This thesis discusses Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) in relation to Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) and examines to what extent Atwood used Jacobs’s...Show moreThis thesis discusses Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) in relation to Harriet Jacobs’s Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl (1861) and examines to what extent Atwood used Jacobs’s slave narrative as a template for her dystopian novel. With this comparison, this thesis considers whether Atwood’s novel marginalizes Afro-American experiences of slavery and to what extent The Handmaid’s Tale can be seen as a product of white feminism through a focus on the concept of intersectionality.Show less
The thesis reads two of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories through the lens of Edward Said’s Orientalism, concluding that they each have different orientalist tendencies and analysing these with a fair...Show moreThe thesis reads two of H.P. Lovecraft’s stories through the lens of Edward Said’s Orientalism, concluding that they each have different orientalist tendencies and analysing these with a fair degree of subtlety. This thesis argues against facile claims that Lovecraft was an outright racist, but argues for a nuanced approach to his ideas, keeping in mind his evolving perspective.Show less
What does ‘humanity’ mean and when can someone be deemed human? Unlike Foucault, Michel de Certeau has argued that people can, even during the most extreme circumstances, choose what to do with...Show moreWhat does ‘humanity’ mean and when can someone be deemed human? Unlike Foucault, Michel de Certeau has argued that people can, even during the most extreme circumstances, choose what to do with whatever society gives them. Dystopian novels and films usually depict fictional future societies and these thought-provoking experiments are therefore a good place to apply De Certeau’s theory and to see if these characters really do have the so-called agency that De Certeau argues they have and whether or not that makes them human. My first chapter will explain what De Certeau’s theories about individual agency and humanity as detailed in The Practice of Everyday Life (1980) entail and how I will use his ideas when close-reading two cases of dystopian novels and one dystopian film. Second, I will analyse to what extent De Certeau’s theory about individuality and freedom of choice can be applied to George Orwell’s 1984 or whether the society in 1984 truly transgressed individuality and the freedom of choice as Foucault argued the authorities in totalitarian regimes could. Third, I will discuss Kazuo Ishiguro’s novel Never Let Me Go. The main characters in this novel are so-called ‘clones’ and as such, they are labelled as ‘non-human’. With the use of De Certeau, I will investigate the boundary between human and non-human in this novel and whether it is possible or not to cross that boundary. Last, I will apply the theory to the film Blade Runner in which a distinction is made between humans and cyborgs, a distinctions that is blurred by the concept of ‘memory’ – the cyborgs are programmed with childhood memories, which arguably grants them humanity. In short, this thesis will explain with the use of De Certeau’s theories when a person is deemed human by the rest of society in each of these works and whether these findings can also be seen as key items for what ‘humanity’ means in the world outside of fiction.Show less
This thesis examines how the treatment and representation of warfare and war culture have changed in US war movies after 9/11, compared to those made a decade earlier. It focusses on the role that...Show moreThis thesis examines how the treatment and representation of warfare and war culture have changed in US war movies after 9/11, compared to those made a decade earlier. It focusses on the role that 9/11 had on the thematic content of four war movies; two made before the event and two after it. In the pre-9/11 decade the US made a number of foreign policy decisions which strengthened its cinematic representation as a conqueror. However, that attitude regarding warfare was also highly criticized in some 1990s films. This thesis argues that before 9/11, some directors were critical of increased militarism and war culture in the US and were able to voice such criticism in satirical movies, and that this changed after 9/11. Several trends become visible after the event: an apparent absence of war movies in the first few years after 9/11, an increase in war documentaries, and a shift occurring around 2009, when war movies stressed the emotional consequences and suffering caused by war. It also examines the role of 9/11 on American cinema culture in the months after the event.Show less
