Empowering the Subalterns: Margaret Atwood's Quest for Historical Voices in The Testament

Abstract

This article explores The Testaments by Margaret Atwood in light of Spivak’s postcolonial perspective based on her article “Can the Subalterns Speak?” such as “widow sacrifice” and “epistemic violence” to scrutinize the situation of the subaltern women in Gilead. What Atwood portrays in her novel mainly revolves around voiceless women who are silenced by the hegemony. First, it attempts to shed light on how the government of Gilead managed to keep subaltern women voiceless.  Afterward, it highlights the potential benefits for a First World country like Canada in advocating the voices of marginalized Gileadeans, while also exploring the significance of amplifying those voices that may endure in history. Finally, it intends to show how Atwood managed to be the voice of the subaltern women by having formed her novel through gathering three narratives to tell their accounts of the story, in addition to an account that will be produced by future intellectuals on Gilead. It can be suggested that Atwood challenges the conventional process of shaping history through the dominant voices in power, exemplified by characters like Aunt Lydia and the Canadians, by including the perspectives of Agnes and Daisy in her novel.