Dyktatura oczami kobiet. Analiza porównawcza Opowieści podręcznej Margaret Atwood i twórczości eseistycznej Herty Müller

The article presents the results of a comparative analysis of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and essays written by Herta Müller, the most famous Romanian dissident and the recipient of the 2009 Noble Prize in literature. The point of departure for the analysis is the reference to the Romanian regime of Ceaușescu contained in the Historical Notes on The Handmaid’s Tale, which constitute an integral part of Atwood’s novel. Juxtaposing the aforementioned novel with Herta Müller’s essays, the article reveals conspicuous parallels between the actual experience of living under a regime, omnipresent in the texts of the Romanian-born German author, and the dystopian narrative of Offred, the protagonist of The Handmaid’s Tale. The article examines the texts through the lens of the poetics of experience, that is, it treats them as a record of an individual experience which has the power to influence the reader through emphatic involvement.