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A glimpse of Hope: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower as Critical Dystopias

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Last updated: 04 Jan 2025

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Abstract

The dystopian fiction of the late twentieth century embodies the philosophical and cultural thought processes and practices of the late postmodern period. Postmodern dystopia differs from classical dystopia by leaving a space for the possibility of a better society. The imaginative exploration of better, rather than worse, place found a new form of what Tom Moylan identifies as a critical dystopia. This kind of dystopian novel frees the readers from the two-dimensional evaluative continuum of classical dystopian fiction. Moreover, critical dystopia revives traditional dystopia by extending hope to include an indefinite suggestion of a better world. This paper examines the utopian impulse in two critical dystopian novels; Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower (1993). Both novels construct alternative worlds where human beings suffer extreme hardship, but they have space for nurturing hope. Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale represents the suffering of women in theocratic state. Throughout this dystopia, the protagonist finds a way to resist this situation. Butler's Parable of the Sower sets in 2024 when society suffers environmental degradation due to climate change. The protagonist creates a new religion that can help her to establish a utopian space for her people until she can travel to space to find another plant where she and her followers can start a new life. Both Atwood and Butler criticize society and deliver a powerful message that people can fight for freedom

DOI

10.21608/jartf.2023.308916

Keywords

Critical Dystopia, postmodernism, Tom Moylan, utopian impulse, critique of capitalism

Authors

First Name

لمياء حسن ابراهيم

Last Name

عبد العال

MiddleName

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Affiliation

أستاذ مشارك بقسم الأدب الإنجليزي قسم اللغات الأجنبية بكلية التربية - جامعة طنطا

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Volume

2023

Article Issue

52

Related Issue

40319

Issue Date

2023-07-01

Receive Date

2023-07-19

Publish Date

2023-07-01

Page Start

1,434

Page End

1,458

Print ISSN

2735-3664

Online ISSN

2735-3672

Link

https://jartf.journals.ekb.eg/article_308916.html

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https://jartf.journals.ekb.eg/service?article_code=308916

Order

308,916

Type

أبحاث علمیة

Type Code

1,381

Publication Type

Journal

Publication Title

المجلة العلمية بکلية الآداب

Publication Link

https://jartf.journals.ekb.eg/

MainTitle

A glimpse of Hope: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Octavia Butler's Parable of the Sower as Critical Dystopias

Details

Type

Article

Created At

26 Dec 2024