Representações utópicas e distópicas na trilogia Maddaddam, de Margaret Atwood

Abstract

From the perspectives of the utopian studies, this thesis presents an analysis of the representations of the concepts of utopia and dystopia in the MaddAddam trilogy, composed by the novels Oryx and Crake (2003), The Year of the Flood (2009), and MaddAddam (2013), by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. Through the analysis, I propose that the Maddaddam trilogy presents a dystopia with utopian possibilities, which contain, within themselves, dystopic features, so that the trilogy can be read as a literary example of the intimate connection between utopia and dystopia, two concepts that can be understood as correlated instead of binary oppositions. This conclusion is close to the theorizations of several researchers and critics who have argued for a less dualistic and more correlative view of these two seemingly opposing ideas (VIEIRA, 2013), an idea also advocated by Margaret Atwood who, by coining the term “ustopia” (ATWOOD, 2011) – an amalgam of the words utopia and dystopia – argues that the two concepts are closely related. Thus, utopia and dystopia are represented in the work in intertwined ways, similarly to the well-known yin yang symbol, used by Atwood herself to explain the creation of her term ustopia.