As imaginary good places located elsewhere and/or in another time, literary utopias may articulate nostalgic yearnings for an irretrievable past, but more significantly, they express socio-political discontent with the present and anticipations for the future. The role of memory is thus central in utopian configurations since they present better alternatives primarily by “remembering” and evaluating specific historical conjunctures. In line with the increasing prominence of dystopian fiction starting from the early twentieth century, issues concerning the preservation and destruction of memory have become more relevant. Authors portray how totalitarian regimes and corporations reshape or sever the links between the past, the present, and the future while defiant characters resist political oppression by forming alternative narratives. The struggle to construct personal and collective archives against the obliteration of past and present records makes recordkeeping a common theme and trope in many dystopian narratives. This paper examines the various forms of what I call “oppositional recordkeeping” in the selected major examples of the genre through theories of dystopia, memory, and the archive. The paper will conclude that authors of dystopian fiction preserve the possibility of utopian change by imagining various oppositional recordkeeping practices without overlooking the problems entailed in authority and authorship.
Bu makale Anne Sexton, Carol Ann Duffy ve Margaret Atwood'un revizyonist mit yazımı projelerinde erkek egemen toplumun norm ve kurumlarının kadınlar ve toplumsal cinsiyet eşitliği üzerindeki olumsuz etkilerini ortaya çıkarmak ve reddetmek için kullandığı stratejileri ele alır. Şairler klasik mit ve masalları bu kez tarihsel ve sosyokültürel anlatılardan dışlananların göz ardı edilen hikayelerini anlatmak amacıyla yeniden yazarlar. Sexton, Duffy ve Atwood'un yeni hikayeleri toplumsal cinsiyet kalıplarını mizahi öğelerle ve ters köşelerle altüst eder ve kadınlara tarih boyunca atfedilen ikincil rolleri reddeder. Şiirlerdeki kadın karakterler erkek şiddeti ve yetersizlik hissinden kaynaklanan içselleştirilmiş suçluluk duygularıyla yüzleşerek edebi (yeniden) üretim aracılığıyla güçlerini geri kazanırlar. Bu makale bahsi geçen stratejilerin kadınların bağımsız kimlik inşasına katkıda bulunabileceğini ve erkek egemen düzenin baskıcı söylemine karşın elzem bir eleştirel karşılık oluşturabileceğini iddia eder.
Plagues have both infected physical bodies as bacterial and viral epidemics and permeated textual bodies starting from ancient and biblical texts throughout history. This paper will explore the plague as portrayed in Daniel Defoe's fictional testimony A Journal of the Plague Year (1722) and Mark Ravenhill's libretto of his music theatre Ten Plagues (2011). Defoe brings together poignant fictional stories about the plague victims and survivors with the statistical reports quoted, and at times analysed, by his narrator to portray the Great Plague of London that hit the city in 1665. Ten Plagues is a stage adaptation of A Journal of the Plague Year. Drawing upon the textual dynamics of the plague or "the outbreak narrative" in Priscilla Wald's terms ( 2008) and Linda Hutcheon's understanding of adaptation as a palimpsest ( 2006), this paper argues that the idea of contagion could operate not only as subject matter or a narrative thread but also as a method or medium as demonstrated by these two works. The interwoven stories of A Journal and Ten Plagues represent survival and resilience along with the fragile and precarious condition of humanity under medical and social uncertainties. The paper concludes that Defoe and Ravenhill lead their audience to contemplate on "diseased" pasts and futures by envisioning isolation and connection in dire times and establish the power of art and fiction in the aesthetic and critical space they create together.
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