Surfacing

by

Margaret Atwood

Teachers and parents! Our Teacher Edition on Surfacing makes teaching easy.

Anna Character Analysis

Anna, a green-eyed woman with dyed blond hair, is David’s wife and friends with Joe and the narrator. In fact, the narrator considers Anna her “best woman friend” though they’ve only known each other a few months. Anna reads palms and likes singing. Initially, the narrator believes that Anna and David have a good marriage, but after David makes a few lewd comments about the narrator’s body, Anna tells the narrator that David cheats a lot—their relationship went sour after Anna began genuinely to love David, an emotion he can’t handle. Anna wears a lot of makeup and becomes panicked when, on a camping trip during the search for the narrator’s father, she leaves it behind, telling the narrator that David will “punish” her for it. Shortly thereafter, David bullies an upset Anna into stripping naked for his experimental documentary Random Samples. On the same day, Anna has sex with Joe, with whom the narrator has been fighting. Oddly, when the narrator and Joe have sex again shortly thereafter, Anna seems to feel smugly friendly toward them, as though her actions brought them back together. During the narrator’s breakdown, she destroys the film of Anna stripped naked to “free” her friend but later thinks she should have destroyed Anna’s makeup compact instead. Anna leaves during the narrator’s breakdown and does not return.

Anna Quotes in Surfacing

The Surfacing quotes below are all either spoken by Anna or refer to Anna. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Logic and Insanity Theme Icon
).
Part 1  Quotes

They’re making a movie, Joe is doing the camera work, he’s never done it before but David says they’re the new Renaissance Men, you teach yourself what you need to learn.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna, The Father
Related Symbols: Random Samples
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:

What impressed him that time, he even mentioned it later, cool he called it, was the way I took my clothes off and put them on again later very smoothly as if I were feeling no emotion. But I really wasn’t.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna, The Father, Paul
Page Number: 24
Explanation and Analysis:

I recall the feeling, puzzled, baffled, when I found out some words were dirty and the rest were clean. The bad ones in French were the religious ones, the worst ones in any language were what they were most afraid of and in English it was the body, that was even scarier than God.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), David, Anna
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

I have to behave as though it doesn’t exist, because for me it can’t, it was taken away from me, exported, deported. A section of my own life, sliced off from me like a Siamese twin, my own flesh canceled.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Anna, The “Husband”
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2 Quotes

Love without fear, sex without risk, that’s what they wanted to be true; and they almost did it, I thought, they almost pulled it off, but as in magicians’ tricks or burglaries half-success is failure and we’re back to the other things.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna, The “Husband”
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

Prove your love, they say. You really want to marry me, let me fuck you instead. You really want to fuck, let me marry you instead. As long as there’s a victory, some flag I can wave, parade I can have in my head.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

Why had they strung it up like a lynch victim, why didn’t they just throw it away like the trash? To prove they could do it, they had the power to kill.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:

“You’ll go in beside the dead bird[.]”

Related Characters: David (speaker), The Narrator, Joe, Anna
Related Symbols: Random Samples
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3 Quotes

From any rational point of view I am absurd; but there are no longer any rational points of view.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna, The Father, The Mother, Evans
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Surfacing LitChart as a printable PDF.
Surfacing PDF

Anna Quotes in Surfacing

The Surfacing quotes below are all either spoken by Anna or refer to Anna. For each quote, you can also see the other characters and themes related to it (each theme is indicated by its own dot and icon, like this one:
Logic and Insanity Theme Icon
).
Part 1  Quotes

They’re making a movie, Joe is doing the camera work, he’s never done it before but David says they’re the new Renaissance Men, you teach yourself what you need to learn.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna, The Father
Related Symbols: Random Samples
Page Number: 6
Explanation and Analysis:

What impressed him that time, he even mentioned it later, cool he called it, was the way I took my clothes off and put them on again later very smoothly as if I were feeling no emotion. But I really wasn’t.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna, The Father, Paul
Page Number: 24
Explanation and Analysis:

I recall the feeling, puzzled, baffled, when I found out some words were dirty and the rest were clean. The bad ones in French were the religious ones, the worst ones in any language were what they were most afraid of and in English it was the body, that was even scarier than God.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), David, Anna
Page Number: 42
Explanation and Analysis:

I have to behave as though it doesn’t exist, because for me it can’t, it was taken away from me, exported, deported. A section of my own life, sliced off from me like a Siamese twin, my own flesh canceled.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Anna, The “Husband”
Page Number: 45
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 2 Quotes

Love without fear, sex without risk, that’s what they wanted to be true; and they almost did it, I thought, they almost pulled it off, but as in magicians’ tricks or burglaries half-success is failure and we’re back to the other things.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna, The “Husband”
Page Number: 79
Explanation and Analysis:

Prove your love, they say. You really want to marry me, let me fuck you instead. You really want to fuck, let me marry you instead. As long as there’s a victory, some flag I can wave, parade I can have in my head.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna
Page Number: 87
Explanation and Analysis:

Why had they strung it up like a lynch victim, why didn’t they just throw it away like the trash? To prove they could do it, they had the power to kill.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna
Page Number: 118
Explanation and Analysis:

“You’ll go in beside the dead bird[.]”

Related Characters: David (speaker), The Narrator, Joe, Anna
Related Symbols: Random Samples
Page Number: 135
Explanation and Analysis:
Part 3 Quotes

From any rational point of view I am absurd; but there are no longer any rational points of view.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), Joe, David, Anna, The Father, The Mother, Evans
Page Number: 173
Explanation and Analysis: