This MA Thesis has sought to highlight the extent to which the dystopian genre foregrounds the role played by language in controlling people's perception of reality. As such it is a study that...Show moreThis MA Thesis has sought to highlight the extent to which the dystopian genre foregrounds the role played by language in controlling people's perception of reality. As such it is a study that reflects on the meta-textual themes in dystopian fiction, rather then socio-political themes, which is an original approach. It builds a methodological framework by bringing together critical concepts from major scholars within formalist and structuralist literary-critical theory, to show that the manipulation of language, using various tools, is of paramount importance in maintaining the ideology that the dystopian society aims for. This thesis concludes that language can be manipulated in many ways to gain power, but also, that with the correct tools, such as defamiliarization, one can escape these manipulative approaches.Show less
This thesis looks into two of Margaret Atwood's famous novels, Alias Grace and The Handmaid's Tale, to analyse how the female protagonists of both novels illustrate the marginalisation of women who...Show moreThis thesis looks into two of Margaret Atwood's famous novels, Alias Grace and The Handmaid's Tale, to analyse how the female protagonists of both novels illustrate the marginalisation of women who were being suppressed in a patriarchal society during Atwood's own early adulthood. Furthermore, it looks into how the women in Atwood's novels respond to this marginalisation and whether the response is comparable to the ideals of feminism.Show less
