Editing Margaret Atwood (section)

=== Animal rights ===
Atwood repeatedly makes observations about the relationships of humans to animals in her works.<ref>{{Cite book|last=Vogt|first=Kathleen|year=1988|chapter=Real and Imaginary Animals in the Poetry of Margaret Atwood|chapter-url=https://archive.org/details/margaretatwoodvi0000unse/page/162/mode/2up|editor1-last=VanSpanckeren|editor1-first=Kathryn|editor2-last=Castro|editor2-first=Jan Garden|title=Margaret Atwood: Vision and Forms|url=https://archive.org/details/margaretatwoodvi0000unse/mode/2up|url-access=registration|series=Ad Feminam: Women and Literature|location=Carbondale, IL|publisher=Southern Illinois University Press|page=[https://archive.org/details/margaretatwoodvi0000unse/page/164/mode/2up 164]|isbn=0585106290|oclc=43475939}}</ref> A large portion of the [[dystopia]] Atwood creates in ''[[Oryx and Crake]]'' concerns the genetic modification and alteration of animals and humans, resulting in hybrids such as pigoons, rakunks, wolvogs and Crakers, raising questions on the limits and ethics of science and technology, and on what it means to be human.<ref>{{Cite journal|last=Sanderson|first=Jay|title=Pigoons, Rakunks and Crakers: Margaret Atwood's ''Oryx and Crake'' and Genetically Engineered Animals in a (Latourian) Hybrid World|journal=Law and Humanities|volume=7|issue=2|pages=218–239|doi=10.5235/17521483.7.2.218|year=2013|s2cid=144221386}}</ref>

In ''[[Surfacing (novel)|Surfacing]]'', one character remarks about eating animals: "The animals die that we may live, they are substitute people&nbsp;... And we eat them, out of cans or otherwise; we are eaters of death, dead Christ-flesh resurrecting inside us, granting us life." Some characters in her books link sexual oppression to meat-eating and consequently give up meat-eating. In ''[[The Edible Woman]]'', Atwood's character Marian identifies with hunted animals and cries after hearing her fiancé's experience of hunting and eviscerating a rabbit. Marian stops eating meat but then later returns to it.<ref name=Adams>Carol J. Adams. 2006. ''The Sexual Politics of Meat: A Feminist-Vegetarian Critical Theory''. The Continuum International Publishing Group. pp. 141–142, 152, 195, 197.</ref>

In ''[[Cat's Eye (novel)|Cat's Eye]]'', the narrator recognizes the similarity between a turkey and a baby. She looks at "the turkey, which resembles a trussed, headless baby. It has thrown off its disguise as a meal and has revealed itself to me for what it is, a large dead bird." In Atwood's ''Surfacing'', a dead [[heron]] represents purposeless killing and prompts thoughts about other senseless deaths.<ref name=Adams />

Atwood is a [[Pescetarianism|pescetarian]]. In a 2009 interview she stated that "I shouldn't use the term vegetarian because I'm allowing myself [[gastropod]]s, [[crustacean]]s and the occasional fish. Nothing with fur or feathers though".<ref>Wright, Laura. (2015). ''The Vegan Studies Project: Food, Animals, and Gender in the Age of Terror''. [[University of Georgia Press]]. p. 83. {{ISBN|978-0-8203-4856-8}}</ref>