Bodyscape, soundscape and smellscape
landscape imagery in The Handmaid’s Tale
Parole chiave:
Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale, Landscape, Bodyscape, SmellscapeAbstract
Margaret Atwood, one of the most influential writers in contemporary world literature, demonstrates a keen interest in exploring politics and power in her works. She notes that her The Handmaid’s Tale is a study of power. From the perspective of landscape theory, this paper focuses on the novel’s micro landscapes—specifically bodyscape, soundscape, and smellscape—to elucidate the relationship between these landscapes and power through the method of close reading. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood constructs distinctive sensuous and metaphorical landscapes, framing them as political forms—a type of “cultural practice”: the body, as a visual landscape, serves as the site of Gilead’s power operations; sound constitutes a hegemonic landscape through its spatial domination; and smell, functioning as an emotional trigger, simultaneously embodies an oppressive dimension.
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