I found the second speaker to be just like the voices in my head when I’m writing something. I see them as a sign of self-doubt that keep me from creating more. When you overanalyze what you’re writing, it’s really hard to move forward when working in a piece. There’s always a better, less prejudice-or-cliche-charged way of putting something down in words. Should we always pay attention to that, though? Wouldn’t that take away the luster of the writing? I definitely think that there should be an effort to insert a language free of prejudice and judgements into contemporary literary pieces. Constant revision while writing something, though, can work against you.

I also see the way Margaret Atwood approached the topic as a form of criticism to how society can be normative. Television and movies are filled with white characters being the focus of most stories, for example. That second speaker, the voice of consciousness, criticizes the need of the author to go down that same path.

Other issues are also brought up, such as how the author mentions the girl’s weight and portrays a mother-in-law as a bad person, adding more to these stigmatized matter. After a while facing the interruptions from this second speaker, I started to think of how there are so many social rules that we have to follow to be politically correct. Coming from a different culture where we don’t pay much attention to that, I used to find that habit overly dramatic. Now I do understand that being careful with how we approach certain topics is always important. If a group of people misinterpret the way you expressed yourself may have a destructive outcome.

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