Margaret Atwood, Postmodernism and Hag-Seed

In commemoration of 400 years since Shakespeare's death, Hogarth Press launched a project that sees the Bard's works retold by bestselling novelists of today. Margaret Atwood participated in the experiment and offered an innovative re-interpretation of The Tempest (1611) in her work Hag Seed: The Tempest Retold (2016). Atwood's latest novel creatively incorporates the glories and turmoils of the traditional characters into the prison-setting of 21st century Canada, and totally innovates the story of the castaway Prospero through contemporary perspectives and postmodern approaches. Throughout the chapters of the present dissertation, Margaret Atwood's work is discussed in relation with postmodern tendencies and deconstructive techniques, and Hag Seed is also analysed considering the latest trends in postcolonial literatures. Postmodernism, Deconstruction and Postcolonialism are here analysed together as the major academic approaches influencing twentieth and twenty-first century narratives. The present research aims to establish whether Margaret Atwood can be considered a postmodern writer and whether her latest novel can be analysed as a product of postmodern literature. It firstly offers an overview on the philosophical and literary tendencies that influenced Postmodernism in literature and Deconstruction in the 20th century such as the theories of Lyotard, Derrida, Foucault and postcolonial authors. It then provides a detailed study of Atwood's re-writing tendencies in her multiple works and in her latest narratives: The Penelopiad (2005) and Hag Seed (2016). It finally discusses Hag Seed in its captivating re-writing of Shakespeare's plot, provides a broad variety of analyses on Atwood's re-interpretation of the canonical characters and their inner desires, and finally focuses on its experimental setting in present-day Canadian prisons. The dissertation uses the recent academic essays collected at Bristol University, analyses the seminal works of Lyotard, Derrida, and Foucault, incorporates online materials such as The Guardian articles, Big Think and the Hogarth Project websites, and finally offers detailed analyses on extracts from both Shakespeare's The Tempest (1611) and Atwood's Hag Seed (2016).