What Does Elaine Learn from the Male 'Teachers'?

A detailed Summary of What Does Elaine Learn from the Male 'Teachers'?

The questions of infidelity, love and sexuality and the influence of Jon, Josef, and to a certain extent Ben over these.

Atwood portrays early in the novel the divide between male and female, for example at school she and Steven are separated because of the "Girls and Boys" different entrances. Her upbringing has caused her to enjoy, like Steven (arguably the most important teacher, and his influence over Elaine as a young child moulded her way of thinking for the rest of her life), male company, however because of her physical attributes, she is still bound to be segregated. This upbringing has had disastrous affects on her ability to free herself from Cordelia and the associated bullying, as she has absorbed from a young age, the childish belief in loyalty, and moreover, is concerned she may lose the friendship which she believes is helping her to find her feminine side:

Something is unfolding, being revealed to me. I see that there is a whole world of girls and their doings that have been unknown to me and that I can be part of it without making any effort at all.

These characters are introduced through Elaine's artwork in a retrospective phase of her cathartic release. Josef is introduced at the beginning of "Life D

Josef's love making skills are described as being ruminative, and this depicts his mind as being somewhere else. This parallels nicely with Jon's comment:

>From Steven Elaine learns the dynamics of male company. From Josef she learns artful passion, sexuality and infidelity. From Jon she learns domesticity and the importance of her own self confidence and femininity. From Ben she learns true love.

Jon ridicules the "magazine look" Elaine manages to impose on a new apartment she buys, this is again prophetic. Jon's upbringing is clearly projected (JUNG) onto Elaine, whereby he becomes a Commercial Illustrator, and Elaine becomes the housewife. As Elaine and Jon gradually create a more traditional relationship, Elaine finds herself relating back to experiences she had as a child, under the reign of Cordelia's watchful eye. This emanates from Jon contemptuous attitude to her independence and the resentment she harbours, due to his unfaithfulness, and his hoping for enthusiasm for himself and his ideas, not capitulation. Here we see a gradual decline in her confidence, eroded by Jon, who regards her work as irrelevant and wants her to stop painting.

why she allowed men to influence her life, but the extent to which they did. The extent of the influence of Josef on her life is shown, according to Jungian theory, in that if a particular conscious attitude becomes too fixed, then repressed emotions will break through, and the result is the very catharsis which Elaine is now experiencing. To a greater or lesser degree this can be applied to all of the men in her life, but as Josef was the first with whom she experienced all the mingled emotions of love, infidelity, lust and defining to herself, the meaning of her own sex we see here it had deeper inference.

Elaine loses her virginity with Josef. This relates to his earlier confident and determined statement that she will be finished through some situation within the art class.

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We only truly begin to learn about the influence of the men on her life, when Elaine meets with Jon at the Quasi restaurant, because she has a cathartic glance at the past (id est she relives certain moments in time). The title of this restaurant is pejorative because Jon and his companions were drawn to the company of Elaine, because she enjoyed a Quasi male status, in so far as she in return enjoyed their company, and could empathise with the male point of view. Their meeting is a departure point in the novel as Atwood goes on to describe the relationships Elaine had with Josef and Jon.

Some common words found in the essay are:
Josef Hrbik, Steven Elaine, Josef Jon, Elaine Jon, Girls Boys, Jon Quasi, Angel Jon, Yugoslav Jon, Ben Atwood, Life Drawing, josef jon, conscious attitude, male company, coming terms own, attitude fixed, arguably teacher, infidelity elaine, love infidelity, coming terms, own sex, influence josef life, conscious attitude fixed, influence josef,

Approximate Word count = 1961
Approximate Pages = 8 (250 words per page double spaced)

Category: English