Andrews University Digital Commons @ Andrews University Honors Theses Undergraduate Research 4-29-2020 The Blame Game : Complicity and Rape Culture in Margaret Atwood's Novel and Hulu's Adapted Series The Handmaid's Tale Hannah Gallant Andrews University,
[email protected] Follow this and additional works at: https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/honors Part of the English Language and Literature Commons Recommended Citation Gallant, Hannah, "The Blame Game : Complicity and Rape Culture in Margaret Atwood's Novel and Hulu's Adapted Series The Handmaid's Tale" (2020). Honors Theses. 240. https://digitalcommons.andrews.edu/honors/240 This Honors Thesis is brought to you for free and open access by the Undergraduate Research at Digital Commons @ Andrews University. It has been accepted for inclusion in Honors Theses by an authorized administrator of Digital Commons @ Andrews University. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. J. N. Andrews Honors Program Andrews University HONS 497 Honors Thesis The Blame Game: Complicity and Rape Culture in Margaret Atwood’s Novel and Hulu’s Adapted Series The Handmaid’s Tale Hannah Gallant April 29, 2020 Advisor: Dr. Vanessa Corredera Primary Advisor Signature: _________________ Department of English Gallant 2 ABSTRACT Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and the Hulu award-winning televisual adaptation (2017-Present) portray a dystopic, theocratic regime known as Gilead. The regime’s focus on female bodies and reproduction exemplifies what feminist theorists call rape culture, a culture Gilead perpetuates through sexual violence, rape, and surveillance. Using critical race theory, media and close-textual analysis this project examines both works, arguing that complicity within the novel must be discussed in relation to rape culture and that while the series accounts for rape culture, it problematically manifests a type of feminism that privileges white women over women of color.