Margaret Atwood

Spotty Handed Villainess

Context of the speech:
Margaret Atwood, a well-known Canadian writer, gave her speech Spotty handed
Villainesses to various groups in 1994. Most of the audiences would have been highly
educated, giving the address at events such as the American Bookseller Convention and
many luncheons for women. Atwood, a former university lecturer, assumes that her
audience would include well-educated fiction readers who would be able to respond to
the many literary allusions. During the time of her address, society was going through a
contemporary movement, particularly in regard to feminist views of women in life and
art.
Purpose of the Speech:
The purpose of Atwoods discursive speech is to present an entertaining, informing and
challenging argument, exploring the dichotomy of good and bad women in literature,
examining the political correctness and female representation in literature.
Values Underpinning it:
Atwood plays on the values that she shares with her audience, drawing allusions from
religion. She compares the novelist to God creating the world in Genesis, God started
with chaos dark, without form and void and so does the novelist. This serves to give
the audience more understanding of the point Atwood is trying to convey (how novels are
written) by comparing it to a well-known story.
Way Speaker Establishes rapport:
From the beginning of the speech, Atwood establishes rapport through her humorous
tone, with a familiar nursery rhyme. She effectively communicates with the audience
analysing her reactions as a five year old in terms of the psychiatrist Jung, it brought
home to me the deeply Jungian possibilities of a Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde double life for
women. Atwood employs a series of rhetorical questions near the beginning of the
speech, which are designed to make her audience ponder the answers to the questions,
and it is implied that they will be answered over the course of the speech. She creates a
personal tone by addressing her audience directly you probably got the idea. She
draws her audience into the speech, keeping their interest levels again by talking to her
audience directly Id bet youre more likely to know which play Iago is in.
Structure of the speech:
Atwoods speech is a lengthy free flowing dialogue on womens role as literary
characters and how this generally reflects social context. Structured in forty-nine
paragraphs she uses wit and humour to entertain and maintain audiences interest.

On several occasions throughout the speech, Atwood poses a rhetorical question at the
beginning of a paragraph, and then proceeds to answer it in the remainder of the
paragraph. This structural technique draws the audience into the speech, by inviting them
to consider the question themselves, and then allows Atwood to impart her views on the
matter.
Use of Language:
Throughout the speech Atwood uses many literary allusions to show that Villainesses
have starred plenteously in worlds famous literature but she considers whether this was
somewhat challenged by 20th century womens movement and assumed by some
feminist critics to be necessarily victims of patriarchal oppression. Her definition of the
title spotty-handedness is an allusion to Lady MacBeths spot, giving the address some
added humour, especially with the connotations of spotty hands. By using literary
allusions Atwood legitimacy to her topic, female bad behaviour in literature by providing
references and examples. Attwood wittily wonders if the audience was reminded of The
Menopause, satirising the way certain topics become fashionable, and follows this quip
with parody on the word memorabilia with female-obilia amusing her audience.
Atwood creates a personal atmosphere of the speech by relating anecdote and personal
experiences, which are relevant to her topic, I had curls.
Atwood repeats the clause Novels are not... at the beginning of several paragraphs.
This use of anaphora serves to highlight to her audience about the purposes of a novel.
Her use of punctuation, which includes frequent dashes, commas, colons and semicolons, give the speech a conversational effect. Atwood calls to her audience for
Women characters to arise! This imperative demonstrates the idea that women
characters need not be villains, conveying the feminist tone of the speech. Her
onomatopoeic sounds gender and genre, alliteration sex-saint and frequent rhetorical
questions What is a novel? sustain audiences interest.
In a flippant tone Atwood colloquially states Shakespeare is not big on breakfast
openings and juxtaposes author and critic in a humorous analogy of bank robbery to
engage her audience. Her colloquial vocabulary like sex bomb evoke audiences interest
while bathos in happiness with a good man...woman... pet canary, numerous literary
allusions like Medea and occasional intellectual terms like pronatalist establish a
connection with her literary educated audience reflecting her intellectual capacity.
Towards the end of her speech Atwood employs the metaphor, Many doors stand ajar,
others beg to be unlocked. This expresses the opportunities, which females have, and
which hare denied to them from her perspective. It also inspires a feminist tone. She
concludes that the many-dimensionality of women needs to be given literary expression
and repeats a quote by a feminist Rebecca West In us to reinforce and give credibility to
her argument.