t a young girl has with her uncles. The bond, although slightly unusual, is closer with her uncles rather than her aunts. The uncles are important to the girl because of the loss of her father. She needs the male bonding that she lacks from her father, so she gets this through her uncles. Atwood often portrays women as dependent on men. This is such the case in “Uncles”. Even after her uncles are gone, the protagonist meets a man at her workplace. Although at first, it seems like she might overcome him, he gets the best of her and begins to make her wonder if she were much of a woman. Another important element in the subject matter of Margaret Atwood’s writing is the power struggles between men and women. Most of the main characters in Atwood’s writing are having some kind of conflict at one point of the story. In most of the stories, the women might start out just fine, but by the end of the story, they have had to face one or more power struggle situation. Often the background of the female in Atwood’s writing suggests an unhealthy questionable one. They might come from weak or unhealthy families that give off a sense of unsupportiveness. It is often apparent that Atwood’s female characters are threatened by the roles that they are expected to play in society, either wife or mother. If they don’t fulfill these roles, they usually have internal conflicts about these roles that they should be in. The themes of Atwood’s writings are also significant when trying to understand how the author usually writes. Some of the noteworthy themes that she tends to follow are the significance of eating and oral communication. Both of these themes offer the protagonist a source of power. One of the more prominent themes of Atwood’s work is the significance that eating plays on the main characters. A large amount of work that is done by Atwood at least mentions some sort of eati...
