Societal structures, class divisions, and class relations in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1985) and Kazuo Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go (2005) - And why the novels continue to hold contemporary relevance.

Christensen, Mette Krogh ; Hansen, Nanna Bukh

4. term

English, Master

2021

2021-06-02

123

Dette speciale sammenligner Margaret Atwoods The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) og Kazuo Ishiguros Never Let Me Go (2005) for at undersøge, hvordan de skildrer sociale skel, klasseforhold og hvordan de magtfulde bruger systemer til at kontrollere dem med mindre magt. Analysen er forankret i et marxistisk perspektiv og trækker på Fredric Jamesons The Political Unconscious, Engels og Marx’ klasseteori samt Michel Foucaults idéer om føjelighed, panoptisme og straf. I enklere ord ser studiet på, hvordan romanerne opbygger samfund, hvor mennesker trænes til at adlyde, konstant overvåges og disciplineres, og hvordan disse praksisser understøtter ulige klassestrukturer. Med fokus på hovedpersonernes hverdag identificerer afhandlingen vedvarende konflikter og modstående ideologier, der former hver verden. Den viser, hvordan overvågning skaber selvdisciplin, hvordan kroppe gøres føjelige, og hvordan sanktioner og trusler opretholder den sociale orden. Disse mekanismer forbindes derefter med personernes klassepositioner og de magtrelationer, der organiserer deres liv. På tværs af begge romaner finder studiet fælles temaer: overvågning, social ulighed, straf og spørgsmål om, hvad det vil sige at være menneske. Fordi disse problemstillinger også findes i nutidige, vestlige samfund, argumenterer afhandlingen for, at en marxistisk læsning fortsat er relevant for at forstå, hvordan magt og klasse fungerer i både fiktionen og den verden, vi lever i.

This thesis compares Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Kazuo Ishiguro’s Never Let Me Go (2005) to examine how they portray social divisions, class relations, and the ways the powerful use systems to control the less powerful. The analysis is guided by a Marxist perspective, drawing on Fredric Jameson’s The Political Unconscious, Engels and Marx’s class theory, and Michel Foucault’s ideas about docility, panopticism, and punishment. In plain terms, the study looks at how the novels build societies where people are trained to obey, constantly watched, and disciplined, and how these practices support unequal class structures. By focusing on the protagonists’ everyday experiences, the thesis identifies persistent conflicts and opposing ideologies that shape each world. It traces how surveillance creates self-discipline, how bodies are made docile, and how sanctions and threats maintain social order. These mechanisms are then linked to the class positions of characters and to the power relations that organize their lives. Across both novels, the study finds shared themes: surveillance, social inequality, punishment, and questions about what it means to be human. Because these issues are also present in contemporary Western societies, the thesis argues that reading the novels through a Marxist lens remains a relevant way to understand how power and class work in both fiction and the world around us.

[This summary has been rewritten with the help of AI based on the project's original abstract]

Klasse ; Samfundsstruktur ; Ideologemes ; Ideologi ; Dystopi ; Straf ; Panopticism ; Karl Marx ; Friedrich Engels ; Michel Foucault ; Fredric Jameson

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