Testifying Bodies: The Bible and Margaret Atwood’s The Testaments
In 2019, Margaret Atwood released The Testaments, the long-awaited sequel to her 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Like the Christian Bible to which it makes frequent reference, the novel is assembled from multiple "testaments," each offering different articulations of the relationship betwe...
| Published in: | Journal of feminist studies in religion |
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| Authors: | ; |
| Format: | Electronic Article |
| Language: | English |
| Check availability: | HBZ Gateway |
| Journals Online & Print: | Drawer...
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| Fernleihe: | Fernleihe für die Fachinformationsdienste |
| Published: |
Indiana University Press
2022
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| In: |
Journal of feminist studies in religion
Year: 2022, Volume: 38, Issue: 1, Pages: 131-147 |
| Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains: | B
Bible. Judge 19-21
/ Bible. Kohelet 10,20
/ Bible. Hoheslied 8,6
/ Atwood, Margaret 1939-, The testaments
/ Feminism
/ Woman
/ Body
/ Truth
/ Attest
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| RelBib Classification: | AD Sociology of religion; religious policy CD Christianity and Culture HB Old Testament |
| Further subjects: | B
Ecclesiastes 10:20
B Song of Songs 8:6 B Bible B Margaret Atwood B Religion and literature B Judges 19–21 B Body |
| Online Access: |
Volltext (lizenzpflichtig) |
| Summary: | In 2019, Margaret Atwood released The Testaments, the long-awaited sequel to her 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Like the Christian Bible to which it makes frequent reference, the novel is assembled from multiple "testaments," each offering different articulations of the relationship between body, memory, and truth. Additionally, Atwood’s Testaments foregrounds female bodies and female religious experiences, even as the novel borrows from and repurposes some of the Bible’s more troubling and misogynistic representations of gender, violence, and patriarchy. Engaging these themes, this article analyzes Atwood’s use of three key biblical passages: Judg 19 (the Levite’s concubine), Eccl 10:20, and Song 8:6. This close textual analysis is paired with reading the novel against the Bible as a literary and material whole. Persistently biblical and ambivalently feminist, The Testaments insists that there is no irrefutable affirmation of truth, and thus there is always need for more testaments. |
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| ISSN: | 1553-3913 |
| Contains: | Enthalten in: Journal of feminist studies in religion
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