Analysis Essay: War of Two Worlds

Jamie Lawrenz

Dr. Price

ENC1102

15 February 2016

War of Two Worlds

        Everyone strives to be accepted by those around them whether they acknowledge it or not. Margaret Atwood’s protagonist in “Lusus Naturae” and Karen Russell’s character Claudette in “St. Lucy’s Home for Girls Raised by Wolves” are no exception to this rule. Indeed, both girls realize the social gains achieved through their personal change despite their lost self-identity. We all must make difficult choices in our lives, but is it required of us to give up our self-identity for them? Not if the choices we make are in the right or for the greater good; societal pressure is the cause for mismanagement of choices as a group and we see this in both Atwood’s and Russell’s stories.

        When a society does not understand an enigma, the first reaction is usually of distain until they become educated. This is illustrated by Atwood’s story of a girl with porphyria. Porphyria, a deficiency of hemoglobin resulting in excess body hair, painful skin, and reddish teeth, was not yet fully understood in the protagonist’s era. Consequently, her family and community snubbed her for her condition, and this was her deviation from the norm.  After reading “Lusus Naturae” I was very baffled at how the protagonist handled her condition in the beginning; she acted nonchalant and accepting because she didn’t understand it either. When her father “enforces distance” she could “see his point” and her grandmother “held [her] head under water…praying while she did it…to eject the demon…lodged near [her] breastbone” her mother said “she had the best of intentions, at heart” (233). Today we would call these people crazy, but those were the common methods of healing back then. The protagonist realizes without her, her sister would marry and she “would not stand in the way…[or] loom over her like a fate,” so “it was decided that [she] should die” (234). Notice how the protagonist has no say in whether she wants to “die” or not- it was decided for her by having a fake funeral. This is where her self-identity is lost- she is no longer a person or her mother’s “lovely baby,” but she becomes a thing that is repulsive and a nuisance, like “a wart” (233&235).

The protagonist copes with this disease by “hardening [herself] to loneliness,” because that is all she can do (236). Although the protagonist dies a fake death, she becomes freer- this is what she gains from “death.” Interestingly, the character “might have said [she] was happy” (235). This shocks me a little because amidst all of the physical and mental pain she finds happiness. Happiness escapes people who have more than they need, but the poorest can find it in what little they have. Once the protagonist dies a fake death, she finds new power when partially seen by strangers. She can scare them by moonlight and take food that she needs, but when a young man recognizes her, the whole town comes looking for her at the haunted house. The protagonist realizes that she is going to die for real this time and decides to make a scene by dressing in her “white burial dress” and “fall from the burning rooftop like a comet” (236) In the last two paragraphs there is much sarcasm from her tone and this is another coping technique she uses to accept a wrongful death.