Dystopie we współczesnej literaturze pięknej : socjologiczna analiza zjawiska na przykładzie dystopijnych powieści Margaret Atwood

Abstract

The purpose of this study is a sociological analysis of Margaret Atwood's novels, in the perspective of literary dystopias. Therefore, the key issues are the contexts that clearly and unequivocally build the image of the social world, read through the prism of the sociology of literature. In the selection of the research subject, the public reception of the analyzed novels is of particular importance; their often turbulent reception proves the extraordinary timeliness of the problems discussed. The issues presented in the analysis focus on the following questions: 1. How and to what extent are classical and contemporary theories of totalitarianism reflected in the novels of the Canadian writer? 2. What is the structure of the social world and what types of individual adaptation to the challenges of social reality do individuals choose, and what are the reasons behind it? 3. What types of social bonds dominate within social microstructures? 4. What is the social position of women in Atwood’s dystopian novels, and how is it justified? The theoretical part of the dissertation details the chosen concept of investigating literary dystopias, outlines the status of the sociology of literature as a sociological subdiscipline, and discusses the basic assumptions of the two sociological concepts that constitute the theoretical background for this study (Erving Goffman's dramaturgical perspective, and the types of individual adaptation of individuals to social structure by Robert K. Merton). It also presents the assumptions of the perspective adopted in the work – on the one hand, the most general assumptions of qualitative analysis, and on the other hand, the dissertation looks at analyses and interpretations in the sociology of literature – classical (György Lukács, Lucien Goldman), also contemporary (Krzysztof Łęcki, Paweł Ćwikła). The research interests include the issues of the anthropology of dystopia, as well as the terminological and categorization complexity of utopia/dystopia. An important element of the analysis is also a utopian project considered as a thought experiment and its significance in the dynamics of social processes. The last section of the theoretical part problematizes the totalitarian perspective. Classical concepts of totalitarianism are presented, from Plato to contemporary thought: Hannah Arendt, Zbigniew Brzeziński and Carl Friedrich, to the systemization proposed by Jacob L. Talmon. In the micro-sociological perspective, the analyses refers to the model of a total institution by Erving Goffman. The next chapter opens an empirical part. In reference to the systematization proposed by Ralf Dahrendorf, the characteristics of the utopian vision of reality are sought in Atwood's novels, in order to clarify the fundamental properties of the total prospective seen in the analysed works and, in particular, those that seem to dominate. In addition, by describing the model of social structure recognized in The Handmaid’s Tale and the MaddAddam trilogy, representative characters are selected from the novels to analyze the types of individual adaptation to changing social conditions. Another empirical section of the work discusses the role of a woman in the Atwood’s world. These reflections focus on the assumption of patriarchal impairment of women in the analyzed dystopias. At the end of the empirical part, the author presents the vision of the (new) man in the discussed dystopian narratives. The key aspect of the analysis is to distinguish the Crakers and Gardeners, who exemplify the new quality of social microstructures as well as the Handmaids illustrating the properties of (new) women. The last chapter of the dissertation compares Margaret Atwood's narrative with classic anti-utopias – George Orwell's 1984 and Aldous Huxley's Brave New World – which belong to the most influential dystopian novels of the 20th century. This part specifies the place of the total order described by Margaret Atwood on the axis connecting Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World.