The Robber Bride
Encyclopedia
The Robber Bride is a Margaret Atwood
novel first published by McClelland and Stewart
in 1993
. Set in present-day Toronto, Ontario
, the novel begins with three women (Roz, Charis, and Tony) who meet once a month in a restaurant to share a meal.
Their betrayals by Zenia are what initially bring the three together as friends and bind their lives together irrevocably; their monthly luncheons began after her funeral. The novel, like other works by Atwood, deals with power struggles between men and women; it is also a meditation on the nature of friendship, power, and trust between women. Zenia's character can be read as either the ultimate self-empowered woman, a traitor who abuses sisterhood, or simply a self-interested mercenary who cunningly uses the "war between the sexes" to further her own interests. One reading posits Zenia as a kind of guardian angel to the women, saving them from unworthy men.
Atwood claims that of all the characters she has written, she identifies most "with Zenia. She is the professional liar, and what else do fiction writers do but create lies that other people will believe?"
In the novel's present, Roz, Charis, and Tony finally each individually confront Zenia in a Toronto hotel room, where she tells each of them that the men they'd been with got what they deserved, and gives various versions of her earlier staged death, each as implausible as the accounts of her life. One of the four women never leaves that hotel alive. The novel itself leaves the reader questioning who was (or were) the victim(s) of life.
, the real-life journalist and wife of Conrad Black
. Among the others who have been cited as models are the writers Gwendolyn MacEwen
, and Marian Engel
.
Title references Grimm Brothers' fairy tale, The Robber Bridegroom
.
The three chapters built around the women are bookended by four shorter chapters ("Onset", "The Toxique", "The Toxique", and "Outcome", with historian Tony's voice guiding "Onset" and "Outcome", and all three voices present in the two Toxique chapters), bringing the total to seven, and giving the novel a mirrorlike, palindromic
structure. Also, the three women have four children between them, and this younger generation feels the mechanisms of Zenia as well.
doctors". Tony strongly identifies Zenia with her imaginary twin sister, Ynot (note the mirror-language of this name). For Charis, Zenia represents her "severed half", the repressed memory of Karen (her real name) split off as a buffer against a severe emotional trauma. Each woman is subject to dreams or visions in which she becomes Zenia.
; Tony, whose home-office is in a tower, and who, as a history professor, works in the ivory tower
, is Rapunzel
; and Charis, half-living in a dream world dominated by gardening and domestic arts, is Sleeping Beauty
. Zenia herself, in the opening pages of the novel, is introduced as a Gretel
-figure, alone in a forest from an old woodcut, without family or guardian spirits, but dangerous for this.
as Zenia, Wendy Crewson
as Roz, Greg Bryk as Henry, Shawn Doyle
as John, Susan Lynch
as Charis, Amanda Root
as Tony, Tatiana Maslany
as Augusta and Brandon Firla
as West, aired on CBC Television
in January 2007 and the Oxygen Network in March 2007.
The adaptation altered the plotline, choosing not to show Roz, Tony and Charis' childhood flashbacks and adding several new characters. As well, Augusta is taken by Zenia and the Toxique has been changed to Absinthe.
Margaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
novel first published by McClelland and Stewart
McClelland and Stewart
McClelland & Stewart Limited is a Canadian publishing company. It is partially owned by Random House of Canada, now a subsidiary of Bertelsmann....
in 1993
1993 in literature
The year 1993 in literature involved some significant events and new books.-Events:*Professor Stephen Hawking's book, A Brief History of Time, becomes the longest running book on the bestseller list of The Sunday Times....
. Set in present-day Toronto, Ontario
Ontario
Ontario is a province of Canada, located in east-central Canada. It is Canada's most populous province and second largest in total area. It is home to the nation's most populous city, Toronto, and the nation's capital, Ottawa....
, the novel begins with three women (Roz, Charis, and Tony) who meet once a month in a restaurant to share a meal.
Plot summary
During their most recent outing, three friends see Zenia, a long-dead university classmate who had stolen, one by one, their respective beaux. The novel alternates between the present and flashbacks featuring the points of view of Tony, Charis, and Roz, respectively. Zenia has given each woman a different version of her biography, tailor-made to insinuate herself into their lives. No one version of Zenia is the truth, and the reader knows no more than the characters.Their betrayals by Zenia are what initially bring the three together as friends and bind their lives together irrevocably; their monthly luncheons began after her funeral. The novel, like other works by Atwood, deals with power struggles between men and women; it is also a meditation on the nature of friendship, power, and trust between women. Zenia's character can be read as either the ultimate self-empowered woman, a traitor who abuses sisterhood, or simply a self-interested mercenary who cunningly uses the "war between the sexes" to further her own interests. One reading posits Zenia as a kind of guardian angel to the women, saving them from unworthy men.
Atwood claims that of all the characters she has written, she identifies most "with Zenia. She is the professional liar, and what else do fiction writers do but create lies that other people will believe?"
In the novel's present, Roz, Charis, and Tony finally each individually confront Zenia in a Toronto hotel room, where she tells each of them that the men they'd been with got what they deserved, and gives various versions of her earlier staged death, each as implausible as the accounts of her life. One of the four women never leaves that hotel alive. The novel itself leaves the reader questioning who was (or were) the victim(s) of life.
Literary allusions
There is wide speculation that the book is, at least in part, based on real life, and that the Zenia character is based loosely on Barbara AmielBarbara Amiel
Barbara Joan Estelle Amiel, Baroness Black of Crossharbour is a British-Canadian journalist, writer, and socialite. She is also the wife of former media baron and convicted felon Conrad Black.-Early life:...
, the real-life journalist and wife of Conrad Black
Conrad Black
Conrad Moffat Black, Baron Black of Crossharbour, OC, KCSG, PC is a Canadian-born member of the British House of Lords, and a historian, columnist and publisher, who was for a time the third largest newspaper magnate in the world. Lord Black controlled Hollinger International, Inc...
. Among the others who have been cited as models are the writers Gwendolyn MacEwen
Gwendolyn MacEwen
Gwendolyn Margaret MacEwen was a Canadian poet and novelist. A "sophisticated, wide-ranging and thoughtful writer," she published more than 20 books in her brief life. "A sense of magic and mystery from her own interests in the Gnostics, Ancient Egypt and magic itself, and from her wonderment at...
, and Marian Engel
Marian Engel
Marian Engel, OC, née Marian Ruth Passmore was an award-winning Canadian novelist.-Summary:Born May 24, 1933 in Toronto, Ontario, to teacher parents Frederick Searle and Mary Elizabeth Passmore...
.
Title references Grimm Brothers' fairy tale, The Robber Bridegroom
The Robber Bridegroom (fairy tale)
The Robber Bridegroom is a German fairy tale collected by the Brothers Grimm, tale number 40. Joseph Jacobs included a variant, Mr Fox in English Fairy Tales, but the original provenance is much older; Shakespeare alludes to the Mr. Fox variant in Much Ado About Nothing, Act 1, Scene 1:It is...
.
The numbers 3 and 7
Zenia has three victims, and the smallest and most vulnerable-seeming of these takes on the charmed "youngest sister" quest-role. As in three-sister fairy tales, the story of Zenia is repeated three times, each only slightly different than the previous telling.The three chapters built around the women are bookended by four shorter chapters ("Onset", "The Toxique", "The Toxique", and "Outcome", with historian Tony's voice guiding "Onset" and "Outcome", and all three voices present in the two Toxique chapters), bringing the total to seven, and giving the novel a mirrorlike, palindromic
Palindrome
A palindrome is a word, phrase, number, or other sequence of units that can be read the same way in either direction, with general allowances for adjustments to punctuation and word dividers....
structure. Also, the three women have four children between them, and this younger generation feels the mechanisms of Zenia as well.
The false bride motif
A common cross-cultural fairy-tale framework in which the heroine's husband is kidnapped by a bewitching rival, initiating a long, arduous quest to reclaim him.Metamorphosis, mirrors, and shapeshifting
Zenia herself is compared to wolves, vampires, dragons, witches, part-human and non-human, supernatural entities and forces of nature; her stories and shifting autobiographies merely represent one facet of her slipperiness. She sheds these like she sheds identities and biographies, even physically transforming herself through starvation, surgery, hairstyles, to most effectively approach her victims. Roz views Zenia as a product of "FrankensteinFrankenstein
Frankenstein; or, The Modern Prometheus is a novel about a failed experiment that produced a monster, written by Mary Shelley, with inserts of poems by Percy Bysshe Shelley. Shelley started writing the story when she was eighteen, and the novel was published when she was twenty-one. The first...
doctors". Tony strongly identifies Zenia with her imaginary twin sister, Ynot (note the mirror-language of this name). For Charis, Zenia represents her "severed half", the repressed memory of Karen (her real name) split off as a buffer against a severe emotional trauma. Each woman is subject to dreams or visions in which she becomes Zenia.
Plot parallels
Roz, with her childhood full of menial labour and her adulthood as a wealthy entrepreneur, represents CinderellaCinderella
"Cinderella; or, The Little Glass Slipper" is a folk tale embodying a myth-element of unjust oppression/triumphant reward. Thousands of variants are known throughout the world. The title character is a young woman living in unfortunate circumstances that are suddenly changed to remarkable fortune...
; Tony, whose home-office is in a tower, and who, as a history professor, works in the ivory tower
Ivory Tower
The term Ivory Tower originates in the Biblical Song of Solomon , and was later used as an epithet for Mary.From the 19th century it has been used to designate a world or atmosphere where intellectuals engage in pursuits that are disconnected from the practical concerns of everyday life...
, is Rapunzel
Rapunzel
"Rapunzel" is a German fairy tale in the collection assembled by the Brothers Grimm, and first published in 1812 as part of Children's and Household Tales. The Grimm Brothers' story is an adaptation of the fairy tale Persinette by Charlotte-Rose de Caumont de La Force originally published in 1698...
; and Charis, half-living in a dream world dominated by gardening and domestic arts, is Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty
Sleeping Beauty by Charles Perrault or Little Briar Rose by the Brothers Grimm is a classic fairytale involving a beautiful princess, enchantment, and a handsome prince...
. Zenia herself, in the opening pages of the novel, is introduced as a Gretel
Hansel and Gretel
"Hansel and Gretel" is a well-known fairy tale of German origin, recorded by the Brothers Grimm and published in 1812. Hansel and Gretel are a young brother and sister threatened by a cannibalistic hag living deep in the forest in a house constructed of cake and confectionery. The two children...
-figure, alone in a forest from an old woodcut, without family or guardian spirits, but dangerous for this.
Film adaptation
A film adaptation of The Robber Bride, starring Mary-Louise ParkerMary-Louise Parker
Mary-Louise Parker is an American actress, known for her current lead role on Showtime's television series Weeds portraying Nancy Botwin, for which she has received several nominations and the Golden Globe Award for Best Actress in 2006...
as Zenia, Wendy Crewson
Wendy Crewson
-Life and career:Crewson was born in Hamilton, Ontario, the daughter of June Doreen and Robert Binnie Crewson. She attended Queen's University in Kingston, Ontario, where she won the prestigious Lorne Greene Award for outstanding work in the theater. She then studied at the Webber Douglas Academy...
as Roz, Greg Bryk as Henry, Shawn Doyle
Shawn Doyle
Shawn Doyle is a Canadian actor.Doyle was born and raised in Wabush, Newfoundland, the son of actor Jerry Doyle. He moved to Toronto to study theatre at York University....
as John, Susan Lynch
Susan Lynch
Susan Lynch is an actor from Northern Ireland.-Early life:Lynch was born in Corrinshego, Newry, County Armagh, Northern Ireland to an Italian mother and Irish father. Her brother is actor John Lynch, she has a sister, Pauline, who is a drama teacher at St...
as Charis, Amanda Root
Amanda Root
Amanda Root is an English stage and screen actor and a former voice actor for children's programmes.Root known for her starring role in the 1995 BBC film adaptation of Jane Austen's Persuasion and the British TV comedy All About Me, as Miranda, alongside Richard Lumsden in 2004 and when she was a...
as Tony, Tatiana Maslany
Tatiana Maslany
-Acting career:Maslany is one of the stars of the Canadian TV series 2030 CE and is best known in her role as the character Ghost in Ginger Snaps 2: Unleashed...
as Augusta and Brandon Firla
Brandon Firla
Brandon Firla is a Canadian actor and comedian, currently best known for his role as Clark Claxton on the television sitcom Billable Hours...
as West, aired on CBC Television
CBC Television
CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...
in January 2007 and the Oxygen Network in March 2007.
The adaptation altered the plotline, choosing not to show Roz, Tony and Charis' childhood flashbacks and adding several new characters. As well, Augusta is taken by Zenia and the Toxique has been changed to Absinthe.