ECRITURE FEMININE: A STUDY OF SELECTED NOVELS OF MARGARET ATWOOD

Abstract

The thesis is focused on Margaret Atwood's fictional journey addressing the aspects of ecriture feminine which is critically analyzed through her select novels along with the other extant and relevant literary theory and criticism. The language of body and mind that emanates from women's peculiar experience in a subjugated condition is focused as their ecriture feminine and is applied as the theoretical background to analyze the novels under study. Further, the study attempts to explore how women can delegitimize the culture of silence by expressing their experiences through feminine writings. The concept of ecriture feminine was advocated by Cixous as female writing delineating women's consciousness that remained suppressed for centuries of subjugation. Women so far spoke through a borrowed language as was designed and imposed by the dominant male ideological construct. Atwood's protagonists prove to advocate the same by writing their own script by their own hands in the face of marginalized condition. They don't let their male counterparts to define them, rather they give voice to their experiences and desires in their own language and try to fabricate a distinct identity for themselves. Atwood's protagonists initially appear to be a weak creature, often exploited at every step by the male-oriented society. Yet, they reformulate their identity by rediscovering a renewed relationship with their body and voicing it in their own language. The language used in the novels is metaphoric, symbolic and multi-layered, thus, characterizing it as women’s writing and such writings attempts to supersede the otherness or boundaries against the binary axis. In all novels under scrutiny the protagonists are able to create their corporeal autonomy and redefine themselves as empowered human beings thus, justifying ecriture feminine as a reposing, redefining, and renaming power of women. Structurally, the dissertation is divided into five chapters namely, Chapter I –Introduction; Chapter II- The Edible Woman: A corporeal Language of Resistance; Chapter III- The Handmaid’s Tale: Dynamics of Body and Language In Reframing Identity; Chapter IV- The Blind Assassin: Writing as a Self Assertion to Reframe Identity and chapter V- conclusion. ii The first chapter analyzes Margaret Atwood's evolution as an author in the background of Canadian literary milieu, her literary career, and literary influence. A literature survey is reflected briefly as to various critical studies carried out on Atwood so far. The rationale for taking up the selected novels and analysing them through the lens of ecriture feminine is made clear. A brief sketch of Canadian literature and Margarate Atwood's all the novels under study is given. Helene Cixous's ecriture feminine theory is explained along with other relevant literary and critical theories. Chapter two of the present study deals with The Edible Woman (1969) considering it in relation to Helen Cixous’s theory of ecriture feminine. The study is attempted to focus how Atwood deconstructs the power relation of the patriarchy that has held sway in society so far. Her protagonist, Marian, is victimized at the hands of two men and her relationship with them reduced herself as consumerist goods what she resists through her sordid life. When she started losing her sense of self, she lost her appetite too. Societal oppression found expression through her body that she expresses through baking of cake doll of her image what symbolizes feminine weakness and communication. Atwood has shown how the female body could respond against such oppression and that is the way forward for creating space for women in a male dominated society. Atwood as an ecriture feminist encourages women through her protagonist to re-embody themselves in order to reorganize society. The third chapter of the study based on The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) scrutinizes the cultural construction of female identity and language. The protagonist, Offred, is subjected to suffer in the fictional totalitarian regime called Gilead. The dystopian novel shows how women are treated as commodity who are tyrannically controlled for breeding by the powerful. The chapter shows how the heroine uses the explosive language of subversion to reshape her identity. Offred's story brings to light the concept of white ink and female language to show that even under close surveillance and strict control on her, she manages to retain her language and her process of thinking through which she is able to regain her body. Thus, she proves that her identity cannot be defined by the language of the patriarchal figures. She uses her body to defend and write her own language (through her tape recordings) which is her ecriture feminine and which is free and autonomous that subverts the male domination. The fourth chapter of the present study is based on The Blind Assassin (2000). It attempts to shows how Atwood’s female protagonist Iris, when faces acute intimidation and subservience, iii raises her voice to fight back against the oppressive patriarchal forces that are instrumental in her construction. It focuses on retelling of the history as her memoir through the use of language that comes from the exclusive experiences of women and free from any male dictates. All the women characters leave their writings, in one or the other form, that serve two purposes: one can undergo a self-transformation and it is a way to reclaim the past in a new light. The key focus is that how a woman, by conquering her body and writing from it which is her ecriture feminine, gives voice to her silence and thus, redefines her identity against patriarchal social structure which prioritizes and propagates binary division of male/female and the female is always viewed as the ‘other’. This ensures a woman to assert her identity while pushing her to the centre and in turn, it is recognized as Subject. The present study justifies two basic aspects of ecriture feminine: the female body and the female writings that emerge in the selected novels of Margaret Atwood as distinct phenomena and which help women to assert their identity as subject. The proposed study clarifies that the world is socially structured and interpreted through language; hence, gendered identity is constructed in male centric language. Therefore, women are positioned at the margin in the symbolic order. Atwood attempted to deconstruct the male centric language which prioritizes male hegemony and subjugates women. Atwood’s protagonists under the study; Marian of The Edible Woman, Offred of The Handmaid’s Tale to Iris of The Blind Assassin emerge as creative non-victim with their deconstructive language at the end of the novel that is the expression of their ecriture feminine. Thus, Atwood justifies in an agreement with the notion of Cixous's ecriture feminine that, writing the female body is an empowering and emancipating tool for women to reconstruct their identity and her message is made clear that a woman must not stop writing; her subject will find her; and there are always outlets for voices