<p>The aim of this thesis is to examine the impact that clothing has in Margaret Atwood’s novel <em>The Blind Assassin</em> from 2000. The essay begins with a brief overview of how clothing has been acknowledged in different areas of research. The overview leads up to the conclusion that fashion, as well as clothing in large, has been overly ignored as a potentially fruitful subject of academic status. This is much due to the fact that fashion is traditionally regarded as being a classically feminine subject, as well as it can be said to be a result of fashion’s very elusive character. In the analysis of the novel the text first discusses the role that clothing has in a societal perspective as a means of power, partly in relation to Girard’s erotic triangle, as well as in relation to gender and Atwood’s dystopian parallel story. The essay then focuses on the naked body, which is found to be non-existing in Atwood’s novel, and goes on to discuss the suggestive qualities that clothing is given in the novel. In the concluding part, the results of the research is summed up and I am able to draw the conclusion that clothing has a great significance in <em>The Blind Assassin</em>, together with the notion that literary criticism is in need of a discourse that acknowledges clothing and fashion theory as academic subjects.</p>

The aim of this thesis is to examine the impact that clothing has in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Blind Assassin from 2000. The essay begins with a brief overview of how clothing has been acknowledged in different areas of research. The overview leads up to the conclusion that fashion, as well as clothing in large, has been overly ignored as a potentially fruitful subject of academic status. This is much due to the fact that fashion is traditionally regarded as being a classically feminine subject, as well as it can be said to be a result of fashion’s very elusive character. In the analysis of the novel the text first discusses the role that clothing has in a societal perspective as a means of power, partly in relation to Girard’s erotic triangle, as well as in relation to gender and Atwood’s dystopian parallel story. The essay then focuses on the naked body, which is found to be non-existing in Atwood’s novel, and goes on to discuss the suggestive qualities that clothing is given in the novel. In the concluding part, the results of the research is summed up and I am able to draw the conclusion that clothing has a great significance in The Blind Assassin, together with the notion that literary criticism is in need of a discourse that acknowledges clothing and fashion theory as academic subjects.

本論文將用榮格的原型觀念(archetypes)探討瑪格麗特˙愛德伍小說《盲眼刺客》中的人物性格。 本論文由五章組成。第一章將大略介紹《盲眼刺客》的內容以及其評論。第二章將會介紹榮格對集體無意識(the collective unconscious)的概念以及其和原型概念的關連；接著，將會根據兩位新榮格學派的學者，瑪莉恩˙伍德曼(Marion Woodman)和卡蘿˙皮爾森(Carol S. Pearson)對原型理論的闡述，針對兩個原型加以探討──鬥士原型和殉道者原型。在父權社會的影響下，這兩個原型時常會被過度簡化成對兩性的刻板印象，而在這簡化過程裡，原本屬於這兩個原型的能量和複雜性都被忽視或壓抑了。 第三章始於對愛德伍小說人物的辯護，說明其人物並不是一般所說的刻版人物，而是充滿衝突與能量的原型人物。而後，我會把小說中的人物和象徵和神話及童話中的人物作連結。在一方面，我將會對於小說中的現實人物，如艾麗絲和蘿拉(Iris and Laura)，和小說中的象徵角色，盲眼刺客和獻祭少女，做連結且並討論；另一方面，我將會將這兩個象徵角色延伸出去，探討與之相關的神話或童話人物，或是，更上一層的原型人物。在第四章，我則會依據小說人物和其原型的關係加以剖析，檢視他們和其原型的認同狀況，及他們膨脹(Inflation)的程度。 在最後的第五章，將以原型的概念來詮釋小說中各個人物的悲劇做為總結。《盲眼刺客》中的每個人物都傾向於過份認同某個原型，而忽略了讓自我有平衡發展的重要性。 / This thesis is to discover the psychological depths of the characters in Margaret Atwood’s The Blind Assassin and to analyze them according to the Jungian conception of archetypes and the influence of archetypes upon the human psyche. This thesis consists of five chapters. Chapter One is an introduction, including the overview of the novel and its critical backgrounds. And Chapter Two introduces C.G. Jung’s conception of the collective unconscious and its relation with archetypes and follow with specific discussion of certain archetypes—the Warrior and the Martyr—mainly according to the theories of two neo-Jungian scholars, Marion Woodman and Carol S. Pearson. Since these two archetypes are often over-simplified to fit in gender stereotypes under the influence of patriarchal society, the energies and complexity of these archetypes are always neglected or repressed. Chapter Three begins with an argument that Atwood’s characters are not stereotypical but rather archetypal, for they possess the contradictory energies within them that are correspondent with that of archetypes. On the one hand, I discuss how the characters in the memoir are symbolized in the science-fiction allegory, being reflected as the blind assassin and the sacrificial maiden; on the other hand, I make a connection between the symbols of the novel—the blind assassin and sacrificial maiden—and the mythological and fairy-tale allusions, and further, the archetypes behind them. In Chapter Four, I examine the psychic problems of the characters according to their relations with the archetypes—to examine how much they identify unconsciously with the archetypes and the extent of their inflation. Finally, Chapter Five concludes with the archetypal explanation of the tragic life of the characters in the novel. Each of them is trapped in an overwhelming power of a certain archetype instead of having the ego balanced between these multiple archetypes, they turn themselves into mythical figures that are too rigid for humanity.