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“Always a potent object”? : The Shifting Role of the Bible in Margaret Atwood’s Novels

Strømmen, Hannah M. LU (2020) In Biblical Intersections 18. p.27-53
Abstract
The Bible appears regularly in Margaret Atwood’s novels, from The Edible Woman in 1969 to The Testaments in 2019. Atwood’s characters do not tend to be religious, but like most people in the Western world, they encounter the Bible in schools, at funerals, in headlines, advertisements, and occasionally from religious people themselves. Atwood’s Bible is a Christian Bible, the references running from Genesis to Revelation. Most often it speaks in the words of the King James Version (KJV) from 1611. Frequently in Atwood’s novels, Bibles are present in ways that denote their impotency and incongruity in the modern world. The language of the KJV is archaic, its words obsolete. The Bible is still around but in hotel bed-sides, its verses... (More)
The Bible appears regularly in Margaret Atwood’s novels, from The Edible Woman in 1969 to The Testaments in 2019. Atwood’s characters do not tend to be religious, but like most people in the Western world, they encounter the Bible in schools, at funerals, in headlines, advertisements, and occasionally from religious people themselves. Atwood’s Bible is a Christian Bible, the references running from Genesis to Revelation. Most often it speaks in the words of the King James Version (KJV) from 1611. Frequently in Atwood’s novels, Bibles are present in ways that denote their impotency and incongruity in the modern world. The language of the KJV is archaic, its words obsolete. The Bible is still around but in hotel bed-sides, its verses converted into bad puns. At the same time, several of Atwood’s novels present a different picture, particularly The Handmaid’s Tale from 1985 and its sequel, The Testaments (2019), and The Year of the Flood from 2009. In The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments the Bible is an object kept from the eyes and hands of women, used to justify their oppression and objectification. In The Year of the Flood – and the trilogy of which it is a part – the Bible is used to critique the capitalist, consumerist forces that have led to a natural disaster on a global scale. These most ‘biblical’ of Atwood’s novels could be understood in line with a shift from the first generation of feminist biblical scholarship emerging in the 1970s to the renewed interest in religion and the ‘post-secular’ in the late 1990s. (Less)
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author
publishing date
type
Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding
publication status
published
subject
keywords
Margaret Atwood, the Bible and literature, secularization, feminism, gender, environmentalism, Bible, biblical reception, apocalyptic
host publication
"Who Knows What We’d Ever Make of It, If We Ever Got Our Hands on It?" : The Bible and Margaret Atwood - The Bible and Margaret Atwood
series title
Biblical Intersections
editor
Graybill, Rhiannon and Sabo, Peter
volume
18
pages
26 pages
publisher
Gorgias Press
ISBN
9781463241360
9781463241353
DOI
10.31826/9781463241360-005
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
ac05bc37-bea9-41a0-b0ab-2c173c03d0e5
date added to LUP
2024-03-29 15:46:25
date last changed
2024-04-16 13:40:56
@inbook{ac05bc37-bea9-41a0-b0ab-2c173c03d0e5,
  abstract     = {{The Bible appears regularly in Margaret Atwood’s novels, from The Edible Woman in 1969 to The Testaments in 2019. Atwood’s characters do not tend to be religious, but like most people in the Western world, they encounter the Bible in schools, at funerals, in headlines, advertisements, and occasionally from religious people themselves. Atwood’s Bible is a Christian Bible, the references running from Genesis to Revelation. Most often it speaks in the words of the King James Version (KJV) from 1611. Frequently in Atwood’s novels, Bibles are present in ways that denote their impotency and incongruity in the modern world. The language of the KJV is archaic, its words obsolete. The Bible is still around but in hotel bed-sides, its verses converted into bad puns. At the same time, several of Atwood’s novels present a different picture, particularly The Handmaid’s Tale from 1985 and its sequel, The Testaments (2019), and The Year of the Flood from 2009. In The Handmaid’s Tale and The Testaments the Bible is an object kept from the eyes and hands of women, used to justify their oppression and objectification. In The Year of the Flood – and the trilogy of which it is a part – the Bible is used to critique the capitalist, consumerist forces that have led to a natural disaster on a global scale. These most ‘biblical’ of Atwood’s novels could be understood in line with a shift from the first generation of feminist biblical scholarship emerging in the 1970s to the renewed interest in religion and the ‘post-secular’ in the late 1990s.}},
  author       = {{Strømmen, Hannah M.}},
  booktitle    = {{"Who Knows What We’d Ever Make of It, If We Ever Got Our Hands on It?" : The Bible and Margaret Atwood}},
  editor       = {{Graybill, Rhiannon and Sabo, Peter}},
  isbn         = {{9781463241360}},
  keywords     = {{Margaret Atwood; the Bible and literature; secularization; feminism; gender; environmentalism; Bible; biblical reception; apocalyptic}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  pages        = {{27--53}},
  publisher    = {{Gorgias Press}},
  series       = {{Biblical Intersections}},
  title        = {{“Always a potent object”? : The Shifting Role of the Bible in Margaret Atwood’s Novels}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.31826/9781463241360-005}},
  doi          = {{10.31826/9781463241360-005}},
  volume       = {{18}},
  year         = {{2020}},
}