A Bakhtinian Investigation of the Gendered Space as a Dystopian Chronotope in Atwood’s The Year of the Flood (2009)

Abstract

This paper seeks to investigate the possibility of regarding gendered spaces as dystopian chronotopes in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Year of the Flood (2009). The current research attempts to examine the process through which spaces are stratified into gendered ones, characterized by a masculine supremacy and feminine inferiority. Following a geocritical approach, the spatial landmarks and references that are found in the novel are scrutinized in order to examine the process through which space is categorized on a gender basis. The temporal indicators of the chosen work are studied interchangeably with their accompanying spatial presentations using Mikhail Bakhtin’s views on the literary chronotope. This latter looks into how the configurations of time and space are represented through language and discourse. Finally, the present research concludes that gendered spaces presented in Atwood’s novel constitute dystopian chronotopes because they epitomize one of the manifestations of dystopia.