The Angel in the House

Nobody defends Lucie Manette, the fainting, golden-haired ideal. Atwood doesn't exactly defend her either; she does something more interesting. First she reconstructs the world that manufactured girls like this, from Mrs. Beeton's household generals to the wet nurses and baby farmers the era politely called angel makers. Then she asks where this particular angel actually came from, and the answer is not an archetype. It's a person Dickens knew, and grieved, and could never have. Atwood's claim: he wasn't writing an ideal at all. His life had already written it for him.