紀要論文

紀要論文

text

大阪大学言語文化学. 2018, 27, p. 3-14

日本語

text

2018-03-31

The Handmaid’s Tale（1985）, written by the Canadian female novelist Margaret Atwood（1939 -）, is known as an another Nineteen Eighty-Four（1949）. There is a patriarchal republican system of government in The Handmaid’s Tale. Recently, these two works have started being reread as a result of the inauguration of Donald Trump as President of the United States of America in 2017. He has declared that the American government will follow a policy whose purpose is to construct walls at the border between America and Mexico. Moreover, President Trump often makes sensational announcements about restriction on the freedom of speech. For these reasons, people in America have come to fear a dystopian world and to reread Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Handmaid’s Tale. In this paper, I focus on the depiction of Americanness as it viewed in Canadian literature, and its overlap with contemporary America, clarify the collective effects of the women by focusing on the woman and Atwood’s prophetic minority “voice”. Offred, the protagonist of The Handmaid’s Tale, is a “Handmaid” who serves the Commander. A Handmaid’s duty is to give birth to a healthy child in the Republic of Gilead, where the birthrate has been declining dramatically because of a food crisis. Offred has lost her name, property, husband, mother and daughter. Her body is owned by the government as a sex slave. However, The Handmaid’s Tale is regarded as a feminist work and this paper does not assert that Offred is a weak person who suffers from sexual exploitation. In fact, Offred has control over her own body, and she has sexual relations with another man, Nick, who has been sent as a spy from the outside world to the Republic of Gilead. Her transgressive acts show the possibility of another kind of sexual act, and another body which is released from the government to the outside world because Offred aspires to escape alive. In the conclusion of this paper, I suggest that Offred’s body, voice, and aspiration could represent means of survival and, The Handmaid’s Tale is a prophetic tale from the past or a warning from the future to its 21st century readers.

10.18910/71222

71222

21世紀に読む『侍女の物語』（The Handmaid’s Tale） : アトウッド作品における女性、身体、アメリカ

安保, 夏絵

大阪大学言語文化学会

日本語

2018-03-31

大阪大学言語文化学

27

3

14

https://hdl.handle.net/11094/71222

10.18910/71222

https://doi.org/10.18910/71222