Yadav Manshi, Arora Palak, Singh Mandvi
Banasthali University, Vanasthali Rd, Aliyabad, Jaipur, Rajasthan, 304022, India.
Amity Education Valley, Manesar, Panchgaon, Amity University, Gurugram, Uttar Pradesh, 122412, India.
F1000Res. 2024 May 28;12:475. doi: 10.12688/f1000research.132487.2. eCollection 2023.
This article attempts to explore the synthetic relationship between group identities and their effects on cultural memory in Margaret Atwood's The Testaments. It will investigate how Atwood's dystopian fiction conspicuously weaves threads of cultural identity in the totalitarian society. While examining the work, the researchers found three forms of Memory Figures channelizing society: Architecture and time, Identical groupings, and Language. With significant attention to the prequel, The Handmaid's Tale, this article will consider The Testaments for the dissection of hard-wired cultural memory formation. This article focuses on how a politically unsettled society of Gilead, through its Memory Figures, inscribes a cultural narrative while instructing individual memories. Atwood's usage of these Memory Figures to achieve a theocratic regime has been scrutinized in this article. The Architecture of Gilead was given an intrusive wall of glass, where the symbol of eyes prevails, to externalize the surveillance of God on each one of its citizens, thereby forming a cultural memory of subjectivity. To make the citizens identify with groups, this theocratic regime specifies roles to citizens according to their rank for men and according to reproductive efficiency for women. Keeping in view the relevance of language in forming cultural memory, Atwood prescribed a set of greetings such as 'under his eyes,' and 'praise be' to make profound imprints on the individual memory of citizens, which has been discussed in the study. These three Memory Figures simultaneously form collective memory imprints on the citizens of Gilead, which in time became inherent cultural memories. This article explores how, by politicizing the issue of cultural memory in The Testaments, Atwood taps into the agency of people and establishes language control (communicative) to form the cultural memory narrative.
本文试图探讨玛格丽特·阿特伍德的《证言》中群体身份与其对文化记忆的影响之间的综合关系。它将研究阿特伍德的反乌托邦小说如何在极权社会中显著地编织文化身份的线索。在审视这部作品时，研究人员发现了引导社会的三种记忆形象形式：建筑与时间、相同的群体以及语言。本文将重点关注其前传《使女的故事》，并通过剖析《证言》来研究根深蒂固的文化记忆形成。本文聚焦于基列这个政治动荡的社会如何通过其记忆形象铭刻文化叙事，同时塑造个体记忆。本文审视了阿特伍德运用这些记忆形象来实现神权统治的手法。基列的建筑有一堵突兀的玻璃墙，眼睛的象征随处可见，以此将上帝对每个公民的监视外化，从而形成一种主体性的文化记忆。为了让公民认同群体，这个神权政权根据男性的等级和女性的生育效率为公民指定角色。考虑到语言在形成文化记忆中的相关性，阿特伍德规定了一系列问候语，如“在他的注视下”和“赞美主”，以便在公民的个体记忆中留下深刻印记，本研究对此进行了讨论。这三种记忆形象同时在基列公民身上形成集体记忆印记，随着时间的推移，这些印记成为了固有的文化记忆。本文探讨了阿特伍德如何通过将《证言》中的文化记忆问题政治化，利用人们的能动性并建立语言控制（交流方面）来构建文化记忆叙事。
