The thesis discusses political ideas in science fiction literature and how they are expressed in the case of Margaret Atwood’s dystopian science fiction novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Based on the work of researchers in this area, it summarizes the development of science fiction literature and examines a specific subgenre of science fiction – dystopia. The focus of the analysis is on the influence of the sociopolitical context on the novel. It also addresses the emergence of feminist theory in dystopias. The empirical part of the thesis performs an analysis of the chosen novel. The focus is on the influence of the historical background on The Handmaid’s Tale, namely the 1980s when the ideas of the New Right began rising to power. The subsequent analysis is exposing and describing the political system present in the novel in detail. The analysis then continues with a discussion of slavery, which appears as the predominant relation in the novel. In the last part, the thesis focuses on the analysis of the text from the viewpoint of the feminist context, drawing on the aforementioned feminist theory from the first part of the thesis. The thesis aims to outline the potential of science fiction literature in political science research and aims to help to change the perception of science fiction literature as only a pulp literature.
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