Margaret Atwood is a Canadian author of several books, some more known than others: The Edible Woman (1969), The Year of the Flood (2009), The Robber Bride (1994). In this essay I will be analyzing one of them called The Tent (2006). In this book Atwood writes about a dystopian world, but I will focus only on the story told in three pages, pages 143 to 146.

In her essay Antwood uses the idea of a tent, to express the feeling of being apart and protected from the outside world. I will look into the dystopian world the author describes and how it helps to create a connection to the reader as well as the writer. I will also look at how Antwood uses pathos and builds questions through her reading about the morals of the reader. 

The reason why I am analyzing Antwood work is because I am quite fascinated by this idea she portrays about the tent, and the choice of descriptive language that she uses to attract the reader’s attention into the world that she creates. Moreover, I find it interesting how Antwood has structured her essay in a way which creates a space where she controls the reader’s imagination, and where the reader can add to itself in their own way. It is powerful for the narrative as the readers can involve themselves more and more at the same time asking questions to themselves, questions which are not in the narrative, but the author is responsible for leading them to those questions. 

Antwood starts her essay by telling us the place where her story takes place, there’s no specific time, only descriptions about what is around us. “You’re in a tent. It’s vast and cold outside, very vast, very cold.” (Antwood 143) “There are thorny shrubs, gnarled trees, high winds.” (Antwood 143) she finishes to describe this place by telling the reader that they are safe inside their tent as there is a candle to keep them warm. Most importantly, the author introduces the idea that the tent it’s a safe place, it’s the wall that separates all the wilderness from the outside and the reader. She creates a map, from which the reader is the center and focuses on developing such maps throughout the story. 

Next, the author expands the idea that there is danger outside of the tent by introducing the howlers, “Many people are howling. Some howl in grief because those who they love have died or been killed, others howl in triumph because they have caused the loved ones of their enemies to die or be killed.” The author wants the reader to fear the howlers, to see them as creatures rather than humans. She introduces the howlers as people capable of feelings, of empathy, but also as people that have lost its humanity because of the outside world in which they live. She no longer calls them people, but changes to call them howlers. 

I will now analyze how Antwood uses the tent as a moral question to the reader 

“You don’t want to go out by yourself to see the wilderness” (Atwood ) Here the author suggests the ideas that you have about the outside world, and its wilderness, are just assumptions you have made based on what you hear, leaving the idea of you being in the wrong about the howlers. The possibility of you being wrong, of your fear taking over your thoughts and actions. This idea is projected even more during the text when the author decides to include the family of the reader. “not all of them hear the howls the same way you do” (Atwood 144)  “some of them think it sounds like a picnic” (Atwood 145). I think the choice of including the reader’s family changes the focus on the reader’s perspective. At first, the author gives an idea about what the danger is, the howlers. But, once the author decides to include the perspective of the family, the view of what the real danger is changes. The author uses it as a question the reader can ask to themselves, a question of whether or not the reader’s assumptions are correct. 

The organization of the essay goes from bigger to a smaller scale. At first the author, describe this vast world where few live, and few still have their sanity or what she calls the howlers, and then describes the thoughts of the reader who’s in the tent opening a question to what the reader thinks and what drives their actions, to finally end inside the tent where everything focuses on you, the reader making the story not being about the outside but about you. 

Even if the reader is aware about the tent being a metaphor, the story develops curiosity in the reader’s mind. The uses of Atwood in her literature make you reflect. I have come to this conclusion because of the next quote,“…but you keep on writing anyway because what else can you do?” (Atwood 146), the reader at end is indulged into its own mine, while Atwood gives the reader one option, that of writing on their own tent that’s burning, the reader can create their own conclusions, as by the end of the story, Atwood has attracted and kept the reader’s attention to finally them being the ones answering her question, and keep on writing their final on their own.