“I Dream of Zenia with the Red Teeth” by Margaret Atwood followed along with the themes seen in previous stories. Mortality and the frailty of people is a common thread among all the stories. This story was about three older women and one dead woman.

Like all the other stories in the book so far, this story has a fantastic element to it without actually having a fantastic element. Charis thinks that the spirit of Zenia is in her dog but I don’t think we are led to actually believe that this is true.

It’s amazing how somehow Atwood found a way to make the title of this story end up being very literal. Each title has been very literal and each title has surprised me that it has been very literal.

The character of Billy is never actually present in the story. He’s mentioned a lot and we know he is with Charis but he never shows up in any scenes. It makes sense and creates even more distance between the reader and Billy. Perhaps this helps to keep him from being a complete, Disney-style villain while still certainly being the bad guy of the story.

I think the relationships between the older women are the most compelling part of the story and I love the way that Atwood has captured that. They seem a little bumbling, a little confused at times, very caring, and they all have distinct personality traits that set them apart from one another. They balance each other out in a sense and I thought it was really well done.

 

1. How do the relationships between the women in the story add to the story itself?
2. Whose story is it anyway? How did the decision of narrator impact your reading of the story?
3. I don’t think that the characters really have a true dislike for Zenia. What do you think?
4. There are a lot of weird details in this story, like the vampire films and the dead chickens and the weird dreams. What do you make of these details? How do they change the story?
5. Do you think Charis’s conclusions at the end of the story were Atwood’s code for what the story was about?
6. What about the ending of the story? With the plumber. What do you make of that? And the last line about the dog flirting with him?

 

“The Dead Hand Loves you” was a much longer short story and had a very interesting structure, entering the actual story about the dead hand for a bit as Jack wrote it. Again, it had a weirdly literal title and a fantastic element to it as well. It was also the story of older people who are nearing death. Death has been fairly present in all of Atwood’s stories so far.

The unraveling of this story was really well done. The beginning is confusing but intriguing. We aren’t located anywhere in particular, or with anyone in particular. It didn’t last long enough to get frustrated though, and then we were able to find characters and a sense of what was going on. Something that I appreciate about Atwood’s stories is that the plot keeps changing. In some short stories, and I might be guilty of this, the plot and major conflicts are laid out right in the beginning and the focus is on the characters and emotional turmoil. I like that Atwood has plot twists and things that change in her stories, new information that comes to light. There are deeper aspects to her stories, some more than others, but I think she does point out a lot about emotional conflicts and human tendencies while still having engaging, sometimes wild, plots. Her stories are also very creative and that makes them enjoyable to read.

I noticed some similarities between this story and the first story as well. Both Jack and Constance write books that are looked down upon by the literature world but are both quite successful. They have both gone beyond just writing and moved into the realm of movie deals. They are both thinking of long lost “loves” in the end of their lives that had an influence on their work.

 

1. Do you see similarities between Constance and Jack? What about the differences between these two stories offers the most insight into the characters?
2. What do you make of Irena? She’s such an interesting character. Is she a doting girlfriend figure who just wants to care for people? Or did she have control all along?
3. Why does Atwood have Irena act so outwardly domestic?
4. Why did Atwood have Irena marry the other two men of the house? What did this change about her character?
5. Are there any similarities between the hold that Irena has over Jack and the hold that the storage unit woman had over men? Both men at the end of their respective stories have a certain sense of doom about them.
6. Are there any sympathetic characters in this story? Does it matter?