Dystopian Tradition in Margaret Atwood's

The Handmaid's Tale

A Review Article
by
Marwan M. Abdi

Course; Science Fiction Narrative

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
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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
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.

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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
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.

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 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
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 focusses is on the discontinuous, that's to say the
succeeding context, historical development that follows after the dystopia.

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 Although the reader might find this argument difficult to comprehend, but
Ketterer brings an example 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 is 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 differentiates this type of dystopian literature from works such as 1984, since the
protagonist addresses her private audiences 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

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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 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 storytelling 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

6
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 individual’s
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
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

7
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. Similarly, 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 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

8
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
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

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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 their 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.

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.

10
 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 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

11
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 perspective. 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).

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.

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Conclusion

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 perspective 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.

Another similar aspect of these 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

13
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, 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 a study a kind of postcolonial
dimension.

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

14
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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References

Atwood, Margaret. (1986) The Handmaid's Tale. Toronto: Seal.

Dominick M. Grace. (1998). "The Handmaid's Tale": "Historical Notes" and Documentary
Subversion. Science Fiction Studies, 25(3), 481-494. Retrieved December 19, 2020, from
http://www.jstor.org/stable/4240726

Ketterer, D. (2001) 'Margaret Atwood's the Handmaid's Tale: A Contextual Dystopia' in

Hunter, J.W., ed., Contemporary Literary Criticism, Gale, vol. 135 (Reprinted from
Science-Fiction Studies, 1989, 16, 209-217), available: https://link-gale-
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Milne., 2009. Literary Movements For Students. [Place of publication not identified]: Gale.

Stein, K. F. (1991) ‘Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale”: Scheherazade in

Dystopia’, University of Toronto Quarterly, 61(2), pp. 269–279. Available at:
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