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Article: "We lived in the blank white spaces": rewriting the paradigm of denial in Atwood's 'The Handmaid's Tale.' (Margaret Atwood)
- Article from:
- Utopian Studies
- Article date:
- March 22, 1997
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 1997 Society for Utopian Studies. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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WHILE MARGARET ATWOOD'S The Handmaid's Tale brandishes partial portraits of human-rights violations around the globe--especially in Iran, India, Germany, South Africa, Guatemala, and the former Soviet Union--it is quite clear that Gilead is most wholly the U.S.A., embodying its past, its present, and its potential future. This novel is Atwood's first foray into an extended representation of America (Stimpson 764-67). The Handmaid's Tale illuminates the deplorable irony that a nation established upon the utopian principle of "liberty and justice for all" has also been a dystopia for those humans sequestered and tortured because of differences from mainstream culture. As ...