10.30495/

The Concept of Identity andSubaltern in Atwood’s TheHandmaid’s Tale

PDF
  • Fatemeh Pourjafari*1,
  1. Department of English Language and Literature, Kerman Branch, Islamic Azad University, Kerman, Iran

Revised: 2021-08-22

Accepted: 2021-11-12

Published in Issue 2022-04-01

Copyright (c) 2024 Journal of New Trends in English Language Learning (JNTELL)

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.

How to Cite

Pourjafari, F. (2022). The Concept of Identity andSubaltern in Atwood’s TheHandmaid’s Tale. Journal of New Trends in English Language Learning (JNTELL), 1(1), 21-26. https://doi.org/10.30495/
Crossref
Scopus
Google Scholar
Europe PMC

PDF views: 328

Abstract

                     Identity is a contested concept in the presently diverse and multicultural world, and is reflected in the works of
literature as well. Great numbers of theoretical works have been applied to literary works concerning the issue of
identity, the most recent of which is postcolonial criticism. Spivak, the prominent figure in postcolonial feminist
criticism, mainly concerns her theory with the struggle of the minority (the colonized or the females) against the
oppression and injustice of the dominant system of power, which denies them an identity through which, they would
assert themselves as dynamic agents who can act in history, rather than being acted upon. The aim of this study is
to analyze the ways by which the female characters of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, are objectified as
groups rather than individuals, and in Spivak’s words, subalterns who have no voice and their identity is affected
by the ideological system of power. The researcher eventually indicates that the subaltern, though being silenced,
would find her own way to assert her subjectivity                                                                    

Keywords

  • Female othering,
  • Oppression,
  • Postcolonial studies
PDF

References

  1. Althusser, L. (2010). Ideology and ideological state apparatuses (notes towards an investigation)(1970).
  2. Cultural theory: an Anthology, 204-222.
  3. Atwood, M. (2012). Haunted by the Handmaid’s Tale. The Guardian, 20.
  4. Bennett, A., & Royle, N. (2016). An introduction to literature, criticism and theory: Routledge.
  5. De Beauvoir, S. (1949). The second sex. Understanding Inequality: the intersection of race/ethnicity,
  6. class, and gender, 75-82.
  7. De Kock, L. (1992). An Interview with Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Ariel: A review of international
  8. English literature, 23(3).
  9. Gramsci, A. (2020). Selections from the prison notebooks. In The applied theatre reader (pp. 141-142):
  10. Routledge.
  11. Robinson, S. (1895). Marked men: White masculinity in crisis: Columbia University Press.
  12. Robinson, S. (1991). Engendering the Subject: Gender and Self-Representation in Contemporary
  13. Women's Fiction: SUNY Press.
  14. Selden, R., Widdowson, P., & Brooker, P. (2013). A reader's guide to contemporary literary theory:
  15. Routledge.
  16. Spivak, G. C. (1988). Can the Subaltern Speak? In Colonial discourse and post-colonial theory (pp. 66-
  17. : Routledge.