Narrating Resistance: Feminist Agency and the Collapse of Patriarchal Power in the Handmaid’s Tale and the Testaments

The paper aims to analyze the representation of feminist agency, studies on narrative strategies for resistance and examines how oppressed women are developed into change agents. The paper is important in that it not only underscores the relevance of feminist resistance even in modern-day socio-political scenarios, but also serves to add to the body of work which examines gender and agency, especially in dystopian contexts. Margaret Atwood explores this theme of resistance and feminist agency in both The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments through her female characters, who work to defy patriarchal authority during their time in a dystopian society governed by Gilead. The two equal key objectives of this study are to investigate the counter attacks means female figures adopted and determine how a combination of their voices, memory and collective actions can lead to the slow fall down of patriarchal power entities. The major argument of the study is that Atwood depicts resistance as not only overt protest but also small acts such as remembering, storytelling or solidarity. This study utilizes a qualitative textual analysis through the lens of feminist literary theory and dystopian studies to interpret these narratives. Some key questions driving the research are: What narratives of agency do women craft in Gilead? How do narrative voices disrupt (patriarchal) discourse? How does collective female agency help bring about the regime’s decline?