NAME : Joanna Marie D.

Delloson
DATE : October 21, 2019 SUBJECT: 21st Literature
GRADE & SECTION : 12 – Franklin

TITLE: STONE MATTRESS

AUTHOR: Margaret Atwood

BIRTHDAY: November 18, 1939
AGE: 80 years old
FAMILY:
FATHER:
Carl Edmund Atwood

MOTHER:
Margaret Dorothy Killam

SIBLINGS:
Ruth Atwood
Harold Leslie Atwood
HUSBAND:
In 1968, Atwood married Jim Polk but they divorced in 1973. And finally formed
a relationship with fellow novelist named Graeme Gibson.

CHILDREN:
She only have one daughter with Graeme Gibson named Eleanor Atwood Gibson.

EDUCATION:
She received her undergraduate degree in Victoria College at the University of
Toronto and her master’s degree from Radcliffe College.

JOB:
She is an author, novelist, a poet, and also a business person.

EXPERIENCES:
At the age of six, she was writing morality plays, poems, comic books, and had
started a novel. School and preadolescence brought her taste for home economics. Her writing
resurfaced in high school, though, where she returned to writing poetry.

AWARDS:
Booker Prize, Giller Prize, Arthur C. Clarke Award, Governor General’s Award,
Franz Kafka Prize, and the National Book Critics and Pen Center USA Lifetime Achievement
Award
 LITERARY THEORIES:
 Psychoanalysis

A. VOCABULARY:
 RENOUNCE – to formally give up something
 BUTTRESSED – a structure built against a wall in order to support or strengthen it
 BEIGE – cloth made of natural undyed wool
 SKEWERED – a long pointed piece of metal or wood that is pushed through pieces
of food to keep them together or hold them in place for cooking
 STRENUOUS – requiring or showing great energy and effort
 FLAMBOYANT – having a very noticeable quality that attracts a lot of attention
 TREACHEROUS – very dangerous and difficult to deal with
 LUDICROUS – very foolish
 SOLICITOUS – showing concern or care for someone
 EXTRICATE – to free from something such as trap or difficult situation
 VOLUPTOUS – suggesting sensual pleasure by fullness and beauty of form
 VOYAGE – a long journey to a distant or unknown place especially over water or
through outer space
 JETTISON – to drop something from a moving ship
 PLUMMET – to fall suddenly straight down especially from a very high place
 VICIOUS – very violent and cruel

B. THEME:
 DEATH
 AGING
 HORROR

C. SETTING:
IN THE CANADIAN ARCTIC

D. CHARACTERS:
 Verna
 Bob
 Ken
 Fred
 Dan
 Rick
 Norm

E. OUTLINE
1. SUMMARY
 Verna, the protagonist and also the antagonist in the story, is a self-justifying serial
husband-killer who signs up for a cruise of the Arctic. At the meet-and-greet in the
airport hotel, “there’s a lot of sportswear in the room,” writes Atwood. Much beige
among the men, many plaid shirts, vests with multiple pockets. She notes the
nametags: a Fred, a Dan, a Rick, a Norm, a Bob.
She then met Bob turns out to become from long in the past, who got Verna pregnant
in high school and cruelly humiliated her. He doesn’t recognize her all these decades
later, though she recognizes him and decides to exact her revenge. Unknown to Bob,
Verna offers him two chances for escape: If he recognizes her in his own, then he
lives. Or else, when she confronts him and reveals her identity ,he can apologize. If
he does neither, then her vengeance will continue. It happens that Bob didn’t do
anything Verna wanted him to do so he end up dying.

2. PROBLEMS ENCOUNTERED
 When Verna met Bob again who happened to be the one who raped
her in the past.

3. TYPES OF CONFLICT
MAN vs. MAN

F. SYMBOLS USED
STROMATOLITE

G. MEMORABLE LINES
 “Experiences were what you got when you couldn’t get what you
wanted.”
 The beauty is an illusion, and also a warning: there’s a dark side to
beauty, as with poisonous butterflies.”