This thesis aims to answer the questions whether the feminist speculative texts “imported” through translation into Turkish culture repertoire have become “transfers” (Even-Zohar, 2002) and how this import and transfer (if any) have been conducted by whom and in what ways, through close examinations of paratextual (Genette, 1997) elements of the imported feminist speculative texts. In addition to translations, there have been produced indigenous texts (such as by Buket Uzuner, 1998 and Ayşe Kulin, 2015) that embody feminist speculative features. The first translation, introduced to Turkish “culture repertoire” as an “option” (Even-Zohar, 2002) is Marge Piercy’s Zamanın Kıyısındaki Kadın (1992), translated by Füsun Tülek. The translation of these texts have increased during the 1990s in Turkey, in parallel with the Turkish women’s movement of the late 1980s and early 1990s, and continued in the 2000s until today. The first and foremost examples of feminist speculative fiction in Western cultures were produced in the 1960s and 1970s.

Therefore, speculative fiction, with its thematic and narrative tools, enables women writers to deconstruct patriarchal constructions of gender and sexuality and to offer new alternatives within the realm of literature. Feminism, as a social and ideological struggle for rights, deconstructs the patriarchal system that traps women in socially-, culturally- and ideologically-constructed gender roles, and develops ideas and discourses to fight against patriarchy. Speculative fiction, where woman’s presence and visibility has been limited until recently, serves to question and find alternatives to the existing world order via such narrative techniques as estrangement, extrapolation and speculation. I theorise my analysis of this through reference to Lacanian theory. The gendered hierarchy in her ustopias is constructed and maintained through language.

I suggest Atwood’s metafictional portrayal of gender makes an important contribution to the literary dystopia and science fiction, helping to keep the genre’s critique of society fully, rather than partially, dynamic. I investigate how Atwood’s representation of gender is politicised through the oppositional writing practices of speculation and indeterminacy as well as through her ustopian structure and use of intertext. This enables an in-depth consideration of how gendered inequality functions, whilst maintaining the ability to represent utopian possibility.

Atwood’s generic model, the ustopia, combines utopian and dystopian paradigms. Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy and The Heart Goes Last use genre to explore the risks and opportunities associated with gender’s intersection with technology and culture in 21st century Western society.

The handmaid's tale atwood