My Atwood Project, Part 4: The Early Short Fiction

Part 4: The Early Short Fiction

Dancing Girls and Other Stories was published in 1977; Bluebeard’s Egg and Other Stories in 1982, and Murder in the Dark in 1983. Many of these stories appeared in small literary magazines, others in publications as well known as Ms. or Harper’s. Rereading these stories showed me how much Atwood was inspired by real-life events from her past, and gave me tantalizing glimpses forward into her more future-oriented speculative fiction.

Strangely, Dancing Girls has no entry in the index to the memoir, though I distinctly remember Atwood describing the antics of a resident of a boarding house in which she lived, on whom she based the title story. The nosy owner of the boarding house is intensely curious about a foreign male student. One night, he invites “dancing girls” to his room, and she chases them all out, including the boarder. Also set in the starving-student milieu is “The Man from Mars,” about another foreigner, a Vietnamese man who begins stalking a female student. These stories illustrate Canada’s uneasy attitude toward immigrants, as people to be officially welcomed, but who'd better fit in quickly or be ousted.

Other stories in this collection hark back to Atwood’s rural childhood, such as “Betty,” about a woman in a failed marriage, and young Margaret’s incomplete comprehension of the situation. “When it Happens,” while also set in a self-sufficient rural household straight out of Atwood’s childhood, is a precursor to her imminent dystopias and speculative works. A woman canning the harvest envisions a future wartime in which her husband disappears and she must survive on her own. 

Bluebeard’s Egg is bookended by more stories inspired by Atwood’s and her parents’ lives: the first two, “Significant Moments in the Life of My Mother,” and “Hurricane Hazel,” about an early boyfriend of Atwood’s; and among the final three, “In Search of the Rattlesnake Plantain” and the “Unearthing Suite” are both about her parents’ approaching the end of life.  

“Bluebeard’s Egg” is about a woman of leisure who is obsessed with her husband Ed, and what she calls his “stupidity,” or seeming obliviousness to other women. The title comes from an evening writing class she is taking (taught by a woman who could be Atwood herself): the students must rewrite a classic folktale from a different point of view, and she chooses the egg that the heroine must not let out of her sight, equating it with Ed. In fact, it is the wife, not the husband, who has been oblivious.

Murder in the Dark is a whole other genre: ultra short fiction that resembles prose poems, and meta-musings on writing. The title piece, for example, is about a game that becomes a metaphor: is the writer the murderer, or the detective? Who is the victim, book or reader?

Whether you prefer the more conventional stories of the first two collections, or the experiments of the third, Atwood stories are always polished gems. 

Next up, I re-read her most famous novel, The Handmaid's Tale.