April

13

The Art of Cooking and Serving

Benoit Uson
[Type the abstract of the document here. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the document.]

Universit du Qubec Trois-Rivires 7090 Baccalaurat en enseignement des langues secondes LIA1030-00

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION ...................................................................................................................................... 3 CENTRAL CONFLICT .............................................................................................................................. 3 PLOT ANALYSIS ....................................................................................................................................... 4 EXPOSITION ................................................................................................................................................................ 4 RISING ACTION .......................................................................................................................................................... 4 THE CLIMAX ............................................................................................................................................................... 5 THE FALLING ACTION ............................................................................................................................................... 6 RESOLUTION ............................................................................................................................................................... 6 CHARACTERIZATION ............................................................................................................................ 7 THE PROTAGONIST ................................................................................................................................................... 7 THEME ....................................................................................................................................................... 8 BIRTH OR REBIRTH ................................................................................................................................................... 8

Introduction

In The Art of Cooking and Serving, which is the second story in a collection of connected short stories by Margaret Atwood, we go back in time and meet Nell, whos all of 11-years-old and is unremittingly knitting in preparation for the welcoming her unborn sister. When not knitting, the girl is also taking care of household chores, because her expectant mother is not supposed to work much, her father is always away on his work odysseys, and her brother away in boarding school. This is a very beautiful and touching portrayal of a lonely childhood ready to please and extremely pensive. This short story suggests that: "one can transform an untidy, inexperienced girl into a well-groomed, professional servant if one is patient and kind and fair" says the old-fashioned Household-management Guide, which is the favorite book of the young girl in this story. The girl, in the advent of adolescence, describes her rather isolated life helping her seemingly sick mother to care for her newly born little sister, and she describes her first grievous confrontation to her mother's sovereignty. Her alteration as a result of this sudden detonation of independence is the reverse of that in the Household Management Book. She could be Margaret Atwood remembering a significant episode in her life, as could the narrators of the stories in the rest of the book, but it is dangerous to make assumptions.

Central Conflict

Nell, the girl, is aged 11, and her mother is expecting a child; but certainly not pregnant. The choice of words here is delicate, since pregnant delivers a more blunt, bulgy and pendulous description of the state of bearing a child, whereas the term expecting suggested a dog with its ears pricked. The girl makes every effort to comprehend her mothers acquaintance with her heartfelt episode, and resents the lack of her mothers household benefaction for the duration of the pregnancy. The young girl works meticulously to accomplish all of the household chores, as well as knitting the baby a layette. Once the baby arrives in its new world, Nell rebels against her mother's wishes, thus attaining her own will to acquire a personalized freedom. 3

Plot Analysis
Exposition
The story takes place in the first person omniscient where we are introduced to an eleven year old girl who is frantically knitting a layette for her ready to be born little sister. Her mother is in the early stages of her pregnancy and Nell contemplates when her soon-to-arrive sister will be wearing the layette she is wheedling. The girl admires the writings of her favorite authors whom have written Household Guides for women of that epoch. The girl idolizes the writings of her authors and seems to undertake the outmost possibilities to attain what the authors seem to suggest. The family seems to be a lower-middle classed family whose primal preoccupation is to consume the similar well-beings of life as all middle-classed households. During the summers, they relish their time together in a cottage, or what they refer to as their island, which suggests that they must use a boat to attain their coveted destination. Throughout the episode, the girl seems to be in awe, or maybe even in disgust with her mothers pregnancy. On the island, the girl reflects on all possible scenarios that might happen if the baby was to manifest itself in an unexpected manner.

Rising Action
The girls episode undeniably takes a twist as she is asked to fill her mothers shoes. Her father, presumably having to be absent for work, asks his daughter, Nell, to compensate for her mothers hardship. Knowingly, the mother is incapable of assuming all the chores she was accustomed to achieve before her pregnancy. The girl accepts her newly acquired chores in order to compensate for her mothers incapacity to pursue her daily occupations. Nell did not seem so sure of the task that lay before her and also was impressed by the thought of compensating her mothers incapacity to complete her chores. She was actually frightened at the sole thought of having to supersede her maternal beings absence. How could I even prepare for it? she claims. All of this angst could be dealt with, but as it was, the thing was a menace.

 The Climax
Even though Nell effectuates the knitting, she terminates her task with certain flaws that she thinks will be smoothly dealt with. This suggests that even though the girl tries whole-heartedly to attain a most certain perfectionism, she is satisfied with imperfections on her creations. She knitted on, with single-minded concentration, suggesting that she is solely concentrated on one aspect. Since there are imperfections in her knitting, her concentration is surely not fully implied in her task. Her mind is most likely wandering and drifting between her mothers well- being and the guidelines provided by her readings of the novels of Household Management which entails her at living a well-groomed and sophisticated manner of living.. Her reasoning is seemingly directed towards her mother as being no use at all. Even despite her superior ability, she was slacking off. The girl suggests that her mother, even though bloated by her pregnancy, was abandoning her usual chores. She even embraced the intention of not pursuing the knitting of the sole bootie she had at task! All of a sudden, her mothers pregnant figure strikes her as being somewhat repugnant, comparing her to when she used one of her smocks for dressing-up for Halloween while acting as a fat lady with a purse. It made her look poor. The girl appears to witness the decay of her mothers survival and habitual abilities as she notices how methodical and cheerful, she took command. Now it was as if she had abdicated. Her mother meticulously always knew what to do in an emergency, Nell, now feels abandoned by her mother and probably discerns some sort of favoritism towards a child that is yet to be born. While she carries in the wood at the cottage, she contemplates her mothers passivity as if she could not care less. Nell even goes to the extent of despising her mothers physical appearance as she contemplates the varicose veins on the back of legs and could not seem avoid the look, which was extensively embarrassing for her. Nell feels as though her mother is some sort of God-like figure changing the future, nonetheless her future! Although the girl stirs-up a multitude of scenarios that could compromise her mothers objective of bringing to term her child, she always has the appearance of formulating a solution or half-way solution in order to find a solution to her mishap scenarios. She appears as an insightfully pensive girl who leaves no detail aside. 5

Even though Nell takes a thousand and one ways to sooth her never-ending scenarios, she can still come up with a moral conclusion to her catastrophic chain of events. She seems to have gone through a time warp where her perception of time seems to have been distorted and influenced through the passage of seasons. Once the layette she has been knitting was completed, she can but acknowledge her mothers incompetency as she mentions her mothers failure to complete her own minor task.

The Falling Action

Now that her baby sister has been born, a new chain of events seems to trigger some sort of discomfort inside of Nell. While she is busy on a daily basis tendering for her baby sister, her friends at school exchange different stories about their outings and girls night out at the dance or with boys they relish during school lunch hour. All of these stories stirred up mixed emotions inside of the girls innermost feelings. She now became more distant towards her family and shut herself off from her family. Her adolescent self needed to express some deep frustrations and inhibitions that had been born ever since her sister saw the light of day. Up until now, the girl had never confronted her authoritative mother and went about as a well-groomed and sophisticated young girl who would abide by the traditional protocol of Household Manners. The baby apparently had been born with some sort of crying disorder which according to the doctor was simply a you have one of those. While the girls mother was tending at the laundry and that the baby was crying, the mother asked Nell to tend to the baby as usual. But the young girl replied with a Why should I, shes not my baby. I didnt have her. You did. This reply seems to have triggered some sort of a cyclone effect on both the mother and daughter. The young girl had never confronted her mother in such a rude and impolite manner as of that precise moment.

Resolution

The mother, after pondering for a millisecond, slapped her daughter across the face as to reprimand her for out-of-place behavior. Both the mother and daughter seemed in awe at the incident that is taking place in that moment of time and the atmosphere has shifted and Nell is released from many domestic responsibilities. 6

The daughter and mother, both had never acted in such a displaced manner before. The feeling of shock filled their loins and discomfort soon took over their initial emotions of displeasure. The young girl should have felt devastated but instead a sense of freedom filled her soul. She now felt the overwhelming feeling of being an adolescent. A new birth now filled the home and Nell was like a child being born. She now could go to the drive-ins, eat popcorn and go to the movies. Not too long after, her life took a new turn, as all puberty-exposed children should go through.

Characterization
The Protagonist
The protagonist, who is also the main character of the story, is presented to the audience as a Flat-character. She is portrayed as a well-groomed, sophisticated and high-class want to be through the story. Nell acquires her persona through the readings of some of her favorite authors and attempts to replicate their writings in her everyday life. Although her ideal everyday life character would like to pursue her endeavors, her child-like attributes seem to surface. Although her knitting standards seem to surpass most of the Pavaroti-like knitters, she still finds the way to bend these standards as if to say that stains on the white wool can be taken care of later. She seems to think that most common mistakes can be taken care of at a later date, so as to not want to take care of the immediate problem right now. Margaret Atwood takes special care into demonstrating a contrasting stereotypical attitude that the young girl conveys. She demonstrates sophistication throughout and yet exposes simplistic flaws. The young girl is presented as a semi-dynamic character. The change is somewhat gradual as she exposes her adolescence near the end of the story. her adolescent needs are gradually revealed as the story unfolds. Her need to experience what her adolescent friends are experiencing are greater than the respect she vows for her mother for a simple instant in her life. The author brings these changes through subtleties as the character demonstrates her carelessness concerning certain situations, which should be meaningful to characters who demonstrate her type of sophisticated attributes. Even tough she wants to knit a classic whit layette, she is indifferent at the mere thought of having knitted a leg longer than the other. By pulling on it, it will attain acceptability is her 7

reasoning behind her indifference. The young girls motivation to change was her envy of being reborn. She needed to escape the role she accepted as providing assistance during her mothers pregnancy and beyond. The title is pretty revealing as well. The word serving encloses the young girls dominating attribute in this episode. This change of attitude and personality reaches the audience and becomes a believable episode as she drastically changes in the resolution phase of the story. She demonstrates an ethical approach for a young girl, although affirming to being able to comprehend that the risk was that I would set the mainland on fire as well, by accident. Then I would end up in jail as an arsonist. Her ethical and moral guidelines are put to test here and we are still left wondering if she would make the right ethical decision. Her motivation for disrespecting her mother is one of pure emotional build-up. She is now capable of seeing herself as a servant to her mother and blows-up verbally to affirm her status as an outgoing adolescent.

Theme
Birth or Rebirth
The story is based on the waiting of the protagonists sister to be born. But, along this birth, the death of an adolescents teenage life seems to come to a halt. This birth has captivated the young girls existence. She has agreed to tend to here baby sister in lending a hand to her mothers difficult pregnancy at a late age. The young girl, Nell, has put her teenage life on pause to help her mother and serve her in the rearing of the newborn child. After rebelling towards her mother, the young girl seems to have been reborn and able to live the real life of a teenager. It is ironic how a difficult and isolated episode can lead to such a drastic rebirth of a child in search of her identity.