The Poetics of Speculative Realism in Margaret Atwood’s Select Works
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.17507/tpls.1603.11Keywords:
Margaret Atwood, speculative realism, speculative fiction, The Handmaid's Tale, Oryx and CrakeAbstract
Over the past two decades, Margaret Atwood has consistently defined her work as speculative fiction, pointing out the realistic foundation of her works, rather than imagining the future technology. Yet critics remain divided on how her works represent “reality” through imagination. Previous studies have primarily focused on speculative elements at the content and narrative levels, along with references to reality. This paper holds that her works are significantly different from the writing of traditional literature in terms of content and formal characteristics, especially in the cognitive and thinking levels such as speculative subjects, speculative narrative strategies and the use of cognitive modal words, but they are rooted in reality and reflect a speculative realism feature. The paper attempts to interpret Atwood's speculative novels—including The Handmaid's Tale, The Testaments, and Oryx and Crake—from the perspective of speculative realism. It aims to reveal the reality from the cognitive perspective presented by the author and characters, and analyze the artistic charm of Atwood's speculative fiction.
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