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

نوع المستند : أبحاث علمیة

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

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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

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