Literary Analysis: Change and Morality

Morality is a very controversial topic when it comes to whether we can change it or not, but when we look at change and morality, we see how different beliefs can vary from person to person. When a person thinks of morals (being able to know right from wrong) generally the idea of morality and change even fitting in the same sentence seems impossible, but it is not. Margret Atwood does a great job of showing the relationship between morality and change in her text “Lusus Naturae”. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, morality is defined as “beliefs about what is right behavior and what is wrong behavior” (Merriam-Webster). For a character to have such a bizarre disease as described in this text, it would be hard to say that their morality would not change at all. Although many people have a set rigid morality, for most people there are still instances where their views do change. We as a society should be able to change our morality at any point in our lives, because society is changing at such a rapid rate and ultimately so are our morals. Many people don’t want to change their morals because they are afraid of being different, but in today’s society not only is it okay to be different, it is often times encouraged and even applauded. Margret Atwood does a great job of showing changing morality in her short story “Lusus Naturae” through not only the main character but also through everyone close to her, by showing that it is okay to be different in many instances. According to the Merriam-Webster dictionary, change is defined as “to become different” (Merriam-Webster). For example, if you have a definite opinion on a subject but if at some point in time your opinion becomes different regarding that subject, it would be considered change. Any person can change whether it be as big as a physical or mental change, or as small as an opinion change regarding a particular topic. When it comes to morality it seems that it can be changed fairly easily depending on what degree of change is involved. For example, in prior generations, sex before marriage was considered something to be frowned upon so much to the extent that people were sometimes actually killed for committing the act. Today, although still not everyone believes that sex before marriage is okay, it is becoming more commonplace and is considered completely normal and acceptable by some people’s standards. Within “Lusus Naturae” we see that not only does the daughters’ morality change, but so does the morality of many of the other characters. If a person were not able to change in any way, shape, or form, there would be many problems that would never be solved in this world. Within Atwood’s story, we see the morality of the mother change as she shifts her views and accepts, grudgingly, who her daughter really is. For example, when the story begins, we first see the mother care for her daughter with love and acceptance of her condition and she seems to see her through her eyes as being perfectly fine. However, as the as the story goes on the mother’s opinion begins to change and she starts to see her daughter as more of a monster and liability instead of the human being, however flawed, that she is. In the beginning of the story, the mother helped her daughter in many ways; “Once she used to brush my hair, before it came out in handfuls; she’d been in the habit of hugging me weeping; but she was past that now. She came and went as quickly as she could. However she tried to hide it, she resented me, of course.” (Atwood 226-227) We now see that the mother was not as much of a mother as she used to be, and we witness her changing morals where instead of seeing her daughter as a good human being worthy of compassion and love she now sees her as unworthy and treats her as “something” that is horrific or bad. The mother becomes so shameful, and so fearful of how others may view them that she actually goes to the length of faking her daughter’s death to stop possible public humiliation and shunning on the family. “It was decided that I should die. That way I would not stand in the way of my sister, I would not loom over her like a fate.” (Atwood 226). All these examples showing that people’s morals can change, whether going from good to bad, or vice versa.

Whether we realize it or not, we base our lives around morality, and we are constantly deciding whether or not to do many things based on whether we believe it is acceptable or not. If we were not able to change our morals, this world is one that we would not want to be living in. This would mean that all murderers, thieves and other criminals would never be able to change or be rehabilitated, making this world a much more violent and dark place. Atwood shows that the daughter struggles with accepting her disease throughout the story, and she also struggles with the thought of being and being labeled a monster, but eventually she is able to accept and move on with her life, although, it is not an easy life by any means, and certainly not the one she expected to live The same scenario goes for when she thinks about going into the city to do medical testing in that you can see she initially thinks that it is a bad idea, but towards the end of the story she when she feels all hope is gone, she has a fleeting moment of thought that testing might not be such a bad idea. All of this is just proof that it is okay to change our morals. If we look at the facts and weigh out the pros and cons of change we could easily see that the pros would win.

Overall, Atwood shows that change in morality is possible and can be a good thing. She take “Lusus Naturae” and shows society it is okay to be different, and that changing morality can be a good thing in certain situations. We are living in a society that is constantly changing which makes it very hard for people not to change along with the times their ways of thinking, their physical appearances and what they believe in. We are constantly influenced by all the people we encounter daily, our families, society as a whole, the government, TV, newspapers, and many other social medias. Although we shouldn’t give up and change our views on everything we believe in, but like Atwood showed we should definitely be open enough to see what else is out there in this great big world.

Work Cited

Atwood, Margaret. “Lusus Naturae” The Norton Introduction to Literature. Shorter 11th ed. Ed. Kelly J. Mays. New York: Norton, 2013. 224-228. Print.

Merriam-Webster. Merriam-Webster, n.d. Web. 02 Apr. 2016. <http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/morality>.

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