Women Writing in Question : Politics and Aesthetics in Margaret Atwood’s Novels

Abstract

The present research studies three novels by Margaret Atwood which are Lady Oracle, The Handmaid’s Tale and The Penelopiad as woman’s texts. The three belong to different generic categories and signal important stages in Atwood’s development as a woman writer. This study attempts to analyse the aesthetic and intertextual aspects of the aforementioned novels. It examines Atwood’s transformations of the three subgenres: the gothic, the dystopia and the epic to uncover the political aims behind their female appropriation by the writer.