Margaret Atwood's Inheritance And Development Of Female Gothic

Margaret Atwood, a Canadian poet, novelist as well as critic, is one of the most important spokeswomen of contemporary Canadian literature owing to her versatility and great artistic achievements in the literary circle. Despite of her varied themes and styles, her novels always revolve around the theme of"survival". Especially, she shows more concern with the"survival"of women in the male-dominated society. Through reading her works, we can find there are a large number of female gothic elements in her works. The heroine in her works is always haunted by something terrible in a misty atmosphere. Some foreign experts and scholars have paid much attention to Atwood's application of female gothic, but the study on this aspect in our country is still being in the initial stage. Therefore, in order to get a better understanding of Atwood's works , this thesis intends to study Atwood's inheritance and development of female gothic tradition based on her novels Surfacing, Lady Oracle, The Handmaid's Tale,Alias Grace and The Blind Assassin, etc, exploring the significance of this creative use of female gothic in her novels.Apart from the conclusion, the present thesis consists of four chapters. The first chapter generally makes a brief introduction to Margaret Atwood and female gothic as well as correlative literature reviews about the study ever made by the Chinese and foreign scholars. Referring to the typical characteristics of traditional female gothic presented in the masterpieces Rebecca and Jane Eyre, chapter two mainly analyzes Atwood's inheritance the female gothic from the perspective of setting, plot and motif. The chapter three explores Atwood's development of female gothic in the following aspects: characterization, tense female relations and narrative techniques. Last chapter mainly revolves around the significance of Atwood's creative use of female gothic. To conclude, through proving into Atwood's creative use of female gothic tradition, this thesis intends to help the reader understand Atwood's novels in a new perspective.