Reproduction Of Power Relation In Translation Of The Handmaid’s Tale From The Perspective Of Power Theory

Margaret Atwood,a famous Canadian woman writer,is a typical postmodern intellectual writer.Her works not only grow in her own experiences and perceptual knowledge,but also come from postmodern theories,various books and a lot of researches.The Handmaid’s Tale is such a dystopian work that contains rich postmodern elements and implies the author’s profound view of politics,in which power is the characteristic cannot be ignored.In light of Foucault’s theory of power,this article will discuss the power relation of The Handmaid’s Tale and its reproduction in translation from three aspects.The introduction part mainly introduces the purpose and significance of this paper.Based on the text of The Handmaid’s Tale,it explores the power politics of the original text.By combining Foucault’s power theory,it analyzes the characteristics of power and politics in the original,and it further discusses whether or not the translator fully reproduces the power politics of the original text in the translation.The second chapter refers to the relevant literature of the past 35 years,and sorts out the research directions and perspectives of Atwood’s works and The Handmaid’s Tale at home and abroad.The third chapter mainly discusses Foucault’s theory of power and its researches and applications in the field of translation.The purpose is to draw the fourth chapter,which is to analyze power relations reproduced in the translation from the perspectives of the life control,the spatial metaphor of power and the discourse representation of power.In the meantime,the power relations conveyed in life politics and its reproduction in the translation have been explored.Finally,the conclusion part analyzes the root causes behind the mistranslation and over-translation,and puts forward personal opinions and related suggestions.The biggest innovation of this paper is that it has a new research perspective.Based on the text of The Handmaid’s Tale,this thesis explores its own literary characteristics.In addition to universality and operability,the integrality and uniqueness of the original and translation should be paid more attention.Moreover,this paper is dedicated to exploring the power and political characteristics of the textof The Handmaid’s Tale,the relationship between the power politics in the original and Foucault’s power theory,and the reproduction of the political power of the original text in the translation.Through close reading,it is found that the attention paid to the context is not enough for studying and the power discourse contained in the description of the language action and other details is not fully caught.In addition,the fixed structures such as ancient phrases and idioms chosen in the translation cannot fit to the original meaning,weakening the embodied power discourse.Furthermore,the translator lacks the knowledge of the meaning and historical background of the culturally loaded words in the original text.The power discourse behind the specific image is not deeply weighed and considered,for which the function of space is weakened in the translation.Finally,the translator does not know enough about the Bible in the original text,and the power discourse behind the special language phenomenon such as fuzzy reference and swearing is not correctly understood,so it fails to convey the power discourse contained in discourse politics.To fully reproduce the power relations in The Handmaid’s Tale in the translation,it is necessary to give much more attention to the actions,special images,fuzzy indications and swearing words on the basis of correct understanding of the context.Only in this way can the power relations contained behind the text be realized.Additionally,the culturally loaded words involved in the original text and the fixed structures such as ancient poetry and four-words should be carefully examined and chosen to avoid mistranslation and overtranslation.