Power and Resistance in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam Trilogy

This article examines power and resistance in Margaret Atwood’s MaddAddam trilogy through the lens of Foucauldian biopolitics. Combining close textual analysis with political theory and literary studies, it argues that Atwood’s speculative fiction offers a powerful critique of contemporary capitalism by showing how life, bodies, and conduct become sites of government within neoliberal market logics. Set in a corporate-dominated world shaped by biotechnology and the commodification of public services, the trilogy shows that power operates not only through the management of bodies but also through the formation of subjects, encouraging individuals to treat themselves as projects to be managed, improved, and made valuable. Within and against this subject formation, resistance emerges through partial and fragile practices, taking the form of ethical practices, disruptive interventions, and refusals of the identities the regime seeks to impose. These forms of resistance show how the trilogy critiques contemporary power relations while envisioning alternatives grounded in care, community, and interdependence.