The Interplay Between Imagination and Reality in Theorising Fantasy and Science Fiction: Power, Gender and Society in "The Handmaid's Tale"

Abstract: Theorizing fantasy involves exploring the ways in which the imagination shapes our understanding of reality, and how fantasy can used as a tool to critique, challenge, and transform dominant ideologies and power structures. Theorizing fantasy recognises that the relationship between imagination and reality is complex and multifaceted and that the fantasy is not simply an escape from the reality, but a way of engaging with it in a critical and transformative way. Margeret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a powerful and influential work of the speculative fiction that rises important questions about the nature power, gender and society. In this novel, Atwood creates a dystopian world in which women have been replaced by a theocratic regime known as Gilead, in which women have been stripped of their rights and reduced to the status of the reproductive commodities .The novel’s dystopian setting allows Atwood to explore the ways in which power operates in society, and the ways in which social structures can be used to maintain and reinforce existing power relations .At the same time ,novels speculative elements allow Atwood to explore the possibilities of the resistance and transformation and to imagine a world beyond the constraints of the present .The proposed paper explores how the novel ,in its complex exploration of power, gender and society, challenges dominant ideologies and power structures. KEYWORDS: Fantasy, Dystopia, Power, Gender, Commodification