A Study Of Margaret Atwood’s Novels From The Perspective Of Spatial Criticism

Margaret Atwood is one of the most famous contemporary Canadian writers.She has won the Kafka Literature Prize,the Booker Prize and so on.The living conditions of women have always been an essential topic in Atwood’s works.In her works Alias Grace,The Blind Assassin and The Handmaid’s Tale,Atwood focuses on the oppression of women in powerful societies and exposes the factors that contribute to characters’ situations.Studies both at home and aborad mostly concentrate on the feminist elements in Atwood’s works while only a few center on the issue of space.The female appeal in Atwood’s works is portrayed through space,and space becomes a place to examine the situation of aphasia women.In Lefebvre and Foucault’s works,space is no longer a static physical container,but a dynamic existence filled with ideologies.This thesis employs the theory of spatial criticism to explore women’s situation from such perspectives as the physical,social,and spiritual spaces in Margaret Atwood’s three works,as well as to excavate the complicated factors behind these situations.This thesis is divided into three parts: introduction,body parts and conclusion.The first part is the introduction.This part mainly introduces Atwood’s experiences and her works Alias Grace,The Blind Assassin and The Handmaid’s Tale,reviews literatures concerning Atwood’s works both at home and abroad,and briefly introduces the space theory.Meanwhile,it will also justify the research significance of interpreting these three works from the perspective of spatial criticism.The first three chapters are the main body of this thesis.Chapter one mainly analyzes the living conditions of women in physical spaces in the three novels.The first section argues that women are in a marginal position after leaving the space they are accustomed to,and the lack of personal space after leaving the usual environment,which leads to emotional rootlessness.The second section focuses on the imbalance of power in domestic space.Both sexes do not have equal rights in domestic space,and women are often on the side of aphasia in novels.In the face of the responsibility in domestic space,men often dodge their part by means of absence and escape.Chapter two mainly explores women’s bodies in the social space.In a maledominated society,it is difficult for women to possess the freedom to control their own bodies.As a result,their bodies become instrumental.In the face of constraints,women will utilize their bodies as a tool to fight back.Chapter three discusses how women seek the construction of subjectivity in the spiritual space after suffering a series of oppression.The most important one is the awakening of self-consciousness,the main embodiment of which is to have personal desire and to re-examine the past self.By denying their past experiences,women confirm their new identity,achieve spiritual transcendence,and obtain their subjectivity.The last part is the conclusion.It summarizes the main arguments of this thesis,emphasizes Atwood’s awareness to the situation of women,and justifies the value of this topic.