The Tale of Creative Non-victims: A Study of Feminist Revisionist Mythology in Margaret Atwood's Unpopular Gals
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.56062/Keywords:
Feminism, Mythology, Fairy tales, Victimhood, Margaret AtwoodAbstract
Myth is often considered as the soul of a particular culture, a perception that entails an unquestioning acceptance to all its discriminatory assumptions. One of the most prevailing features of mythology is its projection of a world predominated by patriarchal worldviews. Instances of misogyny, sexism, violence, commodification and dehumanization of women abound in the world of myths and fairy tales. Therefore, Contemporary feminist scholars feel compelled to re-evaluate the domains of myth, legend, folklore and fairy tale, seeking to expose the male hegemonic structures embedded beneath their apparently innocuous reading and to recover the female voices that have long been suppressed and marginalized. Margaret Atwood is one of the most prominent writers of the literary genre called "feminist revisionist mythology", which reinterprets the traditional narratives through a feminist lens. This paper offers a critical analysis to the short fiction "Unpopular Gals" from her 1992 collection Good Bones, focusing on Atwood's reconfiguration of female characters traditionally condemned as Cruel and villainous. It examines Atwood’s characterization through the framework of the victimhood model proposed in Survival: A Thematic Guide to Canadian Literature. The study further argues that Atwood delineates these women not as passive victims or silent sufferers, but as creative non-victims who put up a strong resistance against the male oriented socio-cultural system. The paper engages the reader into a critical rethinking of the traditional mythological narratives, foregrounding the agency of the women who challenge and subvert patriarchal constructions.
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