Deterritopia and Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy

• Main Authors: Chia-wei Ko, 柯嘉瑋
• Other Authors: Hsiao-hung Chang
• Format: Others
• Language: en_US
• Published: 2015
• Online Access: http://ndltd.ncl.edu.tw/handle/97158274163168724456

碩士 === 國立臺灣大學 === 外國語文學研究所 === 103 === This thesis proposes a “deterritopian” reading of Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy. In most of the readings of utopian/dystopian fiction, critics tend to center on how and what the writer criticizes in order to offer a critique of the current society, while a deterritopian reading highlights the process of creation involved in utopian/dystopian fiction in order to explore how creation is made possible so that a genuine change of the society can be ushered in. Gilles Deleuze’s concept of deterritorialization will be foregrounded to explore how deterritopia incorporates the utopian desire to change the world and pushes the desire a step forward to the implementation of action, namely creation. The thesis conducts a deterritopian reading from three aspects in Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy: subjectivity, space, and language. They respectively correspond to how utopian/dystopian discourses deal with time, space, and language. If a utopia/dystopia stands for a strict control over the temporal-spatial relationship between the subject and the surroundings, then a deterritopia aims at opening up such a strict temporal-spatial control over the subject, and thus summons forth a brand new formation of subjectivity and space. Similarly, if in an idealistic utopia or an extremely nightmarish dystopia the language plays the crucial role of controlling thought, then a deterritopian language is able to dismantle the control towards its revolutionary change. As such, a deterritopian reading regards the trilogy as critique via creation, while utopian/dystopian readings conduct critique through criticism. It is by the emphasis on creation that we can put into practice an urgent action that changes the society right here and right now.