Narration in Margaret Atwood s The Handmaid s Tale: Reconstructing Female Subjectivity in the Language of Marginalized Protagonist

The Handmaid’s Tale (1891), a novel by the Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, explores the notion of female body in the context of a dystopian society of Gilead, a totalitarian theocracy where women are essentially defined by their reproduction ability. The handmaid’s body is constantly controlled and exploited by different means of power. In addition to censoring the body, the female voice is censored and muted in this theocracy. The protagaonist, Offred, narrates the story of her experience and also her defiance against Gilead’s rigid rules which act as a form of resistance. The first person point of view has been analyzed in this paper based on Rimmon-Kenan’s theory (1893/2992) and Simpson’s modal grammar of point of view (1883). This study explores different situations in which Offred resists Gilead’s power. Employing narratology and modality helps us to understand Offred’s characterization and her passivity or activity in her liberation. This paper attempts to represent that Offred’s narration as a form of resistance can be regarded as a manifestation of her power over oppressive monologic system of Gilead, but her limitation in performing actual actions in liberating herself makes her a passive character throughout the novel.

کلیدواژه ها:

The Handmaid’s Tale ، narratology ، point of view ، resistance ، power relation