Volume 7, Issue 2 (June 2025)
IEEPJ 2025, 7(2): 1-12 |
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Moslehi M, Borzabadi Farahani H, Khodadad M, Azizmohammadi F. (2025). Intersectionality of Gender Subordination, Ideology and Language in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid’s Tale through the Lens of Judith Butler and Bell Hooks. IEEPJ. 7(2), 1-12.
URL: http://ieepj.hormozgan.ac.ir/article-1-1070-en.html
URL: http://ieepj.hormozgan.ac.ir/article-1-1070-en.html
1- Department of English language, Ar.C., Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
2- Department of English language, Ar.C., Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran ,053225372522@iau.ac.ir
3- Department of English language, Ar.C., Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
4- Department of English language, Ar.C., Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
2- Department of English language, Ar.C., Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran ,
3- Department of English language, Ar.C., Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
4- Department of English language, Ar.C., Islamic Azad University, Arak, Iran
Abstract: (1418 Views)
Objective: This paper examines the intersection of gender, ideology, and language in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, drawing on the theoretical insights of Judith Butler and bell hooks. It investigates how Atwood’s dystopian world exposes the mechanisms through which patriarchal power is naturalized and sustained through discourse. The analysis is grounded in Butler’s concept of gender as performative and hooks’s critique of patriarchy as an interlocking system intertwined with race, class, and religion. These frameworks illuminate how Gilead’s theocratic regime transforms gendered oppression into sacred law, embedding ideological control within both language and ritual.
Methods: Through a close textual analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale, the paper explores how linguistic repetition, ritualized speech, and narrative fragmentation reflect the dynamics of ideological reproduction and resistance. Offred’s narration is treated as both an act of storytelling and a mode of survival.
Results: The study finds that Atwood’s depiction of language in Gilead demonstrates how ideology operates not merely through explicit commands but through habits of speech, silence, and repetition. Even within systems of total control, language retains a subversive potential: Offred’s fragmented, hesitant storytelling becomes an act of defiance against imposed narratives.
Conclusions: Read through the lenses of Butler and hooks, The Handmaid’s Tale emerges as more than a dystopian cautionary tale—it is a meditation on performance, power, and resistance. The novel reveals how domination and defiance coexist within the same gestures, suggesting that ideology’s strongest instruments may also harbor the seeds of its undoing.
Methods: Through a close textual analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale, the paper explores how linguistic repetition, ritualized speech, and narrative fragmentation reflect the dynamics of ideological reproduction and resistance. Offred’s narration is treated as both an act of storytelling and a mode of survival.
Results: The study finds that Atwood’s depiction of language in Gilead demonstrates how ideology operates not merely through explicit commands but through habits of speech, silence, and repetition. Even within systems of total control, language retains a subversive potential: Offred’s fragmented, hesitant storytelling becomes an act of defiance against imposed narratives.
Conclusions: Read through the lenses of Butler and hooks, The Handmaid’s Tale emerges as more than a dystopian cautionary tale—it is a meditation on performance, power, and resistance. The novel reveals how domination and defiance coexist within the same gestures, suggesting that ideology’s strongest instruments may also harbor the seeds of its undoing.
Type of Study: Original |
Subject:
Educational Psychology
Received: 2025/04/3 | Accepted: 2025/05/14 | Published: 2025/06/1
Received: 2025/04/3 | Accepted: 2025/05/14 | Published: 2025/06/1
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