3 aspects you enjoyed about the writing:

• “At the outset Verna had not intended to kill anyone”. Atwood hooks the audience with a short and impactful beginning sentence. I enjoyed how jarring this sentence was, as an audience it makes you question the entire plot of the story when given this statement without any context.
• Despite looking seductive and filled with femininity, Verna’s character contradicts her appearance and aesthetic. She is filled with rage and uses obscene language.
• The ironic ending with “Those Victorians always coupled sex with death. Who was that poet anyway? Keats? Tennyson? Her memory isn’t what it was. But the details will come back to her later.” Verna does self-reflection while the audience are left to wonder whether she has gotten away with murder. She quotes like her third husband but does not remember or care to remember which poet. Like Verna’s trauma, she’ll have the details “come back to her later” for further reflection.

2 things that make this writing unique:

• Atwood’s truncated sentences in order to capture the audience’s attention and Verna’s strategic mind
• Atwood’s narration does a fantastic job with allowing us to connect with Verna’s emotions and inner conflict towards Bob. “Now Bob grins a little. He looks pleased with himself: maybe he thinks Verna is blushing with desire. But he doesn’t recognize her! He really doesn’t! How many fucking Vernas can he have met in his life?”. Atwood utilises the rhetoric device, anaphora. Atwood appeals to the pathos of her audience, by repeating “he doesn’t” and allowing them to feel the frenzy state of Verna.

1 question you wish you could ask the author:

Had she written this piece as a form of emotional release from her own experiences or was she influenced by the large number of women that were wronged by their own “Bobs”.