The Female Body in Atwood’s Gilead: A Material Feminist Reading of the Female Body in The Handmaid’s Tale, The Handmaid’s Tale TV Show and The Testaments

Abstract

This thesis will explore the female body presented in Margaret Atwood’s fictional world of Gilead in the context of material feminism. Through the mediums of two novels and one TV show I will use material feminist theories to analyse the modes in which different configurations of the female body and lived experience is presented as and worked with. I posit that there is a need to incorporate a more holistic and complicated model of how interconnected the body is to environmental issues, to its lived aspect and to social issues. The goal is to look beyond the symbolic and discourse alone and realise the impact material feminism has on the feminist project of equality.