"Nolite te bastardes carborundorum": Reproduction and Resistance in Octavia Butler, Margaret Atwood, and the Alien Series

This thesis proposes a comparative study of Octavia E. Butlers Xenogenesis trilogy (1987-89), Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale (1985), and the Alien series (1979-97). I argue that these three texts resist patriarchal oppression upon the female fertile body. I examine how they rewrite and subvert such institutions as motherhood, the family, and the heterosexual couple, in order to redefine and empower woman. In the first chapter, I argue that Octavia Butler rewrites Western origin stories in order to put woman and people of color at its center, which provokes a redefinition of the essential woman. In chapter two, I examine how Margaret Atwood criticizes both patriarchal and feminist ideologies in a satirical, pessimistic tale. She represents the patriarchal rule as absurd and makes reproduction ironically futile. In the final chapter, I demonstrate that the Alien series and in particular Alien: Resurrection (Dir. Jean-Pierre Jeunet, 1997) represent patriarchy as a failure and empower the liminal woman.

Name thesis:degree_name

Comparative Literature and Cultural Studies

Level thesis:degree_level

Thesis

Discipline thesis:degree_discipline

Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures

Year

2014

Author dc:creator

• Faucheux, Amandine

Contributors dc:contributor

• Cheek, Pamela
• Bishop, Stephen
• Higgins, Scarlett

• feminism women science fiction Octavia Butler Margaret Atwood Alien series Ellen Ripley reproductive rights

Language dc:language

English

Identifier

https://digitalrepository.unm.edu/fll_etds/68

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:digitalrepository.unm.edu:fll_etds-1068