Words as Weapons: An Analysis of the Discursive Practices of Power and Resistance Constituted Through Speech Acts in The Dystopian Novels 1984 and The Handmaid’s Tale.

Abstract

This thesis researches the role of language (propaganda, slogans, speeches) as depicted in the dystopic-totalitarian regimes of 1984 and The Handmaid's Tale and by tracing the development of performativity (and also features the Neo-Marxist Louis Althusser because somehow everything I write has to feature Althusser) it aims to investigate how the protagonists seize back their mutilated language from the totalitarians. Can they liberate themselves through subversive speech acts and create narratives of their own, even in the face of technocratic despotism?