The Complexity of Motherhood in Dystopian Novels : A comparative study of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Lois Lowry’s The Giver

Sammanfattning: This study explores how motherhood is depicted in Margaret Atwood’s and Louis Lowry’s dystopian novels The Handmaid’s Tale and The Giver. It examines the negative social and psychological consequences of forced surrogacy in the novels’ state-constructed nuclear families, looking closely at a lack of maternal love and care. Using feminist and psychoanalytic criticism, this essay examines the link between the broken connection of mother and child and the protagonists’ search for maternal love in other relationships. It contrasts the protagonists’ rebellion to the social backlash effect and shows how motherhood emerges as a form of resistance against the social engineering of the dystopian societies.