Margaret Atwood's writing, according to Davey, reveals not only an extraordinary facility with language, but also a deep mistrust of it as something shaped by an instrumental and largely male culture. Her language directs its readers to a hidden level of itself – unspoken, symbolic, gestural – and away from denotative meaning. In discussions of her poetry, fiction, short stories, and criticism, Davey offers a 'glossary' of recurrent Atwood images and symbols that can open this hidden level in nearly all of her writing.