VOICE OF A WOMAN IN THE DYSTOPIAN REALITY OF M. ATWOOD AS A TRANSLATIONAL CHALLENGE

Abstract

The research focused on the means of reproducing a literary image in translation as part of an artistic reality constructed through an interplay of a variety of different voices, the author wants to be heard. The study was based on “The Handmaid’s Tale” and “The Testaments” by M. Atwood, more particularly on the image of one of the characters who tells a story of a totalitarian theocracy of Gilead. Her representation in translation is all the more interesting since Aunt Lydia is first introduced to the reader in “The Handmaid’s Tale” as a framer of Gilead who is taking every effort for the totalitarian regime to thrive, to make every person living here accept their fate no matter how terrifying and preposterous it was. However, in “The Testaments” the translator faces the need to change the perspective of her readers as well as her own. Here, Lydia acquires her own voice which allows the audience to see all the tortures she went through, all the horrors she witnessed as well as her incredible strength. The striking contrast between her real thoughts and what she allows others to see or hear presents a significant aesthetic challenge for the translator who, basically, has to depict “two Lydias”: a cruel monster feared by everyone in the Republic, Commanders included, and an amazingly strong woman determined to survive in order to put an end to Gilead. The translation as well as the original is filled with vivid imagery, rhetorical devices and pervasive self-mockery which are employed to render every component of Lydia’s image, her appearance, her speech, both internal and external, her actions, etc. Such expressive means provide for a distinctive representation of her self-control, her unrivaled intelligence. These qualities make her every word and even gesture reveal what she wishes to show and nothing more which permits Lydia to achieve one of the highest positions in the society where women were reduced to a status of a national resource. The translator rather masterfully reproduces the means of depicting the image of a woman whose resilience and the ability to subtly manipulate people and events allowed her to send the evidence of the crimes committed by Gilead to Canada and destroy what she was once forced to build.