Dystopian Tradition in Margaret Atwood's
The Handmaid's Tale
A Review Article
by
Marwan M. Abdi
Course; Science Fiction Narrative
Instructor; Dr. Ismael Mohammed Fahmi
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Introduction
Concepts such as Utopia and dystopia are some of the major topics being tackled by the
majority of the works of science fiction. The future worlds, are presented in works such
as H G Wells’s The Time Machine where the future is distorted and the side effect of the
technology are manifest in a very horrifying context. This tradition of writing inspired the
coming generations of science fiction and metafictional writers to deal with similar
archetypal themes in a different medium. For instance, concepts such as Good vs Evil,
man vs nature, the spirituality vs technology and the utopian ideals of the human beings
turned into dystopia, are tackled by many writers during the modern and postmodern era.
George Orwell's 1984 for instance is one the seminal works of science fiction, which
deals with a dystopian community created by a totalitarian regime. This concern for
human beings especially woman who were manipulated and exploited by an oppressive
regime is represented in Margaret Atwood’s the Handmaid's Tale, which basically is
modelled after the nightmarish world of Nineteen Eighty-Four. Although Atwood’s novel
follows the traditional theme of humanity’s victimization and exploitation in a dystopian
community, but there are many techniques and innovations used in this novel that makes
it not only a seminal work of metafiction but also a distinguished work of postmodern
dystopian tradition. This review article is going to examine some researches done in this
field in order to find out in what senses Atwood's novel is different from the earlier
traditions.
Rationale
During the recent decades many of the scholars have tried to re-examine works of
literature from multiple perspectives, such as the feminist, psychological and other
postmodern trends in literary representation. Science fiction narratives and historical
metafictions are some of the most popular sub- genres during the recent decades.
Margaret Atwood’s works basically try to reflect upon universal concerns while taking
into account the case of women who have been victimized throughout history in different
contexts. Therefore, I believe studying and doing research about works that use
postmodern techniques in terms of narration in order to deal with feminist concerns is a
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very significant issue. The aesthetic thematic and the technical aspects and the
postmodern strategies of such works as The Handmaid's Tale could be highlighted in
order to inspire the future generations of readers to re-examine these feminist concerns
from a new perspective. Such works, I believe deal with the same universal concerns
throughout history, but their aesthetic quality gets the reader beyond the normal
perceptions to grasp and ultra-reality that could not be communicated through a
documented history or other means of communication. For this reason, I believe decoding
the messages within such novels and uncovering the moral lesson that is behind their
artistic representation should be taken into account by the contemporary scholars.
Research Approach
For studying and evaluating the following articles related to scientific metafiction,
postmodern approaches are applied, since this work is a meta narrative that breaks down
the traditional conceptions of History, historiography and narration. Theories of critics
such as Linda Hutcheon in the field of historical metafiction and other psychoanalytical
theories are going to be employed for the analytical evaluation of the following papers.
The major critical approach that is going to be employed in the following works, is
basically a New-Historical approach, (cultural studies) and psychoanalytical approaches
of the French psycho-feminists.
Review of the Articles
"The Handmaid's Tale": A Contextual Dystopia by David Ketterer (1989)
This article starts with writer’s acknowledgement of the Handmaid's Tale as one of the
seminal works of the Canadian science fiction narrative. In this introduction Ketterer
highlights Atwood’s concern for human being’s fatalism and his survival, and draws
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attention to concepts such as pollution and catastrophes and the decrease in the birth rate.
This gradually establishes the paper’s major argument that is, how Atwood’s novel
portrays these concerns for humanity’s fate? In this section however the reader can
notice that there is a very high concern for women since Atwood as a feminist writer was
basically trying to portray women who were victimized by various male dominated
systems throughout history. After this introduction, the article provides a very quick
outline of the story and categorizes female characters in this novel into four major
groups in order to highlight the extents of the abuse. In these categories women are
classified into those who were fertile and used as two-legged wombs; those who were
sterile; the servants and finally those who were called the unwoman. Within a horrifying
system of abuse and manipulation called the republic of Gilead, Ketterer introduces the
protagonist who is called Offred whose name has many connotations such as; rebellious,
afraid or offered. Providing the connotations behind her name and quoting Patrick
Parminder one of the seminal critics of the science fiction, gives the reader a sense that
this article's arguments are going to be supported by famous in this field.
Through elaborating more on Offred’s story, her familial history and her feminist
upbringing, Ketterer compares this work with George Orwell's 1984 to focus on the
similarities between them which are basically in terms of portraying a future world
characterized by communal ceremonies of worship and the suffocating atmosphere. The
fundamentally religious feature of the regime that is governing this future world is
highlighted through the abuse of the woman in various forms, even in the form of
"particicuioners" which means those who participated in executing other people who
were against the system. After this informative discussion which I found very crucial,
since this work is very symbolic and complicated in terms of characterization and
thematic representation, the writer raises his arguments that many of the features of the
Gilead, are seen in other works of dystopian science fiction. But after this generalization
Ketterer argues that Atwood’s society has a unique nature and elaborates on this through
Atwood’s techniques such as irony , understatement, symbolism and female imagery.
This kind of reference to Lacan’s "yonic" symbols are opposed to the phallic symbols is
analyzed in depth and comprehensively and recalls the "concave symbols" that in
psychological theories, symbolize signs of female power. This kind of analysis I believe
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could have been more comprehensive with reference to Lacan's and Freud’s concepts of
the symbolic order, and the mirror stage (Dobie, 2015, p.59).
After elaborating on such symbols meanings which basically establish a feminine mood
throughout the text, ketterer draws attention to the ending section called Historical
Notes, where professor Pieixoto, is reading and evaluating Offred’s story of about the
nightmarish Gileadean society. The two stories are contrasted; one dystopian, and the
other another historical context in which a professor tries to objectively evaluate the past.
The Historical Notes part in which Pieixoto tries to decode a story related to the
Gileadean context, ketterer considers as a contextual dystopia, since it is transitory a
non-permanent like that of the nineteen eighty-four. He goes on and explains that Atwood
is not merely concerned with the past event that has created their dystopia instead, while
dealing with the past, she also focus is on the discontinuous, that's to say the succeeding
context, historical development that follows after the dystopia.
Although the reader might find this argument difficult to comprehend, but Ketterer brings
an examples from a classical works of science fiction, jack London the Iron heel(1906),
in which a utopian community is hinted to exist after the removal of the dystopia.
Drawing upon on the linear conception of time in the traditional dystopia, this article
argues that in Atwood’s the Handmaid's Tale there is a cyclical conception of time, i.e.,
a progressive and regressive spiral. The end of the story, where the professor evaluates
the traumatic history of women in the Gilead society from a sexist perspective, the reader
can get a sense that the mentioned future is our own context, our own modern day in
which still woman are being victimized under different labels. Although throughout the
story Offred is able to go through a journey of self-realization and self-assertion and finds
her own identity but her story that is handed down to the generations is misinterpreted by
people like Pieixoto, who overlooks the very subjective nature of Offred’s story and her
resistance against the dominant order.
In such a contextual dystopia which is dominated by my light and without shadows, as
the writer finally argues, ironically the academics are even not able to identify Offred’s
name that is clearly hinted as June in her story. This limited perspective of the post-
Gilead society makes it another dystopia in the very remote future. At the end Ketterer
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differentiates this type of dystopian literature from works such as 1984, since the
protagonist addresses her privates audience at the end asking whether they are still
surviving out there reading her book or not.
‘Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”: Scheherazade in Dystopia’ by Karen
F. Stein (1991)
This article written by Karen stein, from the very beginning establishes itself as a
feminist reading of Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid's Tale and draws attention to the
silenced and the voiceless woman in the story. The writer then narrows down her
discussion on language and narration in the novel and women’s endeavor to steal
language from the patriarchal system in order to use it as a tool for subverting the male
dominated order. Next, she refers to feminist theorists such as Elaine Showalter, who are
basically concerned with a female discourse which could challenge a patriarchal
discourse which have been dominated throughout history. This introduction leads to an
argument that, the Handmaid's narrative basically highlights the silenced women and
themes such as oppression and resistance which are resonated through a narrative which
depicts the dilemmas of the protagonist.
After this introduction the article is structured into four separate sections that focuses on
Offred, Pieixoto and the Atwood’s authorial voice. In this part similar to Ketterer's article
George Orwell's 1984 is compared to this novel, but here Stein basically focuses on the
unvoiced woman who are rendered invisible by an autocratic government. Through her
storytelling she tries to assert herself and although at first she is speechless and invisible,
she gradually is able to discover her past, present and even her future dreams. In order to
highlight the extent of abuse of the abusive of the male-dominated system, stein uses a
lot of examples in a very simplistic manner which I found very informative and
comprehensive. Very clearly, she associates woman's misery with the repressive
government which considered language as taboo for women, but in spite of all this Offred
managed to appropriate a language for finding her true self. This kind of correlating
woman's freedom with language and identity is an overarching aspect of the paper that I
believe could be more developed through referring to Jacques Lacan’s theory of symbolic
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order in which language is viewed as the primary reason for shaping an individual's
identity (Bressler, 2011, p. 135). Also the analogy between this character who is
hegemonized by a patriarchal authority and Scheherazade, the storyteller of the Persian
tradition of A Thousand and A Night who tried to survive through storytelling is a very
innovative aspect of the article. In other words both women are similar in terms of
employing their art of story telling and manipulating language for survival and finding
their true place in the society .
The next section which is a structured basically around Pieixoto's tale, and Offred’s story
being narrated and evaluated from his perspective, focuses on the patriarchal mindset of
the post Gileadean society. In this part that gives the reader an image of a far future, Stein
draws attention to the problematic nature of interpreting a very subjective story about
traumas of a woman. Just making association between the nature of the narration and
interpretation, whether it has to be subjective or objective, very interestingly she notes
that language always has been used as a means for hegemonizing the ‘Other’. Offred's
story is evaluated in a narrow, male-centered and scientific one which is unable to
interpret her emotions, her love for freedom and her aspirations for free choice. This
contrast or analogy between the world of the Gilead and the post-Gilead dystopian
context as studied through the usage of language, I believe to be a very string aspect of
the article, since it integrates ideas related to psychology and feminism into Lacan’s
theory of the symbolic order which shapes an individuals identity. At first Offred is not
given the right of a speaking and writing in the republic of Gilead, and her case does not
improve in the post- Gileadean dystopian context, since, as I noticed the male-centered,
scientific and objective way of finding the truth continues to silence her voice.
Additionally, Stein elaborates more on the voiceless woman and her traumas through a
comparison between Sigmund Freud’s patient Dora and the protagonist of this is story.
This comparing and contrasting provides the reader with an insight into Offred's
psychology. Analyzing the oppressed women's case as hysteria which is the result of the
suppressed traumas of the past, is a very strong shift in the article, but I believe in
addition to Kahane's theories taking advantage of psycho feminist theories of Julia
Kristeva which basically is grounded on the concept of fragmented psyche could be more
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useful to be added to this discussion. Hence through this analogy the writer concludes
that, is similar to Sigmund Freud, professor Pieixoto fails to answer crucial questions
related to Offred's subjective feelings and her true identity due to his sexist vantage point
and instead he gets distracted with none important questions about her destiny.
After this part Stein dedicates another section to Offred in order to elaborate more on the
usage of language as a means of self-expression but from a postmodern perspective.
Reading her narrated and documented story as the article argues could be both from a
factual and an imaginative perspective. Here stein draws attention to the metafictional
aspects of this novel which deconstructs history in order to get the reader beyond history
and into imagination. She doubts the potential of language to be a perfect medium for
representing experience, which is equality exactly associated with the metafictional
writings. Similar to Ketterer's paper which was discussed above, this article focuses on
the metafictional strategies which are used by the writer to remove the boundary between
fiction and reality. This is a very postmodern aspect of the text that reminds us of the
story of " Eisenheim The Illusionist" by Steven Millhauser which starts with facts and
documented history but gradually transforms into an illusionary account of the life of an
artist. At the end of this short story imagination and the subjective feelings are prioritized
to the historical facts and objective truths. Similar the Illusionist, Offred primarily is
represented as an invisible figure in a historical setting but gradually through narrations
and through getting engaged in active relationships with people she gradually gains voice
identity and space within the suffocating atmosphere of the Gilead. Because works of
SFN are basically using similar frameworks to deal with some archetypal themes, I
believe intertextuality and referring to similar works in the same field would make the
discussions and the arguments richer and more convincing.
Offred’ desire for shaping up her own future and finding her true self through writing her
own story, and having control over her story’s ending reminds me of the concept of the
narrative-cure and talking-cure in psychiatry in which the patient who suffers from
psychological disorder is motivated by the psychologist to narrate her past traumas.
Through this narration which has a therapeutic effect, the patient goes through the
process of self-cure. In this sense, we can compare this novel to Morrison’s Beloved in
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which a hysteric character, who is female and black is victimized by a white and
authoritative system. Therefore, the employment of language by the victims as a source
weapon against authority is the very unifying concept that we can find in both novels.
The grey line between fact and fiction which is challenged by this postmodern science
fiction narrative, is correlated to the character's confession within Offred confesses that
she was leaving in the “gaps” between the stories, i.e., her story was so subjective that
could neither be documented in the form of history nor through fiction. Because in both
cases her story would be narrowed down to a limited perspective. This part the article I
believe is the very complex but informative part of the article since, Stein's analysis in
terms of metafictional aspects, the narrative techniques and the characters’ role within
this interplay between fact and fiction, come to a confluence and lead to the paradoxical
nature of this story that has to end without any closure. This book as Stine argues remains
problematic in terms of the levels of the plot, since the heroine is both a victim and
resisting character and the reader is not given a clue whether she is finally able to gain
power through language or not. (her story ends with a male's interpretation)
The final part of the paper is dedicated to Margaret Atwood, whom Stein considers as
Scheherazade and the true invisible storyteller who unveils the bitter truth; that in Gilead
women had a very significant role in their own oppression and this is justified through
characters who indirectly had a role in the sufferings of other women. Here, the concept
of grey line between fact and fiction comes to a confluence with the concept of the
doubles which reminds us of the “basic devices of the fantastic literature” which Jorge
Luis Borges calls, “ the work within the work; the contamination of the reality by dream;
the voyage in time and the double” (cited by Kinzie , p. 117). In other words in this story
we can notice that history is contaminated with imagination, that is Offred's story , two
different worlds are compared but at the end they both turn out to be dystopias, when
compared to the idyllic life before the Gilead. Ending the story with Pieixoto's
interpretation of women's history (her story) is a very thought-provoking ending;
implying that Offred’s story has to be retold and preserved, because due to humans’
nature oppression and victimization is going to be a continuous process. Here Stein
wraps up her discussions that the novel’s ending with a question mark is a very
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postmodern aspect of the novel in which the task of interpretation is left to the reader who
is compelled to read beyond the ending. This open-ended feature makes this work a self-
conscious text which has the potentials of deconstructing and reconstructing and
reinterpreting , in a sense, as Shelimoth Kennan argues, such postmodern self-conscious
narratives are able to repeatedly reverses the hierarchal order in a text through
transforming the object being narrated into an agent narrating the story, which we saw
in Offred’s case in which. Hence the borderline which separates “The narrating subject
from the narrated object” is broken down and results in a paradoxical situation in which
text defines reality and governs the reader (Kennan, 2011, ps. 96-97).
"The Handmaid's Tale": "Historical Notes" and Documentary Subversion" by
Dominick M. Grace
This article, written by Grace, from the very beginning concerns itself with the utopian
alternative, i.e., the post-Gilead community which is explained in the "Historical Notes".
Through this introduction the writer draws attention to the very similar aspects of this
context and our own world an idea that was noted in the former article. In the future
world that is represented in this story, as the writer argues, Atwood presents some
degrees of dystopia. Unlike the traditional science fiction which provides pseudo-
documentary devices to suspend the readers' disbelief, this novel subverts the traditional
conventions of the science fiction, that is, presenting a real future. Grace goes on to
compare Atwood’s work with Thomas More's Utopia and Shelley's Frankenstein, as
examples of traditional forms of science fiction narrative. The way these works use
pseudo-documentary devices in there narrations in order to make the story more credible
and believable, is explained through some examples such as Waltons letters in
Frankenstein and correspondences and reference to real figures from history in Thomas
More's utopia. This comparison and allusion to other literary texts is a quality that stands
out in this work while the former articles barely used this technique. I believe works of
literature could be evaluated in relationship with other literary works not in isolation, for
this reason this article’s approach could be more useful especially to those who are trying
to handle one specific theme in a number of texts.
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The Handmaid's Tale as a text is that envisions a dystopian future as Grace argues, faces
a larger credibility gap when compared to traditional works of SFN. Comparing this work
with other works in this field, Grace examines the nature the final Historical Notes,
which unlike the traditional pseudo-documentations of the SFN reevaluate what has
happened in the past through a retrospective insight. These disjunctive and discontinues
notes, instead of making the reader suspended their disbelieve incite us to question the
authenticity of the events rather than passively accepting them. After this grace quotes
Jamie Dopp and David Ketterer to raise their argument that the Pos-Gileadean context is
a near- future dystopia which is very similar to our own context, and this nature of the
section makes us think about the opposing linear vs cyclical visions of History which I
believe could be more elaborated on through Fredrick Jameson's conception of history.
One of the very significant strategies of the text is to make the reader doubt the reliability
of the historicity of the text, because an objectives and factual approach to Offred’s story
which was noted and highlighted by the former article is very limited and can’t grasp the
reality of Offred’s experience. Offred’s acknowledging that she is reconstructing her
story and her own subjectivity and her introspective attitude and her reflections on her
thoughts and Memories are represented through multiple quotes and citations from the
text which are very interestingly arranged by the author. Such a strategy repeatedly
emphasizes the subjective nature of history and that there are no historical truths which
is an idea I found in Michelle Foucault’s perspectives concerning that non-linear aspect
of the history. Viewing the text from a metal fictional prospective, which is in a sense
new-historical, I believe to be one of the overarching aspects of this article that gets to its
peak when Offred defines her story as her very subjective and reflective thoughts and
emotions. In this sense I believe Atwood’s novel is very similar to E. L. Doctorow's
Ragtime and Toni Morrison’s Beloved, which are seminal works of metafiction. These
novels prioritize imagination over historical documentations. The way Offred confesses
that she lived in the gaps between her stories, is one of the most significant features that
is seen not only in this work but also in the majority of the self-conscious metanarratives
of the postmodern fiction, which mix science with history and imagination. I believe this
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aspect of the article makes it so informative and useful as a reference for any future
studies on postmodern historiographical science fictions, since they always deal with the
grey line between fact and fiction - reality and imagination which is the very core aspect
of the postmodern SF and metafictional narratives.
Offred's story could be only seen by the very perceptive eyes, since the authoritative
power in Gilead monopolizes history through language, in order to challenge this
monolithic perspective, Offred embarks on the journey of finding her true self through
various subjective perspectives which we can simply notice as sort of defiance against
authority. A very interesting quote which is selected by Grace to highlight, the
protagonist’s epiphanies and newly gained perspectives is the example of the chair,
where she starts to think of the chair as having different meanings associated with
authority, charity, execution, etc. This section trigger's in the mind the Surrealists'
approach to ‘reality’, which was very subjective and even associated with the
subconscious drives of the individuals. I believe this kind of emphasis on psyche could be
elaborated more via implications to the very subjective and dreamlike desires as the
supra-real ‘Truth’ which was heralded by Breton’s followers who dealt with narration
and the characters from a very in-depth and comprehensive psychological perspective.
This surrealist conception of reality which I personally think as an outstanding feature of
the Novel, although is not referred to explicitly by Grace, but could best explain Offred’s
attempt to get herself free from the objective reality which is imposed by the oppressive
system. In other words, similar to the surrealist artists, she tries to represent the reality
that is found in her subconscious in her narrative work. Through this process, she would
find control over the ending of her story, and similar to Morrison’s Beloved when she can
heal her traumas through writing her own story from her own prospective. This idea, I
think could be very enriching the arguments in this section of the article, since the case
of the characters in both novels are very similar and the discussions in this regard could
be extended to a broader dimension, i.e., women in both colors being victimized by the
male-dominated systems (Milne, 2009, p. 777).
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Taking into consideration that Offred’s story is a written document based on recorded
audio tapes, Grace goes on to discuss Pieixoto with his narrow scientific and objective
mode of evaluation is not able to infer from the hints within Offred’s recordings that her
real name is June. This superficial perspective which was similarly highlighted in the
former paper, blinds Pieixoto to the very subjective nature of Offred’s story. Developing
this idea and building it up through a contrast between of Offred and Pieixoto's version of
reality, Grace concludes the paper’s finals arguments, i.e., a limited factual perspective
contrasted with the very creative, imaginative and perceptive knowledge provided by my
Offred’s story. This paper's ending recaps the papers findings in Atwood’s revelation
that exactly corresponds with Pieixoto's acknowledgement, that is to say; Offred's story
is not really an imaginative and fictional one, because all of the atrocities which
happened in Gilead are real and they have happened in reality and they will happen in
present and the future if human beings are not going to reconsider their biased
judgements.
Analytical Overview
The articles that were discussed in this study were basically concerned with the concept
of dystopia in a sense that women were victimized in an autocratic, fundamentalist and
male-dominated society. These articles were also similar in terms of starting their
arguments from a feminist prospective and getting more developed through other
approaches such as psychoanalysis, and the new- historicism. Representing and
redefining the concept of dystopia in the aforementioned articles, gives us a broader sense
to view dystopia not merely in its very classical sense but as a reality that is created by
men. In such a context, as these researches elaborated on, women were silenced
victimized and manipulated, but instead of a colorful and dramatic analysis of the
dystopian world which is projected through Atwood's novel, these articles dive into the
mind and the psyche of the characters especially those who have been traumatized by the
authority governing the Gilead republic.
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Another similar aspect of theses articles is their concern for women as victims
traumatized in a dystopian context, and describing this kind of dystopia very
meticulously in terms of politics and religion. The process of victimization in Gilead in
which women were dehumanized and turned into agents being abused by the system is a
very shocking image of what might happen to humanity especially woman in the future.
This message is highlighted through a variety of symbols and images represented and due
to the symbolist nature of the novel these papers tried to explain them in details. The
research methodology there was applied to the articles, were the best suitable ones, since
this Novel as a postmodern novel is labelled as a Scientific Metafiction, therefore they all
adapted a new-historicist approach in order to analyze this novel which is in a sense and
attempt to reconsider not only the past but also the present. The very similar aspect of
these three articles was their pessimistic undertone in which the Post-Gilead community
is hinted to be similar to our own context, which is basically dominated by a very
objective and scientific mode of reasoning and viewing women from a sexist and
prospective.
Although the first article by D. Ketterer introduces a very new concept called ‘contextual
dystopia,’ but dedicating a good deal of the article’s content to a summary and critical
analysis of the work makes it appealable to the reader. This article would be very useful
for those advances critics and researchers, who plan to do advanced research in order to
prove very innovative ideas which contradict former traditions. The other two articles by
my Stein and Grace differ from Ketterer’s paper in a sense that, they are a thoroughly
developed feminist analysis that employs the theories of the French psycho- feminist
theorists in order to analyze Offred as a symbolic representation of the woman in any
repressive society. They both are structured in terms of character’s development and her
evolution throughout the story to find her voice in the oppressive system. Blending
multiple theories in order to analyze Offred’s psychology and her struggling against
challenges is a unifying aspect of Stein and Grace's papers.
I believe that the concept of the identity could be elaborated through Antonio Gramsci’s
concepts such as hegemony, the subaltern and the hybrid identity which I believe could
be applied to this work, since the female characters who were peripheralized by men,
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suffer from a fragmented identity which is imposed upon them by a man-made
superstructure. Although the articles evaluated in this study have provided a good deal of
analytical data but I believe doing more in terms of a comparative study between such
works of SFN and those of any other nations, such as Morrison’s Beloved for instance or
other suppressed nations could give such an study a kind of postcolonial dimension.
Conclusion
Because Offred was trying to communicate obstructions such as, love, emotions traumas
etc., her story has to be dealt with in a different sense, from a more perceptive vantage
Point. This kind of confluence between the fact and the fiction and the manner in which
fiction is considered by the author as super-reality as noted by the Surrealists, similarly
could be found in Eisenheim the Illusionist as I referred before. This kind of magical
reality very similarly was dealt with by Stein and Grace who were basically concerned
with breaking the border line between fact and fiction, and the way that the gaps are
exposed to the reader. I believe this story is comparable too many modern SFNs which
self-consciously from the very outset gets the reader to a new field of perception to
reconsider the documented history (the factual) and to view it from multiple “focals”. In
other words Offred’s story and her experience could be interpreted from various
subjective perspectives. When we start to analyze it and search for the subconscious
feelings that are found within the gaps of the text, we tend to ask, ‘who is speaking, who
is seeing, and who is narrating this History? These multiple perspectives as Shlimoth
Kennan contends, provide the reader with a very broader "visual sense” which includes
the emotive, cognitive and “ideological orientations” and gets the reader to ponder Who
is telling the truth? (Kennan, 2011, ps. 73-74). Finally it could be concluded that,
conducting studies on such postmodern works of SFN and Historiographical SFN which
deal with archetypal themes concerning humanity’s history, from the aforementioned
approaches not only unveils their aesthetic merits but also would lead the readers to
reconsider their objective attitudes in order to find the truth somewhere in the ‘gaps’ or
the ‘grey line between fact and fiction’.
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