No description available.

語言是人們用以思考與表達思想的媒介。長久以來，人們相信語言為溝通的工具，可以傳達個人思想。但是由後現代的角度看來，語言一旦被使用，就具有自己的生命。一段文字的意義不再固定於創作出該段文字的人原本所要表達的意思，而在於聽者與讀者對於該段文字所產生出的不同的解碼。 本論文旨在討論艾德伍德《女僕的故事》中的語言力量。藉由探討小說中不同立場對語言的使用，希望能夠印證話語/語言絕不可能中立的看法，話語總是含有價值判斷的。而且，話語本身就是不同立場角逐的領域；只有權力最大的一方，才能輕易掌握發言權，並得以以最顯著的音量發聲。而這也是為何發聲是如何重要的事，只有發聲，才能表達自己的立場，也才能替自己爭取權益。 本論文分為六個部份：除了導論和結論外，第一章、第二章和第三章分別討論小說中三種不同的聲音，它們亦代表三種不同的思考模式；第四章討論小說作者艾德伍德本人的加拿大經驗對她的思考與寫作 (皆為使用語言的過程) 所產生的影響。話語在小說中不僅是被用以壓迫人的工具，但亦為受壓迫者得以反壓迫的方法，因為話語是具有強大力量的。 Table of Contents Acknowledgement………………………………………………………iii Chinese Abstract…………………………………………………………v English Abstract…………………………………………………………vi Chapter Introduction………………………………………………………1 Chapter One: Discourses of the Republic of Gilead…………………17 Discourses of Sexuality in Gilead ……………………………… 18 Althusser's Ideology and Language of Gilead ……………………26 Chapter Two: Offred's Story: A History of Wome …………………42 Offred's Language and Her Subjectivity …………………………45 A History of Women……………………………………………56 Chapter Three: The History Notes: Pieixoto's Story…………………62 Pieixoto's Appropriation of Offred's Tale…………………………64 A History of the Dominant Males ………………………………66 Chapter Four: The Canadianness in the Novel………………………73 Conclusion ………………………………………………………82 Bibliography………………………………………………………88 / Language is a medium by which people think and express themselves. For a long time, language was seen as a tool used by people to communicate and reveal thoughts. In postmodern time, language is viewed as having its own life. Once a speech or a statement is produced, it is beyond the control of the producer. It is, instead, in the hand of the listener or the reader. My thesis aims to discuss the language power in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. By analyzing the novel's three different language systems, I hope to demonstrate that language is never value-free and that it is always by someone and for someone. Moreover, language is itself a place where different positions struggle with each other. Only the most powerful people can dominate language as they wish and express themselves loudly. This thesis will be divided into six parts: introduction, three chapters dealing with three kinds of language systems underpinned by different thinking, a chapter dealing with the influence of Atwood's Canadian experience on her thought and language, and the conclusion. In the novel, language is not only used as a tool to oppress people, it is also used as a weapon to resist and subvert the oppression. This is all because there is power in language.

Speculative fiction is a genre that is gaining urgency in the contemporary Canadian literary scene as authors and readers become increasingly concerned with what it means to live in a nation implicated in globalization. This genre is useful because with it, authors can extrapolate from the present to explore what some of the long-term effects of globalization might be. This thesis specifically considers the long-term effects of globalization on communities, a theme that speculative fictions return to frequently. The selected speculative fictions engage with current theory on globalization and community in their explorations of how globalization might affect the types of communities that can be enacted. This thesis argues that these texts demonstrate how Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s notion of “cooperative autonomy” can be uniquely cultivated in the conditions of globalization – despite the fact that those conditions are characterized by the fragmentation of traditional forms of community (Empire 392).

Margaret Fuller’s and Elizabeth Stoddard’s innovative use of the language of flowers in “The Magnolia of Lake Pontchartrain” and The Morgesons explore multilevel feminine discourse in ways later described by Hélène Cixous and Luce Irigary. Fuller uses flowers symbolically in her text, not mimicking conventional sentimental motifs, but inspiring women’s independence and self-development. Fuller’s flower images become anthropomorphic possibilities for female empowerment which re-envision American women’s social roles and express Fuller’s developing feminism. Stoddard’s use of flowers reflects her realist writing and captures many of the contemporary social applications of flowers. Stoddard, like Alice Walker, sees some artistic agency for women through gardening, but ultimately finds the comparison of women to flowers an antiquated system which holds women back in search of social progress.

This paper explores the rhetoric and actions of Margaret Thatcher, Golda Meir, and Indira Gandhi regarding feminism and their gender before they became prime minister. The paper finds that none of the leaders identified as feminists, and did not actively focus on women’s issues or elevate the status of women while in office. Yet, all of these leaders called for women to mobilize and pursue careers, either via their actions or speeches. Thatcher, particularly in the crucial period in which she rose to power, explicitly encouraged women to mobilize as voters and pursue work outside the home in her formal speeches, public statements, letters and interviews. Through their organized activities before they obtained office, Meir and Gandhi worked to mobilize women politically, although their rhetoric did not explicitly encourage women over men to participate politically. The paper explores nuanced ways that each leader associated with her gender and preached for other women to pursue careers. Looking ahead at one case study shows that women now are not necessarily averse to explicitly associating with their gender. Tzipi Livni, the candidate for the Kadima Party in the 2009 Israeli election, used her gender as a campaign tactic. Hopefully this paper helps lay the groundwork for future study on women candidate’s rhetoric and actions regarding feminism before they are elected.

Speculative fiction is a genre that is gaining urgency in the contemporary Canadian literary scene as authors and readers become increasingly concerned with what it means to live in a nation implicated in globalization. This genre is useful because with it, authors can extrapolate from the present to explore what some of the long-term effects of globalization might be. This thesis specifically considers the long-term effects of globalization on communities, a theme that speculative fictions return to frequently. The selected speculative fictions engage with current theory on globalization and community in their explorations of how globalization might affect the types of communities that can be enacted. This thesis argues that these texts demonstrate how Michael Hardt and Antonio Negri’s notion of “cooperative autonomy” can be uniquely cultivated in the conditions of globalization – despite the fact that those conditions are characterized by the fragmentation of traditional forms of community (Empire 392).

Anyone who is familiar with Margaret Mitchell’s life and her novel, Gone with the Wind, should notice that Mitchell’s work in some fashion parallels events from her life. Exactly how and why these parallels function, however, has been the subject for much scholarly debate. In my thesis, I examine Mitchell’s biography to get closer to the truth of the events in her life up to the publication of her novel. I then synthesize this information with a side-by-side analysis of some important figures in Mitchell’s life and characters from her novel; from there, I provide a feminist critique of selected characters, relationships between those characters, and scenes from the novel. In particular, I focus upon Mitchell’s relationship with her mother, Maybelle, and how this relationship compares with Scarlett O’Hara’s relationship with her mother, Ellen.

Since the 1936 publication of Gone with the Wind and the 1939 release of David O. Selznick’s film version of the book, the city of Atlanta has been associated in the public mind with Margaret Mitchell’s tale of the Old South, the Civil War and Reconstruction. The work of Mitchell and Selznick created images that shaped the public’s understanding of southern history and of Atlanta’s identity. This dissertation examines a series of attempts to capitalize on the fame and popularity of Gone with the Wind in museums in the Atlanta area. Focusing on the interpretive efforts of three entities—the Atlanta History Center, Clayton County, and the Margaret Mitchell House, Inc.—this study reveals the problematic nature of Mitchell’s and Selznick’s work and the impact that the book and film have had on shaping Atlanta’s identity and the public memory of the South.

This thesis explores We Two Together, the unique dual autobiography of the reformers Margaret and James Cousins. It places this rich text in the context of the first half of the twentieth century and demonstrates its value as a source for Irish, Indian, gender, and global history. It investigates how the Cousinses represent their efforts to create and maintain a companionate marriage over a lifetime, depict their work as activists for women’s suffrage, Indian nationalism, educational reform, and other causes, and recount the impact of cross-cultural encounters on their cosmopolitan lives. We Two Together provides insight into the lives of two extraordinary individuals as they witnessed and participated in several key social and political movements in Ireland and India. In bringing attention to this book, I hope that other historians will make use of it and that librarians will preserve the rare copies in their possession.

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood indirectly exposes frightening and undemocratic traits in societies of our time when she applies them to a fictive future in which these factors have caused horrible consequences. A group of men has formed a new state, “Gilead”, in which they ruthlessly control the population. This essay studies how this dictating power gains and, essentially, maintains power in the fictive society. The essay argues, and comes to the conclusion, that by surveilling the population and by restricting its means of communication the dictatorship is able to control the people and keep them docile.