36 pages • 1 hour read
Stone Mattress
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Themes
How Individuals Cope with Aging
In Stone Mattress, many characters are growing old. The passage of time is a theme found in all of the stories.
In “Alphinland,” Constance escapes to her fantasy world, where time is stopped. Constance does not want to think about dying, possibly hoping to simply disappear in Alphinland instead.
In “Torching the Dusties” aging and the aged become the enemy. The story takes place in a nursing home in a time and place where a movement begins because younger generations protest older generations. The movement’s mission is to get rid of the elderly. Atwood writes that the idea of ridding the world of old people is not a new one: “The elderly used to bow out gracefully to make room for young mouths by walking into the snow or being carried up mountain sides and left there” (275).
Atwood has named the nursing home where the story takes place “Ambrosia Manor.” Ambrosia is a type of beetle that feeds on a cultivated fungus, much like the protestors feel the elderly are doing to society. Further, ambrosia salad is a type of food most often associated with generations gone by.
Meanwhile, Wilma, inside the home under attack by the youth, remembers exchanging secrets with her girlfriends in ladies’ powder rooms, “back when they were called ‘powder rooms’” (243). She suggests to Tobias that they try to escape Ambrosia Manor, but Tobias doesn’t think that is possible: “It is a question of the generations […] Time leaves its markings” (272).
In “I Dream of Zenia With the Bright Red Teeth,” Atwood insinuates that time is circular and that one returns to a childlike state as one comes closer to death. Charis, Tony, and Roz sit next to each other on the couch watching vampire movies and eating popcorn like they did as children:
Why are the three of them indulging in these adolescent pursuits […] They seem to have thrown away all the maturity and experience and wisdom they’ve collected like air miles over their middle years; just tossed them out, in favour of irresponsible buttery and salty munching and cheesy, adrenaline-soaked time wasting (158).
Thus, each of the characters or groups of characters in different stories cope with aging and the approach of death in different ways.
Fantasy Versus Reality
When the characters of the stories in Stone Mattress aren’t happy with their real life, they rely on fantasy. Many have created a fantasy world where they feel safe. This fantasy world protects them from the real world in which they actually live.
The collection begins with the story “Alphinland,” where Constance, the main character, talks to her dead husband. Wilma, in “Torching the Dusties,” also talks to her husband after he died. Both characters know their husbands are dead, but Constance and Wilma choose to communicate with them anyway. It is safer for the widows to live partially in a fantasy world where they can rely on their husbands, rather than in the real world where they are without their partners.
In the first three stories, Constance shifts to her fantasy world, Alphinland, when she needs to escape from reality. She admits that she has another alternate reality within her alternate reality when she says that outside of the real world, she believes that she and Jorrie could be friends. Because they eventually become friendly at the end of “Dark Lady,” it is hard for the reader to distinguish between what is true and what isn’t in Atwood’s stories, thereby bringing into play one aspect of Atwood’s postmodernism.
Another form of fantasy that appears in these tales is dreams, or dreaming. In “Alphinland,” Constance fears that Ewan, her recently-passed husband, has access to her dreams. Further, “I Dream of Zenia With the Bright Red Teeth” also relies on one of the main character’s dreams. “Time isn’t the same in dreams,” Charis relays to her friends. “In dreams, nobody’s dead, really” (156). In “Torching the Dusties,” Tobias tells Wilma that he had sexual dreams even though his relationship with her and the other women in the nursing home is platonic. Atwood seems to be asking the reader if women and men be friends, even at an old age, without sex or romance being part of the picture.
Revenge as a Hollow Endeavor
The stories in Stone Mattress include characters who seek revenge on people in their past. This is shown in the first three stories as Constance gets revenge on Gavin and Jorrie, at least in Constance’s mind, by locking them away in Alphinland. Meanwhile, Gavin wants revenge on Constance for being a successful author, even if he believes her work is simple. Gavin is especially resentful that he plays a part in Alphinland and therefore in Constance’s success. Jorrie attends Gavin’s funeral looking for a type of revenge. She goes to funerals to “tap dance on graves,” according to Tin (76-77). That she had such a lurid past with Gavin makes her go to his memorial seeking something.
In “The Dead Hand Loves You,” Jack seeks revenge on his old housemates, who had him sign a contract that said he would split the profits of his novel with them for eternity. The main conflict in “Stone Mattress” is Verna’s quest to take revenge on a man who raped her when they were both in high school. After Verna kills Bob, she feels “empty” (240), showing that revenge has fueled her more than anything else through her adult life.
In all of these examples, the desire for revenge is shown to be a hollow ordeal. For Constance, it is far more rewarding to befriend Jorrie rather than continue to resent her by locking her away in Alphinland. In turn, Jorrie finds camaraderie at Gavin’s funeral, rather than merely an opportunity to “tap dance” on his grave. In the most vivid example, Verna finds little satisfaction in ending the life of the man who raped her, as it does nothing to erase the trauma of her sexual assault. Consistently, Atwood frames revenge as a defensive posture, necessary for protecting oneself.
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