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Chapter 6 - Margaret Atwood and History

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 March 2021

By
Gina Wisker
Edited by
Coral Ann Howells
Coral Ann Howells
Affiliation:
Institute of English Studies, University of London
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Summary

This chapter explores the variety of genres within which Atwood has chosen to write about history, interweaving historical fact with imaginative rewriting and reinventing, with reference to her poems in The Journals of Susanna Moodie, her nonfiction essay “In Search of Alias Grace,” and her novels. The focus is on Atwood’s narrative art, with detailed analyses of The Handmaid’s Tale, The Robber Bride, Alias Grace, and The Blind Assassin. These novels with their splicing together of different genres (historical documentary, fictive autobiography, crime fiction, dystopias, Gothic) illustrate the multiple scripts and alternative perspectives through which history may be told, in Atwood’s reappraisal of Canada’s national history and heritage myths, as she reinterprets Canadian themes through her contemporary social, ethical, and global concerns.

Keywords

historical fictionhistoriographic metafictionGothicquilting motifsAlias GraceThe Blind AssassinThe Handmaid’s TaleThe Robber Bride.
Type
Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Companion to Margaret Atwood , pp. 92 - 108
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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