Bread

by Margaret Atwood

Genres: Short Stories, School, Classics, Read For School, Fiction

Unknown Binding

Published January 1, 1983

About the author

Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in northern Ontario, Quebec, and Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master's degree from Radcliffe College.

Throughout her writing career, Margaret Atwood has received numerous awards and honourary degrees. She is the author of more than thirty-five volumes of poetry, children’s literature, fiction, and non-fiction and is perhaps best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1970), The Handmaid's Tale (1983), The Robber Bride (1994), Alias Grace (1996), and The Blind Assassin, which won the prestigious Booker Prize in 2000. Atwood's dystopic novel, Oryx and Crake, was published in 2003. The Tent (mini-fictions) and Moral Disorder (short stories) both appeared in 2006. Her most recent volume of poetry, The Door, was published in 2007. Her non-fiction book, Payback: Debt and the Shadow Side of Wealth ­ in the Massey series, appeared in 2008, and her most recent novel, The Year of the Flood, in the autumn of 2009. Ms. Atwood's work has been published in more than forty languages, including Farsi, Japanese, Turkish, Finnish, Korean, Icelandic and Estonian. In 2004 she co-invented the Long Pen TM.

Margaret Atwood currently lives in Toronto with writer Graeme Gibson.

Associations: Margaret Atwood was President of the Writers' Union of Canada from May 1981 to May 1982, and was President of International P.E.N., Canadian Centre (English Speaking) from 1984-1986. She and Graeme Gibson are the Joint Honourary Presidents of the Rare Bird Society within BirdLife International. Ms. Atwood is also a current Vice-President of PEN International.

Reviews

[saroyami ˚₊۶ৎ˙⋆]

I'm going to pretend I understood this story ✌️

[✨faith✨trust✨pixiedust✨ Dead Account; Not Coming Back · Rating 5 out of 5]

This essay used anecdotes about bread (a normal home scene, two starving siblings, a prisoner, and a folktale) to discuss privilege and excess and their contribution to starvation and inequality. I absolutely loved this essay! I have, up to this point, never read anything by Margaret Atwood before, though I have been exposed to her work before. I really want to read her novels now! This story was very poetic and evocative, as well as political without being overbearing. She painted these scenes with words by using scenes with darker, more morbid connotations. Even the first scene, with the bread in the kitchen, showed darker undertones when contrasted with the following scene involving the famine. The amount of bread, some even growing mold because it sat there uneaten for too long, and the excess of condiments spread onto a single slice to the point that honey spilled down onto the character's arm--it is almost grotesque in comparison to the starving sisters forced to choose between family or survival. I particularly found the use of the second-person perspective interesting. Atwood quite literally places us in the story, making us complicit.

[dilara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Sly, unsettling, real...
"You don't want to know, imagine that."

[Eliana Ferrero Estrada · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hay libros de muchas cantidad de páginas que a veces no te dejan ninguna enseñanza pero un cuento corto, un relato a veces te hace erizar la piel.

Eso es lo que siento con Bread, te hace re pensar algunas cosas de la vida.

El hambre es algo que no he vivido pero la escritora te hace sentirlo en tan pocas palabras. Te hace pensar en qué sucedería si...

Un pedazo de pan puede ser un pedazo de salvación.

[charlee ⋆·˚ ༘ * · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow... this is extremely intriguing, love the symbolism in this one!!

[meka ౨ৎ˖° · Rating 4 out of 5]

this is very interesting

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

SPOILER FREE!
read this short story for a class, and honestly enjoyed how eerie and deep it turned out to be. i wasn't expecting much because of its name and the way it begins, but at the end of it, you understand. the metaphors and the voice of this story give you a message to sit with. if you don't get it, read it again and ponder, what really does the bread signify?

[Tiff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Potente. That's it. That's the review.

[Andrea · Rating 4 out of 5]

he desarrollado trust issues respecto al pan.

[romina!! · Rating 2 out of 5]

que
2.5

[ariana⋆｡‧˚ʚ♡ɞ˚‧｡⋆ · Rating 3 out of 5]

that was...interesting

[Laura Martínez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short. Philosophical. Disturbing.

[BookManiac · Rating 5 out of 5]

5/5.

Wow. Only Atwood could derive so much meaning, make such a scathing commentary about overconsumption and inequality and hoarding and privilege, with bread...

[A ☾ · Rating 3 out of 5]

(For translation class)

[Jillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

It's very annoying that Margaret Atwood is so good a writer that she can make a second person piece about bread compelling. This is doubly annoying because she's both a good writer and a mean person. Recommended!