Strangers in Strange Worlds
Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 20156837 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Richard Alan Northover (0000-0002-5699-9613, University of South Africa, corresponding author), Alan Northover (University of South Africa) |
| Year | 2017 |
| Volume | 33 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 121-137 |
| Publication date | 2017-01-02 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Journal of Literary Studies (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0256-4718 • E-ISSN: 1753-5387 |
| Publisher | Unisa Press (PUBLISHER • ZA) |
| DOI | 10.1080/02564718.2017.1290384 |
| OpenAlex | W2606692663 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 1 |
| References cited | 9 |
Strangeness, based on the ambivalence of the uncanny, characterises both the pre-and post-apocalyptic worlds of Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy. Whereas Spiegel (2010) makes a convincing case for the neomedievalism of the corporation-dominated pre-apocalyptic world in Oryx and Crake, Atwood’s post-apocalyptic world can perhaps more aptly be described as Palaeolithic or Neolithic in the special sense of a return to the Stone Age. However, both these worlds are fictional constructs, set in the near future, allowing Atwood to critique trends in the contemporary world. Both worlds make disturbing and alienating reading, despite – or pehaps because of – the dark sense of humour that Atwood exhibits and the strange familiarity of her imagined worlds. Besides the more general concepts of the sinister and the eerie, Russian Formalism’s defamiliarisation and Freud’s unheimlich (uncanny) are employed to understand different aspects the alienating effects that Atwood achieves. The animal gaze and the unmasking of the absent referent are also considered, particularly as experienced through Jimmy and Toby, Atwood’s main narrative focalisers
Art · Art history · Epistemology · Fictional universe · Literature · Narrative · Parallel universe · Possible world · Trilogy · Uncanny · Gothic Literature and Media Analysis · Philosophy · Utopian, Dystopian, and Speculative Fiction
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We’re Using Up the Earth. It’s Almost Gone”
A “joke-filled romp” through end times
In Other Worlds-SF and the Human Imagination
Russian Formalism
Secular Apocalypses
The Animal That Therefore I Am (More to Follow)
| Unique citing works | 1 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 0,2 |
| Citation span | 2021 - 2021 (1) |
| Citation velocity | historical |
| Highly cited | No |