'I am the market': A critique of the commodity in selected fiction by Margaret Atwood

This thesis explores the nature and development of Margaret Atwood's materialist vision of culture. Drawing upon Marxist, poststructuralist and psychoanalytic theories, my theoretical framework allows me to move beyond traditional historical materialism and extend the notion of the commodity to map out the materiality of sign systems operating in Atwood's work and culture. I suggest that my theoretical paradigm, when applied to The Edible Woman, Lady Oracle, The Handmaid's Tale, and The Robber Bride, engages issues of subjectivity and hegemony on a spectacular stage of late capitalism. Both my theoretical journey and Atwood's narrative movement chronicle the dynamics of contemporary culture and interrogate conditions of possibility for both political containment and social transgression.