University of Connecticut OpenCommons@UConn Honors Scholar Theses Honors Scholar Program Spring 5-8-2020 Iron Manicures: Sex, Power, and Sedition in Margaret Atwood's Writing Anna Zarra Aldrich
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://opencommons.uconn.edu/srhonors_theses Part of the Literature in English, Anglophone outside British Isles and North America Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Modern Literature Commons, Other Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, and the Women's Studies Commons Recommended Citation Zarra Aldrich, Anna, "Iron Manicures: Sex, Power, and Sedition in Margaret Atwood's Writing" (2020). Honors Scholar Theses. 729. https://opencommons.uconn.edu/srhonors_theses/729 Iron Manicures: Sex, Power, and Sedition in Margaret Atwood's Writing Anna Zarra Aldrich Thesis Advisor: Regina Barreca, Ph.D. Honors Advisor: Mary Burke, Ph.D. 1 Abstract Margaret Atwood has often been criticized as a bad feminist writer for featuring villainous, cruel women. Atwood has combatted this criticism by pointing out that evil women exist in life, so they should in literature as well. Every story requires a villain and a victim, for Atwood these roles are both usually played by women. This thesis will explore the idea of the woman as spectacle in both behavior and body. Women are controlled by the idea that they must care. When they stop caring, they become a threat. At the heart of Atwood’s writing are the relationships between women both bitter and powerful. This thesis examines the relationships through which women control other women, as well as the destabilizing power of female alliances.