15 pages • 30 minutes read
Margaret Atwood[you fit into me]
Margaret AtwoodFiction | Poem | Adult | Published in 1971A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Background
Literary Context
Canadian author Margaret Atwood is best known for her works of fiction; however, she is also a prolific poet that has been a leading force in the landscape of contemporary poetry for decades. Atwood was drawn to fairytales, myths, and creative narratives from an early age. She has numerous poetry cycles written from the perspective of fairytale characters, namely female characters, as a way to give voice and agency to traditional damsels in distress. Her poetry feeds off of the sinister themes hidden within fairytale stories, exposing the seedy underbelly of the surface level happily ever after. Similarly, the seemingly perfect romantic pairing in “[you fit into me]” transforms into a power struggle and act of gruesome violence, revealing to readers that everything is not as it seems.
Atwood’s writing gained critical acclaim during the 1970s and 1980s. Her eighth collection of poetry, Power Politics (1971), in which “[you fit into me]” first appears, is one of her breakout projects, critiquing patriarchy from the inside out. Atwood explores themes with political and feminist implications across her poetry and prose, creating striking social commentary that has inspired countless female writers to continue the fight in their own work.
Socio-Historical Context
Atwood published Power Politics (1971) when the women’s rights movement was at its peak across North America. The feminist movement saw women and non-binary people demanding respect, safety, freedom, and power; all things they had previously been denied under the heteronormative patriarchy. The themes running through Atwood’s poetry mirrored the voices of the activists on the street, making her work popular within feminist circles. However, Atwood’s acclaim within the feminist movement was unsought. Lindsy Van Gelder, a journalist for Ms. Magazine, interviewed Atwood for the January 1987 issue of the magazine, and noted that:
Although she became a favorite of feminists, Atwood’s popularity in the feminist community was unsought. ‘I began as a profoundly apolitical writer,’ she told Lindsy Van Gelder of Ms., ‘but then I began to do what all novelists and some poets do: I began to describe the world around me’ (qtd. in “Margaret Atwood.” The Poetry Foundation).
Atwood is adamant that her writing is not feminist as such, but rather, that she creates works of social realism. She subscribes to the idea that writers are our best observers, extracting the details of everyday life that often go unnoticed by the majority, the details that make up the fabric of society. Atwood’s poetic works like “[you fit into me]” as well as her fiction such as The Handmaid’s Tale resist gender expectations, patriarchal power structures, and violence. Despite Handmaid’s Tale being a fiction novel, Atwood has gone on record numerous times stating that she included nothing in the book that had not already happened somewhere in the world, adding to her collection of sinister storytelling. The scariest stories for Atwood are those that happen in the real world to real people.
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By Margaret Atwood
