Surfacing

by

Margaret Atwood

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

The Mother Character Analysis

The narrator’s mother died of some terminal illness “in the head,” possibly brain cancer, before the main events of the narrative. She delayed going to the hospital until she could no longer walk because she feared the doctors would prolong her painful life despite their inability to cure her—which is exactly what they did. Though the narrator had been avoiding her parents due to guilt and shame over her illegal abortion, she visited her mother in the hospital to tell her that she wouldn’t attend the funeral—a decision of which she thought her mother would approve. Her mother did seem to approve, though (as she had been given a lot of morphine) it wasn’t clear that she understood. During the narrator’s mental breakdown at the cabin, she sees her mother as a young woman and then as a transformed bird. After the narrator recovers, she realizes that her mother was just a human being whose full story the narrator never really knew.

The Mother Quotes in Surfacing

The Surfacing quotes below are all either spoken by The Mother or refer to The Mother. 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 2 Quotes

If you tell your children God doesn’t exist they will be forced to believe that you are the God, but what happens when they find out you are human after all, you have to grow old and die?

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Father, The Mother
Page Number: 104
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:

I willed it, I called to them, that they should arrive is logical; but logic is a wall, I built it, on the other side is terror.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Father, The Mother
Page Number: 178–179
Explanation and Analysis:

No gods to help me now, they’re questionable once more, theoretical as Jesus. They’ve receded, back to the past, inside the skull, it is the same place.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Father, The Mother
Page Number: 195
Explanation and Analysis:
Get the entire Surfacing LitChart as a printable PDF.
Surfacing PDF

The Mother Quotes in Surfacing

The Surfacing quotes below are all either spoken by The Mother or refer to The Mother. 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 2 Quotes

If you tell your children God doesn’t exist they will be forced to believe that you are the God, but what happens when they find out you are human after all, you have to grow old and die?

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Father, The Mother
Page Number: 104
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:

I willed it, I called to them, that they should arrive is logical; but logic is a wall, I built it, on the other side is terror.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Father, The Mother
Page Number: 178–179
Explanation and Analysis:

No gods to help me now, they’re questionable once more, theoretical as Jesus. They’ve receded, back to the past, inside the skull, it is the same place.

Related Characters: The Narrator (speaker), The Father, The Mother
Page Number: 195
Explanation and Analysis: