Thesis (M.A.)--University of North Carolina at Wilmington, 2005. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves: 42-43)

M.A. / In this dissertation I have explored the ways in which Margaret Atwood, in her novella The Penelopiad, reflect and re-interprets the Penelope of Homer’s Odyssey. The method I am using to explore and form character profiles is in accordance with modern literary theories on character. I have studied how Penelope’s speech, actions, interactions with others, thoughts and other elements of contrast and archetype aid in forming her character profile in Homer and Atwood. The character of Penelope in the Odyssey has been treated differently over the years by scholars and my aim is to discuss how Atwood enters into this critique. She enters into this critique with her fictional re-representation of Penelope in The Penelopiad. I have concluded that The Penelopiad is a feminist response to Homer’s Odyssey. In Homer Penelope emerges as a virtuous, yet complex and powerful character who is regarded by later Greek tradition as the epitome of a respectable and faithful wife. The purpose of Atwood’s Penelope is to counter the Homeric tradition that portrays her as loyal and obedient. Atwood keeps close to Homeric events and story-line in her re-reading, however she subverts the archetype of the ‘Good Wife’. She portrays Penelope’s familiar Homeric behaviour as motivated from a self-serving perspective and a manner in which to gain power and preserve her reputation in the patriarchal society. In this way Atwood exposes the female suppression that is inherent in patriarchal society, as well as the duplicitous behaviour that is necessary to survive the system.

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Margaret Atwood’s Oryx and Crake is a speculative fiction novel that has received much analysis since its publication, in particular around its engagement, or non-engagement of the Anthropocene. By contrasting and combining the “dark pastoral” and “deluge narrative” literary tropes, I offer a new method of reading Oryx and Crake which explores the distorted fantasies at the heart of the novel’s events. This reading is centred around the character of Crake, whose seemingly sociopathic train of thought becomes almost palatable through the viewpoint of Anthropocenic “deep-time”, and whose actions serve to realise humanity’s pastoral dreams in the physical world. By studying together the double-layered ironies of the dark pastoral and the mythological elements that shape most deluge stories, Atwood’s work reveals itself as deeply relevant to the contemporary novel’s ability to engage with the Anthropocene, and as such, also to our own.

This thesis traces Margaret Atwood's uses of three major elements of fairy tales in her novels. Atwood creates a passive, fairy-tale-like heroine, but not for the purpose of showing how passivity wins the prince as in the traditional tale. Atwood also uses the binary system, which provides a moralistic structure in the fairy tale, to show the necessity of moving beyond its rigidity. In addition, Atwood's novels focus on transformation as the breaking of a spell. However, the spell to be broken arises out of the fairy tales themselves, which create unrealistic expectations. Thus, Atwood not only presents these fairy tale elements in a new setting, but she also changes their significance.

Margaret Atwood speaks about a now common and yet still predominant question of female identity. Eye images, appearing frequently, correlate with ideas of observation, perception, and reflection as the woman seeks to understand herself. Introductory material examines three female archetypes, five victim positions, and male-female worlds. Eye imagery in early poetry expresses female feelings of frustration and submission to unfair roles and expectations. Imagery in the middle poetry presents causes for male-female manipulations. In later poetry eye imagery underscores the woman's anger and desire to separate into a new self. Concluding this study is an analysis of female options. From denial and anger the poet moves to recognition of choices open to today's woman, offering a possibility of wholeness.

I argue that Margaret Atwood’s work in MaddAddam is about survival; it is about moving beyond preconceived, thoughtless ideology of any form with creative kinship. Cooperation and engagement cannot be planned in advance, and must take the form of something more than pre-established ideology. I will discuss MaddAddam in light of Donna Haraway’s recent work in which she argues that multispecies acknowledgement and collaboration are essential if humans are to survive and thrive in the coming centuries. By bringing the two texts into dialogue, one sees that Atwood’s novel constitutes the kind of story deemed necessary by Haraway for making kin in the Chthulucene. Various scenes depicting cooperation and interdependence among humans and other animals offer chthonic models of kinship; these relationships, as opposed to ideological and anthropocentric isolation, will serve as the means of surviving and thriving within an ongoing apocalypse. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Na virada do pós-estruturalismo, um olhar menos unificado e universalizante do espaço como mero palco esvaziado de significação se vê proposto. Este, como já denunciava Michel Foucault nos anos 1970, deixará de ser percebido como fixo e simplesmente referencial, para adquirir, nos mais diversos fóruns de discussão, caráter dialético e dinâmico, o qual se alinha às questões centrais desta nova forma de conceber o mundo, a filosofia e o fazer científico. Paralelamente, estudos acerca da constituição da subjetividade apontam para o status oscilante desta, demonstrando como o sujeito é fruto de uma multiplicidade de discursos, os quais tornam impossíveis quaisquer esforços em demarcá-lo dentro de fronteiras estanques. Percebe-se aqui, portanto, um imbricamento das noções de ser e deslocar-se, no qual a apropriação de metáforas e do campo semântico em torno da noção de trânsitos mostrar-se-á constitutiva da obra literária, agindo como importante operador no desenvolvimento da trama e suas personagens. O presente trabalho tem por objetivo analisar a obra Alias Grace (1996) de Margaret Atwood, à luz da teoria do gênero, a fim de mapear a desconstrução de essencialismos acerca das protagonistas, Grace Marks e Simon Jordan. No romance, Atwood dá voz à personagem histórica Grace Marks, uma jovem imigrante irlandesa do século XIX, a qual se torna mentora e cúmplice do assassinato de seu patrão, Thomas Kinnear, e da governanta e suposta amante deste, Nancy Montgomery. Perceberemos ao longo da narrativa que esta personagem-narradora utilizar-se-á das diversas fronteiras que ronda e ultrapassa, como uma forma de expandir sua identidade a partir da manipulação sistemática que faz da linguagem. Paralelamente, Atwood cria uma personagem que desempenhará o papel de principal interlocutor da imigrante: o Dr. Simon Jordan, um jovem médico americano, cuja trajetória pessoal também é marcada por vários deslocamentos. Em um movimento antecipatório da psicanálise freudiana, ele se propõe a desvendar a mente de Grace, a fim de tentar extrair desta uma verdade, estabelecendo um diagnóstico que lhe confira sucesso e reconhecimento profissional. Como veremos, a autora empenhará uma crítica do masculino, na qual ele se verá gradativamente destituído de tudo aquilo que lhe conferiria status dentro do rol de expectativas daquela sociedade. Ademais, estabeleceremos uma leitura de um aspecto formal empregado ao longo das páginas do romance: as entradas paratextuais. A partir deste recurso, veremos nossas leituras de ambas as personagens sendo reforçadas em um constante deslizamento entre fontes, documentais e ficcionais, ligadas ao imaginário da época. Para tal, trabalhos de Philip Wegner (2002) e Neil Smith (1993) acerca da noção de espaço, Bronwen Walter (2001), Lorna McLean e Marilyn Barber (2004) sobre a imigração irlandesa no Canadá, Roland Barthes (1986), Gérard Genette (1987) e Linda Hutcheon (1990), acerca dos paratextos, bem como considerações de Chris Weedon (1987), Jane Flax (1990), R.W. Connell (1997), Judith Butler (1990), entre outros, em torno do gênero e pós-modernismo servirão de aparato teórico para esta investigação. / In the Post-structuralist turn, a less unified and universalizing concept of space as merely a meaningless stage is proposed. Such notion, as Michel Foucault announced in the 1970s, will no longer be perceived by its fixity and/or as simply referential, in order to acquire, in the most multiple forums of discussion, a dynamic character, which is aligned to central questions of this renewed way of conceiving the world, Philosophy, and Epistemology. In parallel fashion, studies concerning the constitution of subjectivity point towards its oscillating status, showing how the subject is the product of multiple discourses, which make any demarcating of solid frontiers, a hard task. Therefore, one can observe an imbrication of the notions being and displacing, in which the appropriation of metaphors and the semantic scope around the notion of transience is shown to be constitutive of the literary text, performing a relevant role in the development of the plot and its characters. The present work aims at analyzing the novel Alias Grace (1996) by Margaret Atwood, under the light of Gender theory, in order to map the deconstruction of essentialisms around the protagonists, Grace Marks and Simon Jordan. In her book, Atwood gives voice to the historical figure Grace Marks, young Irish immigrant in the XIX century, which becomes mentor and accomplice of murder of her employer, Thomas Kinnear, and his mistress and governess of the house, Nancy Montgomery. It can be seen that, throughout the narrative, Grace will negotiate with the various borders that she delineates, and even crosses, as a means of expanding her identity through the systematic manipulation of language she engages with. In parallel fashion, Atwood creates a character that will play the role of this immigrants main interlocutor: Dr. Simon Jordan, a young American physician, whose personal trajectory was also marked by several displacements. In an anticipatory movement of the Freudian psychoanalysis, he is determined to unveil the mysteries of the human mind, revealing the truth behind Graces case in order to gain success and professional recognition. As we will demonstrate, the author establishes a criticism around masculinity, in which he will gradually lose everything that gives him status as a man of his times, within the set of expectations in that society. Furthermore, we will analyze a formal aspect employed along the pages of the novel: its paratextuality. Through this resource, we will see our reading of both the protagonists being reinforced in the constant slippery move between sources, documental and fictional, linked to that eras imaginary. In order to do that, works by Philip Wegner (2002) and Neil Smith (1993) around the notion of space, Bronwen Walter (2001), Lorna McLean and Marilyn Barber (2004) on the Irish immigration in Canada, Roland Barthes (1986), Gérard Genette (1987) and Linda Hutcheon (1990), regarding paratexts, as well as the studies by Chris Weedon (1987), Jane Flax (1990), R.W. Connell (1997), Judith Butler (1990), among others, around gender and postmodernism will serve as the theoretical apparatus for this investigation.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 1999. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 196-209). Available also in a digital version from Dissertation Abstracts.