“I COMPOSE MYSELF”: IDENTITY AND OLFACTORY IMAGERY IN MARGARET ATWOOD’S THE HANDMAID’S TALE
“I COMPOSE MYSELF”: IDENTITY AND OLFACTORY IMAGERY IN MARGARET ATWOOD’S THE HANDMAID’S TALE

Summary/Abstract: This paper is based on the well-known 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, written by the Canadian author Margaret Atwood and aims to analyse the role of the olfactory imagery and sensory exploration in the (re)construction of identity. The protagonist-narrator, Offred, lives in a near future American society, where she is denied all legal rights and is submitted to various forms of physical and psychological torture, in the event of becoming a breeding tool. Unlike other women, who crumble and die, she gradually reforms all her faculties due to her sense of smell. The odours around help Offred explore her body, the others and her environment, and more importantly, remember long forgotten memories of a totally different world. The protagonist succeeds to "compose" herself and rebel against her condition of a “womb” in the distorted society, whose smell is by far repulsive.

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