“He Has the Word”: The Role of Language in the Struggle for Power in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue
Files
Denis_3509-16-00_2018.pdf
UCLouvain restricted access - Adobe PDF
- 1.17 MB
Details
- Supervisors
- Faculty
- Degree label
- Abstract
- Language is essentially a means of communication in today’s society. As people interact, they unavoidably use language to communicate, whether it be oral, written, or body language. But it is in fact more than a simple tool of communication: it is an instrument of power. It can be manipulated to achieve oppression as well as rebellion. The aim of this study is to analyse the way in which language is manipulated in order to achieve oppression and rebellion in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Suzette Haden Elgin’s Native Tongue (1984). Those two dystopian novels portray characters who are aware of the power that language can have on people’s minds and use it to try to gain power over others. This attempt at power assertion is not only made by those who want to dominate and oppress, but the victims of oppression also use language as a weapon to defend themselves and counter the oppression to which they are subjected. This master dissertation investigates thus language as a medium of power that can help impose a dystopian power structure as well as disrupt an established repressive order.