed my entire life. Though I enjoyed Atwood's first three novels ( The Edible Woman, Surfacing, and Lady Oracle), it was jumping forward to The Handmaid's Tale in October that made me realize that she really hit her stride a bit later. As such, this 1976 collection of short pieces feels not altogether formed. If I had it to do over again, I might start with Bluebeard's Egg or Wilderness Tips instead. Es la calma ininterrumpida, tanto interna como externa, lo que la irrita. A todo el mundo le ocurren cosas, ¿por qué no a mí?, piensa. Por otra parte, está convencida de que sí ocurren cosas a su alrededor, pero que se las ocultan.

Margaret Atwood es maravillosa. Sus reflexiones y su modo de plasmarlas sobre el papel me impresionan. No longer is it a wonder how simple statements that don’t involve Estelle can all of the sudden lead to fiercely critical thoughts about her fellow bridge players; Estelle rarely stays to the point, and shifts from one thought to the next to keep herself from becoming too serious. She makes light of all of the possible rape scenarios in which she can imagine herself being involved; and she cannot, ironically, be too critical of theoretical rapists. To her rapists she is sympathetic, and her rapists are always receptive to this sympathy.

My giving away the story’s surprises won’t spoil the story for those who have yet to read it. I believe that this brief appreciation of the surprises will prove an enticement. Truly, you could read Atwood’s tour de force dozens of times and continue to find pleasure in its inventiveness and Atwood’s astonishing knowledge of the human heart (also, if you happen to be a writer, you’ll gain much from studying its valuable lessons in the art of surprise). Her disregard for dreadful concepts and her ability to make light of serious situations are the very character qualities that make believable her carelessness in the end. In this instance, Estelle shows that she is quite capable of practicing her benevolent behavior in her rape fantasies, whether she realizes it or not. “…how could a fellow do that to a person he’s just had a long conversation with…?” she asks, not thinking once about the person to whom she’s speaking. She gives this person the benefit of the doubt, reveals many intimate details about herself, and gives this faceless person more credit and more candidness than the women at the bridge game. At the story’s outset, Estelle might seem like some gassy bore you’d try to escape in real life, but Atwood keeps her interesting. We soon find that, though Estelle tries to appear lighthearted and comfortable making jokes about rape and rape fantasies, she is in fact a friendless, frightened soul – and an unreliable narrator. A deep unease with the topic of rape is suggested both by her ‘it’ and the series of detours she takes from the topic. She interrupts her retelling of her co-workers’ rape fantasies not only with that revelation of her snooping, but also with a boorish running account of the office bridge game (“I had a bare twelve points counting the singleton with not that much of a bid in anything. So I said one club…”) and details about her own life, such as “I was the kind of little girl who buried dead robins.” The story makes evident that Estelle shares this welter of information because she wants to be known, to have human connection, but Estelle has a clouded vision of herself and how she appears to others: she characterises her snooping as harmless; she seems unaware that the judgements she levies against her co-workers may be one reason she is friendless, and also that the various rape fantasies that she shares in the course of the story are as unrealistic as those of her co-workers. Estelle informs her co-workers that the ‘rape fantasies’ they describe over lunch are not rape fantasies, but fantasies of exciting sex with strangers. “Rape,” Estelle says, “is when they’ve got a knife or something and you don’t want to.” The ‘rape fantasy’ Estelle offers her co-workers, however, is a comic scenario: her would-be-rapist politely assists Estelle in a search through her handbag for the plastic lemon which, once found, she uses to squirt stinging juice into the man’s eyes.Deseo explicarle lo que nadie le ha enseñado, cómo se comportan dos personas que se quieren, que evitan hacerse daño, pero no estoy segura de saber. En aquella época de mi vida, el amor no correspondido era la única clase de amor que yo parecía capaz de sentir. Esto me causaba un gran dolor. Pero, con mi actual perspectiva, comprendo que tenía sus ventajas. Proporcionaba todos los sobresaltos emocionales de la otra clase de amor, sin implicar ninguno de sus riesgos. The basis of the story is rape. Rape, as defined in the Gale Encyclopedia of Psychology, is an act of power and dominance; although 15% to40% of American women are victims of rape or attempted rape, there is also the chance that a man is assaulted also. It is said that women are more than likely going to get raped by someone they know. More than half of the nation’s rape assaults have been placed in the victim’s home. Many rape assaults are continued or completed because the victim didn’t use verbal or physical force as resistance. For more than 3 decades and now till this day, feminist organizations have been fighting successfully to change the publics’ attitude toward rape as well as how society treats rape victims.

Problema noastră, mi se părea mie, era că nici în lumea din jur și nici în viitorul care se întindea în fața noastră nu exista o imagine a ceea ce am fi putut ajunge. Eram prizonieri în prezent ca într-un vagon de metrou blocat, altfel gol, iar în această izolare ne agățam ursuzi fiecare de umbra celuilalt." The only thing that saves this from the one-star category is the fact that I can imaging my creative writing professors at Rochester assigning these sorts of short stories, because they are right in line with all of the ones I read for class. I would read and become a bit excited near the end of the first third of the story, hoping with a bit of anticipation that now, after this confusion and meandering, everything will add up and lead to something beautiful or horrendous or at least meaningful. But after finishing the second third of the story, I finally realize that no, the first third was exactly what was going to happen throughout, and I would be destined to finish the story without finding any purpose to it at all, but I would finish it anyway, because I had already invested time and energy in the first two-thirds, and darn it, if there was some surprise at the end that made everything make sense, I didn't want to be such a lazy reader that I would miss it. Estelle, the narrator of the story, shares her fantasies with the girls. She believes that Greta and Chrisy’s idea of a rape fantasy is just a vivid, wet dream about having sex, a “one night stand” with a complete stranger and never seeing them again. The conversation is tragically ironic, moving from woman to woman, Darlene calling the entire subject "disgusting," Greta describing a Tarzan-like scenario, Chrissy describing hers in a bubble bath, when Estelle, ever the voice of reason, reminds them that what they’re describing are sexual fantasies: "Listen . . . those aren’t rape fantasies. I mean, you aren’t getting raped, it’s just some guy you haven’t met formally who happens to be more attractive than Derek Cummins . . . and you have a good time. Rape is when they’ve got a knife or something and you don’t want to" (104).Though not dwelling on them doesn’t make them go away either, when you come to think of it (35). As Estelle dwells on the idea that one shouldn’t dwell on things, the humor and satire in the story become even more evident. The last few sentences of the story express much of the essence of the irony of the main character and the story in general: Like, how could a fellow do that to a person he’s just had a long conversation with, once you let them know you’re human, you have a life too, I don’t see how they could go ahead with it, right? Many of the stories dealt with young women and their first jobs, first apartments, first lovers and first babies, which is to be expected given that this was one of her earliest books, comprised of stories originally printed in various magazines and periodicals at the start of her career. One can assume she was struggling to find her way as a young author in the midst of '70s feminism, with not much hope yet for a happy and balanced relationship.