The Idea of Mode Production and Irigarian Female Body:On margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

• Main Author: 曹嬿孌
• Other Authors: 蔣筱珍
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2008
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/47298586410400099437

碩士 === 國立彰化師範大學 === 英語學系 === 96 === Abstract This thesis attempts to investigate Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale in terms of the contradictory views to the female body. I offer different visions about the female body and examine how the protagonist handmaid Offred shapes her subjectivity to escape from thrilling Gilead. I contrast Aristotle’s container, Sigmund Freud’s lack with Luce Irigarian notions of the female body as a proper place, an envelope, a whole, and a subjective otherness. I assume that the contradictory views of the female body are evident in The Handmaid’s Tale. This thesis contains five sections as follows. In Chapter One, I introduce the biography of Margaret Atwood, literature reviews of The Handmaid’s Tale, and the motivation of the thesis. Besides, the discourse of the female body held by Aristotle, Freud, and Luce Irigaray are briefly discussed. The final section of the introductory chapter is the organization of the thesis. In Chapter Two, I build up the theoretical framework for this thesis. I explore the contradictory viewpoints to the female body—Aristotle, Sigmund Freud, versus Luce Irigaray. There are two sections in this chapter. The first section conducts with how the Western philosophers define the female body as Aristotle’s container and Freud’s lack. In this section, how the female body is defined as a thing, a passive object will be disclosed. The second section of this chapter focuses on how Luce Irigaray responds to and reinterprets the Western bias on the female body. She suggests that the female body should be treated as a proper place, an envelope, a whole, and a subjective otherness. In Chapter Three, I would like to discuss how the traditional Western philosophical bias, the negative metaphors reflect on the female body in The Handmaid’s Tale. I divide this chapter into two sections. I try to examine the female body defined as Aristotle’s container and Freud’s lack in The Handmaid’s Tale. In Chapter four, I apply Luce Irigaray’s notions, the positive metaphors of the female body to analyze The Handmaid’s Tale. This chapter has four parts. I intend to reveal how Luce Irigaray rereads and reinterprets the traditional male-dominated Western bias on the female body and how Irigarian notions help to construct and to shape Offred’s subjectivity to escape the terrible totalitarian country, Gilead. The final chapter, Chapter Five, I try to offer a new insight to the future study on The Handmaid’s Tale. I suppose that the idea of mode of production is profoundly presented in the novel.