A person from another culture : a reading of Margaret Atwood's "The Man from Mars"

Abstract

"The central themes of Margaret Atwood’s short story The Man from Mars include the hierarchical relationship between the Occidental Self and the Oriental Other (represented here by a white, rich, Anglophone girl named Christine, and a mysterious Asian man, respectively), and the construction of otherness by the majority group. Both issues are fundamental to postcolonial theory, which is why my reading follows a great many interpretations of Atwood’s literary works—and particularly her novels Surfacing, Bodily Harm, and The Robber’s Bride—which bring to light the complexities inscribed in the field of postcolonialism".