I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe a…

Margaret Atwood
608 citations
I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination. I firmly believe this.
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It's only afterwards that it becomes anything like a story at all. When you're telling it, to yourself or to someone else. ✨ Alias Grace. Book by Margaret Atwood, sensesofcinema.com. September, 1996.
I've learned quite a lot, over the years, by avoiding what I was supposed to be learning.
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She knows the rituals, she knows how we're supposed to be behaving...But I think these things are impenetrable and fraudulent, and I can't do them without feeling I'm acting.
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I was once a graduate student in Victorian literature, and I believe as the Victorian novelists did, that a novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination. I firmly believe this.

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