The Not-Yet of Gender Equality: The Representation of Gender in Dystopian Literature

Abstract

This thesis is an analytically grounded and reflective work which presents a close-reading of three dystopian novels: George Orwell’s 1984, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Dave Egger’s The Circle. It offers a comparison of the representations of gender in these three different texts. The genre of utopian/dystopian fiction is intertwined with a feminist analytic perspective. This thesis questions how gender is a powerful element in power relations and how “classic” dystopia respond to this gendered paradigm; it questions as well if the works can see beyond gender binaries. This thesis shows how gender binaries, power, oppression and language intersect, and places gender and the anatomy of injustice in its analysis.