| The events related to women’s rights in the United States have increased the interest in
the topic of how patriarchy affects people and systems, and whether there is any hope in avoiding
the future as depicted in dystopian science fiction and fantasy. Therefore, in this thesis, I examine
the effect patriarchal ideology has on the Maddaddam trilogy by Margaret Atwood and the
Chronicles of the One trilogy by Nora Roberts. To do so, I utilize the definitions and theory of
Louis Althusser included in his work, “Ideology and Ideological State Apparatuses.” I expand his
concept of Ideological State Apparatuses to include the patriarchy and its ubiquitous presence in
society that results in binaries between men and women and the roles they play in each of the
trilogies. Both influential and prolific, the authors are identified by readers and critics as
feminist. Thus, their works make excellent subjects for studying how novels may be written as
warnings or as examples of how the future may be, while depicting the binaries created by
patriarchal ideology. Additionally, I argue that when the authors lean heavily on those binaries
for their writing, they are also reinforcing them.
Keywords: patriarchy, ideology, dystopian, Margaret Atwood, Nora Roberts, Louis Althusser |