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Abstract

This dissertation will explore the construction of personal identity in relation to the enforcing of boundaries within dystopian fiction, which remains significant in both inter-war and contemporary novels. Despite the differing social and political contexts of the two time periods, this dissertation will highlight the ways in which Margaret Atwood’s contemporary novels are consciously rooted in the earlier dystopian tradition and draws on the anxieties and social issues found in the inter-war novels, while also developing new, period-specific concerns. Each chapter will explore a different element of the relationship between identity and social boundaries, focusing on the role of conditioning, the naming of characters, and finally the role of counter-narratives.

Through analyses of Yevgeny Zamyatin’s We (1924), Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World (1932), and Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Oryx and Crake (2003) this study will explore the boundaries formed by the often-totalitarian states in power, and how this allows for a manipulation of individual personal identity. Focusing on the wider contexts of writing and the theories surrounding a representation of this through the dystopia, my dissertation will outline the ways in which the state creates boundaries and binaries that seek to define and police individual identity. It will also explore onomastic theory and its applications in the dystopia in order to create and resist identity boundaries before focusing on the counter-narrative as a structural tool of working against dominant narratives. Finally, it will conclude that the dystopian genre is intensely involved in the ways in which individual identities are constructed, challenged, and resisted within totalitarian or dysfunctional societies.

Course: English Literature - BA (Hons) - C0995

Date Deposited: 2024-01-22

URI/permalink: https://library.port.ac.uk/dissert/dis14305.html