Needlework and Narration: The Case of Margaret Atwood's "Alias Grace"

Authors

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5944/epos.39.2023.34172

Abstract

This article explores the main character in Margaret Atwood’s novel Alias Grace (1996) in terms of the semiotics of the textile and its corresponding feminine implications. The main hypotheses enunciated concern, on the one hand, the possibilities of narrativity that this symbol brings about (particularly for dissident discourses) and, on the other hand, the dissipation of the conceptual and representational boundaries of the textual and the textile. Furthermore, this study suggests a revision of the imaginary traditionally associated with the feminine spheres and an approach to these spaces as places of resistance that have arisen in the midst of silencing, captivity, or marginalisation.

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Author Biography

Celia Torrejón-Tobío, Universidad de Granada

Celia Torrejón-Tobío holds a degree in English Studies and Applied Linguistics from the University of Cádiz. After completing a Master’s degree in Literary and Theatre Studies at the University of Granada, she is pursuing her doctoral studies at the same university as part of the Languages, Texts and Contexts programme. She specialises in literary, cultural and gender studies and is writing her thesis on the textile symbol in contemporary narrative of English-language women authors. Her work has been published by publishing houses such as Dykinson, and in academic journals such as ES Review: Spanish Journal of English Studies. She has also taken part in two R+D+i projects in the Department of English and German Philology at the University of Granada and has carried out a research stay at the Centre for Social Studies of the University of Coimbra.

References

ARIAS DOBLAS, Rosario (2005): “Talking with the Dead: Revisiting the Victorian Past and the Occult in Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace and Sarah Waters’ Affinity”, Estudios Ingleses de la Universidad Complutense, 13, pp. 85-105.

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PERILLI, Carmen (2004): “Los trabajos de la araña: Mujeres, teorías y literatura.” Espéculo: Revista de Estudios Literarios, 28, https://webs.ucm.es/info/especulo/numero28/trabaran.html.

POMATA, Gianna (1993): “History, Particular and Universal: On Reading Some Recent Women’s History Textbooks”, Feminist Studies, 19.1, pp. 7-50.

ROGERSON, Margaret (1998): “Reading the Patchworks in Alias Grace”, The Journal of Commonwealth Literature, 33.1, pp. 5-22.

WANG, Mei-Chuen (2010): Narrative, Genre and National Myth in Postmodern Canadian Historical Fiction, University of Cardiff, PhD Thesis, ProQuest Publishing, https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/54365/1/U584466.pdf.

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Published

2023-12-18

How to Cite

Torrejón-Tobío, C. (2023). Needlework and Narration: The Case of Margaret Atwood’s "Alias Grace". Epos : Revista de filología, (39), 339–356. https://doi.org/10.5944/epos.39.2023.34172

Issue

No. 39 (2023): Epos. Revista de filología

Section

Articles

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Copyright (c) 2023 Celia Torrejón-Tobío

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