Hair Jewelry - Response

   After reading Margaret Atwood's short story Hair Jewelry, I was left being reminded of the qualities of some of my favorite screenwriters (namely Charlie Kaufman). In this story, Atwood is able to describe a narrative in an unconventional way through poetic language and descriptive metaphor while still being able to tell a grounded and relatable story; through the catalyst of a wardrobe full of clothes, we are delivered a very human story from inanimate objects. Movies that Kaufman has worked on like Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Anomalisa, and Synecdoche, New York are also reminiscent of this style of writing that perfectly encapsulates the human experience in a way that is simultaneously somber and humorous, idiosyncratic and universal, and romantic but dreary.  I believe the effective storytelling by Atwood and other writers like Kaufman demonstrated here lies in the limbo between these conflicting ideas.

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