A Psychoanalytic Reading of The Handmaid’s Tale: Playing Scrabble, Reading, and Writing as Phantasying in Freudian Terms
Overtones Ege journal of english studies (Online), cilt.5, ss.11-17, 2026 (TRDizin)
- Yayın Türü: Makale / Tam Makale
- Cilt numarası: 5
- Basım Tarihi: 2026
- Dergi Adı: Overtones Ege journal of english studies (Online)
- Derginin Tarandığı İndeksler: TR DİZİN (ULAKBİM)
- Sayfa Sayıları: ss.11-17
- Açık Arşiv Koleksiyonu: AVESİS Açık Erişim Koleksiyonu
- İstanbul Gelişim Üniversitesi Adresli: Evet
Özet
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale represents the struggle of women physically and mentally imprisoned in a phallogocentric and totalitarian state called the Republic of Gilead. Even though the novel has been subjected to many readings from various vantage points, no study has so far offered a thorough psychoanalytic analysis of the novel from a Freudian perspective which focuses on the activities carried out by Offred and the Commander in the Commander’s study. This article analyses Atwood’s novel within a psychoanalytic context by incorporating such concepts as phantasy, pleasure principle, and defence mechanism from Freudian terminology. It specifically focuses on the time that Offred and the Commander spends in the Commander’s study in private, where they read, write, and play games together, and argues that these activities function as phantasying and that Offred and the Commander create a space of phantasy together in private in Freudian terms.