本篇論文試圖以米歇爾•傅柯的權力分析為理論基礎來分析和討論瑪格麗特•愛德伍的小說《使女的故事》。透過書中女主角奧芙弗雷德的論述，我們看到的是一個不熟悉且極權統治的國度。小說中描述的高壓政策是對美國八十年代政治和社會趨勢的反諷，也呈現給讀者基列共和國中權力運作的刻畫和剖析；在此國度的權力運作中，不論男女都深受權力網絡的控制。小說中嵌入的是一個全面性且集中的權力機制。因此，本篇論文將以傅柯的權力觀為理論出發點，對於《使女的故事》中的權力機制做一個全面性的閱讀和探究。本論文中所強調的並不是舊權力觀中以壓迫和禁忌為主的權力。此處的權力是落實在策略和技術層面上，而這些手法顯現了權力的負面特性更強調正面的生產特性。權力足以生產出一個模範讓人們仿效，權力更有能力使人們內化這個模範並成為社會認可的正常人。這樣精細的權力運作是為了便於管理和控制。本論文將就傅柯的權力分析來探究小說中所彰顯的權力負面和正面特質。《使女的故事》的情節就像是揉和了傅柯的一些主要論點。小說和理論的對話呈現在權力與論述、與規訓懲罰、與性機制的關係，這些論點將會在內文中逐章討論。這些權力機制製造出奧芙弗雷德的歸順，也產生反抗。反抗則會巔覆既有的權力關係。本論文的最後結論將會說明權力的不確定性和易變性是如何反映在主角的反抗行為中。權力關係並不是統治者和被統治者之間的二元對立，而是一個變動的關係。這樣的不穩定性使得權力永遠呈現出流動和拉距的現象。 / This thesis attempts to scrutinize Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale in terms of Michel Foucault’s analytics of power. Through Offred’s discourse, we perceive a totalitarian regime foreign to us. The description of the extremely high-pressure policy is a satiric response to the political and social developments in the United States in the 1980s. This novel also presents us with an anatomy of power that lays bare the exercise of power in the Republic of Gilead, in which both men and women are caught up in the dense web of power. An overwhelming and compressive mechanism of power is embedded in this novel. Therefore, my argument will be based on Foucault’s elucidation of power to analyze The Handmaid’s Tale in a more panoramic perspective. The concept of power elaborated in this thesis is not the one that always says no through prohibition and interdiction. Instead, power is materialized in all kinds of strategies and techniques. These tactics reveal the repressive and the productive characteristics of power. Power is capable of producing the norm for individuals to follow and also of transforming them into the “normal” ones for the purpose of administration and domination. Following Foucault’s analytics of power, this thesis will explore the productive and repressive manipulation of power reflected in this novel. The Handmaid’s Tale serves as an exemplary literary dramatization of some of Foucault’s major ideas. The correspondence between Atwood’s work and Foucault’s propositions of power will be discussed in three separate chapters, in which the mechanisms of power are revealed in discourse, discipline and punishment, and sexuality. Offred’s submission is produced by those power mechanisms, yet power also produces resistance that subverts established power relations. The final chapter will conclude that Offred’s resistant behavior reflects the contingency and vulnerability of power. Power relations are not the binary opposition between rulers and the ruled but the mobile and negotiable relations, in which power flows quickly from one area to another.