A programação dos corpos: uma análise semiótica dos aspectos religiosos e totalitários presentes em o conto da Aia.

Abstract

In this research we analyze the dystopic romance The Handmaid‘s Tale, originally published in English in 1985, written by Canadian writer Margaret Atwood. The narrative is set in a near future, on a fictional place known as the Republic of Gilead. Gilead is described by the narrator, the tale‘s main character, as a totalitarian, theocratic and patriarchal State that, after an attack to the congress and the assassination of the president of the United States of America, stablishes a government led by religious fanatics. After seizing power, they betake passages from the Old Testament scriptures to justify their control over female bodies and condemn to death all who intend to scape domination. The objective of this work is to reflect upon the transformation of a democratic society into a totalitarian society and to identify the fundaments of the religious natured discourse that substantiates the social control over women in the narrative. For the analysis, we resort to the subsidies of discursive semiotics, with the update of the programming concept suggested by Eric Landowski in the book Interações arriscadas [Risky interactions]. We believe this interaction regime helps us comprehend the way female bodies are controlled upon the imposition of ideology. This is study of qualitative approach, in which was utilized was the bibliographical research method and literature analysis.