Analyse af 'The Sin Eater' af Margaret Atwood

The short story “The sin eater” is about a woman, who is seeing a psychiatrist. The women herself is the narrator of the story. The psychiatrist, Joseph, is not like other psychiatrist, because most of the time it is him, who is doing the talking. Their relationship is more than professional, but less than intimate. Unexpectedly the modern psychiatrist dies, leaving three former wives, many other female patients and of course the narrator feeling betrayed. She is horrified, yet also angry with him for having risked his life by pruning a tree, from which he fell to his death.

Then there is a funeral for him and when the narrator attends to his memorial service, she discovers that she has more in common with his former wives than with his other patients.

Joseph, the dead psychiatrist, believed himself to be the sin-eater of his generation, absorbing all the problems, fears, and sins of his patients. But however, as the story progresses, it becomes increasingly clear that his sessions were more therapeutic for him than for the women with whom he surrounded himself.

At the end of the story the narrator has a dream about Joseph and not until then she accepts that he is dead and believes that she can survive alone.