SOURCE: "Comic Storytelling as Escape and Narcissistic Self-Expression in Atwood's Lady Oracle," in his The Empathic Reader: A Study of the Narcissistic Character and the Drama of the Self, The University of Massachusetts Press, 1989, pp. 154-168.

In the following excerpt, Bouson explores the psychology of the protagonist in Lady Oracle.

Margaret Atwood's Lady Oracle has tantalized, amused, and baffled critics who are fascinated with its duplicitous, protean narrator-heroine. "The task of fitting the pieces of the puzzle together, the puzzle of Joan Foster," writes one critic, "is left to the reader." As Joan narrates the story of her life and exposes her narcissistic anxieties, hurts, and rage, she is undeniably funny. But even while we laugh at her comic descriptions of her mother-dominated childhood, her childhood obesity, her recurring fat lady fantasies, and her troubled relationships with men, we are aware that her comedic voice "covers a prolonged...