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영어

The object of this paper is to examine resistance against the ruling ideology as a means of true survival in The Blind Assassin of Margaret Atwood (1939-), the iconic Canadian writer. In The Blind Assassin (2000), Atwood shows a more true way of survival through Iris who creates her own history in the process of raising her voice and forming her identity. Especially, Atwood uses straightforward language to unveil the faces of women who have been traumatized by submitting to the culture codes of a patriarchal system. This unveiling shows how women have been exploited by, and excluded from, the discussion of Western culture. The Canadian society as Atwood describes it is reminiscent of a Foucauldian society of surveillance and also has attributed as a British colony and economically weak country relative to its southern neighbor the USA, as described in Survival. Iris refuses to be stuck within such social boundaries, as she attempts to recognize and estimate her limitations. After her sister’s suicide, Iris begins to recognize how blind she was and begins to write a memoir to fix her distorted life. Her memoir is a “left-handed book” that contains multiple narrations and uncertain truths, an indeterminacy that overturns the traditional consistent, linear writing style of history. Finally, she experiences true survival and restore her historical identity and subjectivity by letting her granddaughter Sabrina to publish the memoir.