當代加拿大作家瑪格麗特‧艾特伍多年來寫作不輟，歸納她的主題，往往環繞女性的倫理責任困境，以及可能的抗拒策略。筆者以下討論，將集中於艾特伍數部具有代表性的小說，歸納出艾氏提出女性面對倫理困境後，所運用的抗拒策略，可大致分為如下三步驟：（一）運用虛構性自傳，製造女性參與論述的空間；（二）呈現女性倫理責任與困境；（三）運用女性記憶的重組，來對抗父權意識形態造成的創傷。筆者的結論是：女性的第一人稱生命書寫，雖然能夠闡述個別角色的特殊觀點，但也巨幅影響了呈現異己/異己的方式。艾氏筆下的女性勢必要面對倫理困境，因為她受限於父權社會的箝制；但脫困之道需要與制度抗爭，盡力爭取，因此在初期只是一種「可能」，而非必然。但唯有將創傷轉化為言語行為，或是文字，才能夠擺脫受害者心態，不再讓創傷畢生如影隨形，宛如受壓抑者不斷復返。

Margaret Atwood, the most famous contemporary Canadian writer, continues to focus her writing on the theme of the ethical dilemma of women, and the possible strategies of resistance. To sum up, the textual strategies Atwood engages are: 1) employing the device of fictive autobiography to construct women’s discourse; 2) presenting the ethical responsibilities women should undertake, and the dilemmas they encounter; 3) transforming memory into texts to resist the traumas imposed by patriarchal ideology. The conclusion I have reached is: though the first-person life writing presents a particular viewpoint, Atwood’s texts reveal the relation between self and the other from a female (or even feminist) perspective. The ethical dilemma of woman is unavoidable because she is trapped in a patriarchal society. Yet the way out of the dilemma has to be striven for. Atwood herself has long claimed that it is useless to be trapped in the victim mentality. In order to get rid of the victim mentality, it is imperative that women transform traumatic experiences into discourses, and never allow trauma to become recurring nightmares which show the return of the repressed.