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The Representation of Society and Religion in Margaret Atwood's Dystopian Novels the Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake and the Year of the Flood

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The Representation of Society and Religion in Margaret Atwood's Dystopian Novels the Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake and the Year of the Flood What does it mean to be human? The representation of society and religion in Margaret Atwood's dystopian novels The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and Crake and The Year of the Flood Diplomarbeit zur Erlangung des akademischen Grades einer Magistra der Philosophie an der Karl-Franzens-Universität Graz vorgelegt von Marina Tomic am Institut für Anglistik Begutachter: Ao. Univ. - Prof. Mag. Dr. phil. Martin Löschnigg Graz, 2012 To those who lovingly supported me throughout my entire studies. You know who you are. Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION 5 2 FROM UTOPIA TO DYSTOPIA 7 3 THE HANDMAID'S TALE 14 3.1 Setting and historical connections 14 3.2 Religion 15 3.3 Women's roles 17 3.4 Men's Roles 19 3.5 Gilead's power politics 21 3.6 Resistance movements 28 3.7 Epigraphs and Historical Notes 30 3.8 Conclusion 32 4 ORYX AND CRAKE 34 4.1 Genetic Engineering 36 4.2 Power and freedom 40 4.3 Environmentalism 42 4.4 Religion 43 4.5 Ethics and Humanity 44 4.6 Science vs. the humanities 45 4.7 The main characters 47 4.8 Conclusion 50 5 THE YEAR OF THE FLOOD 51 5.1 Religion 51 5.2 The Pleeblands 57 5.3 The CorpSeCorps 59 5.4 Genetic engineering/technology vs. Nature 61 5.5 Women in The Year of the Flood 63 5.6 The main characters 65 5.7 Conclusion 69 6 COMPARISON OF ATWOOD'S DYSTOPIAN NOVELS 70 6.1 Religion 70 6.2 Environmentalism 71 6.3 Survival 72 6.4 Humanity 74 6.5 The Endings 75 6.6 What does it mean to be human? 76 7 CONCLUSION 76 8 BIBLIOGRAPHY 80 1 Introduction The days are gone. Only one day remains, the one you're in. - Margaret Atwood, A Visit Margaret Atwood, a renowned Canadian writer, has received numerous awards, including the Booker Prize for The Blind Assassin in 2000. In 1985, she published her globally acclaimed first dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Though a successful novel, she took a break from dystopian novels until 2003 when she released the first part of a dystopian trilogy with the first novel titled Oryx and Crake. Atwood published The Year of the Flood1, the second part of the MaddAddam trilogy, in 2009 and will release the final installment in 2013 (Online, 2012). In this thesis, I will discuss Atwood’s dystopian novels The Handmaid’s Tale, Oryx and Crake, and The Year of the Flood. By writing in the dystopian tradition, Atwood attempts to raise awareness about the flaws and errors of our society that might eventually lead to catastrophic situations, as depicted in her nightmarish novels. In these three novels, Atwood represents different visions of a terrifying future, namely an extremist theocracy in HT, and a world governed by genetic engineering and consumerism in the first two parts of the trilogy. Already in HT, she alerts her reader to issues such as pollution and environmental destruction, which is led even further in OC and YF. Atwood claims that “we’ve run out of stuff […] It’s a people issue, and it cuts across all our categories. The problem is huge” (Online, 2012). The shocking images Atwood creates in our minds of a world where nature has been exploited to the extremes, leaving behind ruins and a society that has eradicated basic human rights, causes the reader to contemplate our contemporary world and our responsibility to prevent such disastrous visions from becoming true. HT, which was written in the 1980s, deals with the issue of a fanatic religion gone too far, still a very current and pressing topic in 2012 – perhaps even more than 30 years ago. Everything that occurs in the novels is taken from existing trends and issues and is not an invention of Atwood’s brilliant imagination. Of course, she has taken theses issues to the extreme in order to open her readers’ eyes to what the course of the future might be if we do not act in time. In this thesis, I want to take a closer look at these dystopian societies created by Margaret Atwood as a warning of a bleak future. One of the main topics, particularly in HT, is misuse of religion, which I will investigate. In her later works, especially in YF, Atwood again takes up the 1 The titles will be referred to as HT (The Handmaid’s Tale), OC (Oryx and Crake), and YF (The Year oft he Flood). 5 topic of religion, but in a different way. With the background of Margaret Atwood as a feminist writer, I will also examine the distinction between the roles of female and male characters, which is particularly striking in HT as it illustrates a misogynistic society dominated by men. In an attempt to understand and illustrate the structures of a dystopian society, a detailed analysis of the societal aspects that form such a society will be made. In order to grasp the idea of the dystopian genre, there will be a chapter to clarify the term and provide examples of other similar works. Various other prevailing issues in OC and YF, such as genetic engineering, power, ethics, humanity, environmentalism, will be explored in order to obtain a clearer and more understandable picture of the society. In the final chapters, I will endeavour to compare these three novels, which are closely linked as they all represent a dystopian world, but are also quite different. The question “What does it mean to be human?” more or less permeates all three novels as it questions the humaneness of individuals deprived of all basic human rights, feelings, and individuality. Additionally, the human race is replaced by a race of humanoid creatures that, according to their creator, are more suitable to sustain the world than the current humans. Ultimately, this analysis will attempt to obtain a better understanding of the dystopian world created by Margaret Atwood. 6 2 From Utopia to Dystopia The word “utopia” was coined by Thomas More from the Greek words “u/ou” meaning “not”, or “eu” meaning “good”. The state of a utopian society is unattainable and unrealistic as it aims at a society that is too idealistic and impossible to achieve. Not only literature dealt with the topic of utopia but real utopian visions and communities were established such as the Esperanto-speakers who believed that a universal language would lead to world peace. Additionally, utopian religious communities existed, such as the Quakers, Mennonites and Amish. Even the Puritans in New England started with a utopian vision in the form of a City of God in action. They wanted to start anew and do things right this time, but they first built prisons and scaffolds which were already signs of a dystopian society (cf. Mohr 2005: 11-12; cf. Atwood 2011: 81-83). Literary utopia differs from other utopian visions which portray an ideal society and are often based on religious concepts such as paradise and Eden or political concepts such as communitarianism (political theories of Robert Owen, Charles Fourier and Étienne Cabet). Literary utopias are usually not religious and do not represent a biblical paradise, likewise dystopias do not illustrate hell. Religion might occur as a theme but primarily utopias and dystopias are concerned with sociopolitical themes and changes. Another difference between the religious paradise and a literary utopian vision lies in the time frame and the view of society; utopia puts its focus on the future and religious concepts speak of a paradise in the past. A major element in literary utopia is politics, usually represented by discontentment with the current political situation and a wish to change it (cf. Mohr 2005: 11-14). Darko Suvin defines literary utopia as follows: “Utopia is the verbal construction of a particular quasi-human community where sociopolitical institutions, norms, and individual relationships are organized according to a more perfect principle than in the author's community, this construction being based on estrangement arising out of an alternative historical hypothesis.” (quoted in Mohr 2005: 15, 1973, 132; 1979, 49) The first literary utopia was written by Thomas More in 1516 in Latin in which he describes an imaginary state on a fictive island. The earlier utopias are mostly set on fictive, dislocated geography spaces such as islands, lost continents or other planets as people of that era had an urge to explore unknown parts of the world. There was a strong desire for equality for all humans as, for example, in the French Revolution with its slogan “Liberté et egalité” and the hope of a better new world in recently discovered America. At that time utopia was considered an attainable political act. After the world had been more or less discovered, the setting changed from current unknown places to the future, indicating a shift from space to time. An example of this is Louis Sébastien Mercier's L'An 2440 (1770) which depicts an altered Paris in the future in which the narrator awakens after a long sleep. Another example is Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward 2000-1887 (1888), which is a 7 socialist utopia that presents an industrialist republic where technology serves for the good of mankind. William Morris' News from Nowhere (1890) and Butler's Erewhon (1872) follow a different theme and renounce technology. The utopias that were created in the 19th century were inspired by social thinkers such as William Cobbet and Karl Marx, but also Christian socialists such as Charles Kingsley and John Ruskin. Nineteenth century utopia concerned itself more with material improvements, whereas 20th century utopia dealt with the physical and spiritual realm.
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