The Gospel According to Grace: Gnostic Heresy as Narrative Strategy in Margaret Atwood's Alias Grace
This paper approaches Margaret Atwood's 1996 novel Alias Grace with specific attention to the author's use of Gnosticism in the creation of a subtle and complex feminist narrative. This is an original topic: one not previously cited in Atwood criticism. My reading proposes that the author...
| Main Author: | |
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| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Interlibrary Loan: | Interlibrary Loan for the Fachinformationsdienste (Specialized Information Services in Germany) |
| Published: |
2002
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| In: |
Literature and theology
Year: 2002, Volume: 16, Issue: 2, Pages: 172-187 |
| Online Access: |
Presumably Free Access Volltext (JSTOR) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | This paper approaches Margaret Atwood's 1996 novel Alias Grace with specific attention to the author's use of Gnosticism in the creation of a subtle and complex feminist narrative. This is an original topic: one not previously cited in Atwood criticism. My reading proposes that the author brilliantly locates the potential for feminist license in the undercurrents of nineteenth‐century spiritualism. By utilising Gnostic myth and imagery—and emphasising gnosis (self‐knowledge)—Atwood playfully localises in Grace Marks the suffering of the divine feminine. In so doing, she allows her protagonist the opportunity to refute then‐contemporary judgments of her actions. |
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| ISSN: | 1477-4623 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Literature and theology
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| Persistent identifiers: | DOI: 10.1093/litthe/16.2.172 |