“Dancing Girls” and “Madman” by Margaret Atwood and Chinua Achebe Essay

The authors of the books “Dancing Girls” and “Madman” by Margaret Atwood and Chinua Achebe respectively are being acknowledged as the “classical authors of today” (David; Wilson 5, 9). Chinua Achebe, who has reciprocal relations with the characters of his short and long narrations, is a Nigerian author, literary critique and a poet (Ogede, 4), is a composer of a multilayered short story “Madman”, which is definitely worth reading. And the “prolific poet, novelist, literary critic, feminist, and activist Margaret Atwood” (Wikipedia), managed to arrange the volume of the short stories and publish it in 1977, one of the stories is chosen to be analyzed in the given work. Both authors explore the crucial topic of today and give an important insight into the inner conflicts of their protagonists. Thus, the book “Madman” discovers the social problems of people in Africa and the misjudgment of the man’s acts, and the loneliness going by some cultural prejudices. While the book “Dancing Girls” is exploring the emotional state of the foreigner as an aspect of loneliness in the strange land, also it explores the dreams, the objectives of people, who came to the strange country for them. Still, these books are quite different by the cultural backgrounds, which are presented in them. Consequently, the books “Dancing Girls” and “Madman” is similar in terms of exploring miscellaneous crucial topics like loneliness, the relationship of their protagonists with other people, involved in the story, but still, there are quite different in terms of looking at their loneliness from another angle, depicting different cultural background, economic status of the characters within society, the personality of the main characters.

Firstly, the loneliness of the characters and their relations depicted in the texts emphasize the similarities of the stories.

Considering the book by Margaret Atwood, the first thing which occurs is the feeling of loneliness, piercing the text of the story as a leitmotif. The narrator of the story is a girl, who came to an American city to be a future Urban designer. She tells the reader about her life, her background, her pretensions, and the reason why she rents just this very flat, which she does not like. Moreover, she assures that the flat of Mrs. Nolan is left over for her as she does not have enough money to afford anything else. Through the narration of the girl, the reader comes across Leilah, a Turkish girl with a golden tooth. While reading the first abstracts of the story, one manages to notice this feeling. Even comparing herself with Leilah, the girl mentions the letters, she received from home, she did not receive anything from home “No one wrote her letters, urging her to come home, no one had picked up a perfect husband for her. On the contrary…” (Atwood, 91) So, the protagonist of the story feels the first urges to the feeling of loneliness. The feeling increases over time for the heroine as Leilah moves away from the rented place and consequently, the girl does not hear much from her anymore. The second precise proof of the heroine feeling lonely is her solitude in the house. She has no one to speak to, except the noisy and boring owner of the house, Mrs. Nolan, who is lonely herself and eager to talk, but she always wants to have conversations in the most unsuitable situations for the heroine, as it happened with the last conversation, they held: “Anna said, she was going to be late for her classes if she did not hurry” (Atwood, 97). From this, it can be seen, that the main character is not the only one, who feels lonely in the story. However, she still has a friend, who originates from Holland and she is the only person who knows where Canada is. The protagonist feels lonely not physically only, but also she experiences cultural loneliness or misunderstanding. Further on, the author brings closer the relationship between the protagonist and the surrounding people. Ann is a character, who interacts well with people. Throughout the story, she has her way with the people except for one character, who rents a room in the same house, but she can not talk to him as she does not see him. He is one of those, whose presence is obvious, but one can not feel it, going by some details, like Ann observing the bathroom can not find any obvious shreds of evidence for the presence of a man in the house. (Atwood, 97) So, the emotions she experiences are not the ones, like at home.

Going by the second story, namely “Madman”, one might say, that the loneliness of the protagonist of the story, Nwibe is obvious in different ways. He has no one, who thinks just like him. Even his family, including his two wives, seems to be concerned with their problems more than with the problems of their husbands. Taking the depicted by the author morning into account, where the junior wife Udenkwo argues with the other one, Mgboye. The relations of the protagonist with the other people are depicted as complex and knotty. He seems to know everyone in his own village and beyond it as he interacts with everyone, though not in a sweet manner sometimes, as the text depicts: “… the women had gone and brought their men-folk – four hefty beasts of the bush – to whip him out of his hut.” (Chinua, 246-247) Thus, both the relations of the protagonist failed to be really good and the emotions of Nwebe. The misunderstanding between the protagonist and the rest of the people is obvious.

Secondly, the differences of the texts are seen through depicting the different cultural backgrounds and the social status of the characters, which are revealed in the display of the feeling of loneliness from a different angle.

Within the book “Dancing Girls”, the life of a foreigner, who has nothing in the country (America) is illustrated by Margaret Atwood. It should be noted that Margaret Atwood generally resorts to the method of “weaving stories from her own life in the bush and cities of Canada” (Patricia F, 1). The main character, Ann understands perfectly well why she came from Canada to America. Her purpose is to study. Once she is done with her studies, she is to go back to Canada and settle down there. “…she had come here because this school was the best… she intended to be so qualified, so armored with qualifications that no one back home would dare turn her down for the job she coveted.” (Atwood, 92) And the position of the girl is not high, as she is a student, who came to this strange country to get an education and go back home. She is one of the many, one of the intensive and dynamic floods of people coming here with some objective to finally go back home or somewhere else and to be lost: “Hadn’t seen much of her since she’d [Leilah] moved out. You lost sight of people quickly here, in the ever-shifting population of hopeful and despairing transients” (Atwood, 91) So, Ann does not stand out against another people, living in the city. She has her position, knows her duty and does her studying. This feeling of being strange in the country also shows the loneliness of the heroine of the book. But that is rather her conscious choice than stigma. She chooses to be lonely in this city as she does not feel like becoming the part of this society, which is so strange to her.

And the book by Chinua Achebe explores the life of a different society, not that like the American, not that like the European one. It is different in terms of their culture, traditions, people, their social duties, their social standing. This background is the original background of the author and he is marked for valuing the “heritage of his Motherland” (Ogede 7) But, for the reader, some traditions within this society need to be further analyzed for better understanding why it is like this and not another way. Describing their houses they apply to the term ‘hut’, which stands for a small house or shelter, usually made of wood or metal. Polygamy, legalized within the community is not an established order within the rest of the world. Almost a superstitious, antiquated view on the matter of being daemons possessed is circulating within this society. This possession is taken as one of the diseases, which can not be healed. Next, a man is being praised in society. He is regarded to be a master and a more privileged person. The protagonist of the story “was a man of high standing in Ogbu and was rising higher; a man of wealth and integrity” (Achebe, 247) Thus, it is seen, that Nwebe is a respected man of the society he lived in. Still, he does not find an understanding, being, thus a foreigner among his relatives and friends. And his loneliness is an inevitable feeling for him. He can not choose to be more comprehended, to be closer to people. The nature of Nwebe is arrogant and he is to haughty to change it.

Thirdly, the differenced of the stories are marked by the completely different depicted personalities of their protagonists, which are developing in the opposite directions.

The personality of the heroine in the book by Margaret Atwood is developing throughout the story, she will turn back on the past years and see that the backbone had been cultivated within her, as going through the turns and twists of life she can hold more, to stand the pressure. Even living within the house of Mrs. Nolan is a big trial for this girl. She is developing to be a stronger personality. Though she is a tender girl, who still wants somebody to take care of her, she wants to get married, to give up studying. But as she imagines what her parents might say to this, she is continuing her study as the story narrates “She could imagine her mother’s face if she were suddenly to announce that she was going to quit school, trade-in her ambition for fate, and get married. Even her father wouldn’t like it.” (Atwood, 91) Consequently, Ann is shown by the author as a purposeful woman, who knows what she wants and what she will do in the future as the following line from the book proves: “But she was doing what she wanted, no doubt of that” (Atwood, 92). The author is very specific at describing how purposeful the heroine is, starting with her teenage dreams and aspirations and ending with her final objective in Toronto. The friend of hers, Jetske also points out the transition of Ann into a completely mature person by saying: “You learn how to take care of yourself” (Atwood, 95).

The protagonist of the book by Chinua Achebe is presented to the reader as a respected citizen of the society. His social position is really high and he is regarded as a wealthy one. Nevertheless, his personality develops through the text from being the man of a high position and strong personality, as the story tells it “a sensible man that no one could think of him beginning something he was not sure to finish.” (Achebe, 247), and a man, who could easily be involved in other people’s affairs to a mad man, then a healed one who “became a quiet, withdrawn man avoiding whenever I boisterous side of the life of his people” (Achebe, 251). He can not prove that he is sane, no matter how hard he tries to do that. Next, he is put on the compulsory treatment, prescribed by a doctor, who has a questionable medical practice. This regress of the personality in the story is partially determined by a cultural aspect, which includes a religious background, moreover, this situation proves the ability of the author of the book to put a deeper context into the short story text as he values his heritage a lot. As “the madman’s theft of Nwibe’s cloth is reminiscent of the calculating actions of the colonialists who pounced on Africans at their least suspecting and most vulnerable moment to ensure the success of the mission of colonial conquest.” (Ogede, 7)

It is evident, that the works “Dancing Girls” and “Madman” by the famous authors, the classic of today Margaret Atwood and Chinua Achebe respectively, are similar in many terms. As they explore crucial topics like loneliness, the relationship of people, the emotional state of the characters, enclosed in the stories, they do it similarly. Nevertheless, there is much difference in the stories brought out by the identity of the literary heritage of the authors, by the culture and background of the authors, by the objectives they aimed to perceive. These all marked the differences in the given short stories. So, the story “Dancing Girls” gives an insight into the life of a foreigner in America. The protagonist of the story does not stand out in the society as she is the average student, one of the floods of foreigners, who are arriving in the country to go back to their native land in the future. This feeling gives Ann the feeling of being strange and alone in a foreign country. Nevertheless, she manages to develop as a person and cultivate a backbone within her character. While the book by Chinua Achebe narrates about a native citizen of the country, with their own established traditions, sometimes hard to interpret. He is depicted as a highly respected wealthy man, with two wives. But notwithstanding all the abovementioned facts, the protagonist of the story is a stranger among his relatives. Later he is regarded to be an insane man by accident, as a madman takes his clothes and he is made to run across the street, trying to chase the madman, stark-naked. At the end of the story he appears to be a withdrawn and a quiet man, thus regressing as a personality. This proves that it is not due to the social status, which way either a way of improvement or a way of deterioration the person chooses to go.

Inferring, it might be mentioned that though both books are alike in many aspects, they still manage to touch upon different cultural backgrounds of their characters, different directions the personalities of the protagonists developed, different social status of them within the society they leave in. Both similarities and the differences of the given books defined their uniqueness and the identity of their authors.

Works Cited

1. Chinua Achebe. The Story of the Madman (C a R a F Books), University of Virginia Press, 2001
2. Isidore Okpewho. Chinua Achebe’s Things Fall Apart: A Casebook, Oxford University Press US, 2003
3. Margaret Atwood. Dancing Girls, Vintage; New edition, 1998
4. Margaret Atwood – Wikipedia the free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation, Inc. Web.
5. Ker, David I. The African Novel and the Modernist Tradition. New York: Peter Lang Publishing, 1998
6. Ogede, Ode. “Oral Tradition and Modern Storytelling: Revisiting Chinua Achebe’s Short Stories.” International Fiction Review (2001): 67
7. Onyeara Ogbete. Web.
8. Patricia F. “Reconstructing Margaret Atwood’s Protagonists”; World Literature Today. 73 (1999) 8
9. Singer, Sally. “Retail Therapy: Five Fictional Reasons Not to Pay Full Price.” The Atlantic Monthly 2005: 119
10. The New York Times Company “The Complexities of Ordinary Life”. Anne Tyler. Web.
11. Wilson, Sharon Rose. Margaret Atwood”s Fairy-Tale Sexual Politics. Jackson, MS: University Press of Mississippi, 1993