The Art and Politics of Rewriting. Margaret Atwood’s Historical Notes on The Handmaid’s Tale
Among the many frameworks of interpretation that Margaret Atwood’s dystopia (or ustopia, as she calls it) The Handmaid’s Tale allows, a particularly challenging one is its reading in/as palimpsest. Choosing not to favour an attempt at hierarchizing the narrative construction and the fabula contai...
| Main Authors: | , |
|---|---|
| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Casa Cărții de Știință
2019-12-01
|
| Series: | Cultural Intertexts |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://files.cultural-intertexts.webnode.com/200000351-ed98ced98e/171-181%20Praisler_Gheorghiu%20-%20The%20Art%20and%20Politics%20of%20Rewriting.%20Margaret%20Atwood%E2%80%99s%20Historical%20Notes%20on%20The%20Handmaid%E2%80%99s%20Tale.pdf |
| Summary: | Among the many frameworks of interpretation that Margaret Atwood’s dystopia (or
ustopia, as she calls it) The Handmaid’s Tale allows, a particularly challenging one is its
reading in/as palimpsest. Choosing not to favour an attempt at hierarchizing the narrative
construction and the fabula contained in Offred’s spoken tale – transcribed from
audiocassettes two centuries after the deployment of the Christian fundamentalist coup
d’état that turned the United States into a horrifying inferno for women –, and also leaving
on the sidelines the seductive, yet rather facile feminist evaluation that the novel invites,
this paper focuses on metafiction and the rewriting of “herstory”, in an analysis of the
‘Historical Notes’ that conclude the novel, going backwards rather than forwards in tracing
its art and politics. |
|---|---|
| ISSN: | 2393-0624 2393-1078 |