The last year saw a fresh interest in Canadian writer Margaret Atwood, with TV productions of The Handmaid’s Tale and Alias Grace being lauded by critics and audiences alike. Atwood’s novels – marked by a mixture of high literary quality, social commentary and speculation – seem to hit a nerve. The fact that The Handmaid’s Tale once more topped the bestseller lists in 2016 underlines the relevance of her work but it also raises the question how and why this 1985 novel appeals to a new generation of readers. This context provides a good opportunity to revisit Atwood’s work and its impact on today’s discourses on gender relations, social structure and the directions humanity could pursue into the future.
In this seminar, we’ll focus on speculative elements, feminist themes and the role of the narrator in Atwood’s work, with an eye to how her novels’ form contributes to their meaning. We’ll discuss the claustrophobic first person narrative in The Handmaid’s Tale, the unreliable patchwork narrative of Alias Grace and the mythopoeic style of the Penelopiad. Samples from TV adaptations as well as a selection of essays by and about Atwood complete the seminar’s material and will provide students with a broad spectrum of perspectives and a basis for in-class discussion.
Please acquire and prepare the following novels:
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale (1985)
Margaret Atwood, Alias Grace (1996)
Margaret Atwood, The Penelopiad (2005) |
