This paper examines the surveillance system described in Margaret Atwood’s Heart Goes Last. Atwood portrays a near-future society confronting an economic crisis and an experimental city, Consilience. This paper notes that the surveillance systems found in Consilience have post-panoptic characteristics beyond the classical panopticon. Attempting to analyze Atwood’s panoptical society, this paper focuses on Zygmunt Bauman’s theory. Bauman explains that as modern society has liquidity, the surveillance paradigm has also penetrated society with a different tendency from previous societies. With the development of technology, the intention of the surveillance system is regarded as a social contract. Also, this paper argues that the post-truth phenomenon is a catalyst for strengthening the panopticon in modern society. In the process of repeated deception, the protagonists, who are economically and socially marginalized, easily fall into cognitive bias. It denotes that their vulnerability rationalizes to be monitored. Atwood evokes the difficulty of not being misled by the tendency to post-truth during the dynamic of inclusion and exclusion, which is the basis of a surveillance society.

This paper examines the surveillance system described in Margaret Atwood’s The Heart Goes Last. Atwood portrays a near-future society confronting an economic crisis and an experimental city, Consilience. This paper notes that the surveillance systems found in Consilience have post-panoptic characteristics beyond the classical panopticon. Attempting to analyze Atwood’s panoptical society, this paper focuses on Zygmunt Bauman’s theory. Bauman explains that as modern society has liquidity, the surveillance paradigm has also penetrated society with a different tendency from previous societies. With the development of technology, the intention of the surveillance system is regarded as a social contract. Also, this paper argues that the post-truth phenomenon is a catalyst for strengthening the panopticon in modern society. In the process of repeated deception, the protagonists, who are economically and socially marginalized, easily fall into cognitive bias. It denotes that their vulnerability rationalizes to be monitored. Atwood evokes the difficulty of not being misled by the tendency to post-truth during the dynamic of inclusion and exclusion, which is the basis of a surveillance society.

Margaret Atwood, panopticon, surveillance society, Zygmunt Bauman, post-truth