Multidirectional double-voiced discourse in M. Atwood’s short story “Rape fantasies”

Statement of the problem. Despite the fact that Margaret Atwood is rightfully considered the most researched author of Canadian literature, her short fiction still remains on the periphery of the attention of modern literary critics. This article analyzes M. Atwood’s short story “Rape Fantasies” (1977) in the light of M.M. Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism and traces the process of formation of a multidirectional double-voiced discourse. The purpose of the article is to analyze the representation of the multidirectional double-voiced discourse as a way of reflection on sexual violence in “Rape Fantasies” by M. Atwood. Review of scientific literature on the problem. The “Rape Fantasies” short story has attracted the attention of researchers only three times [Jacobsen, 1996; Workman, 2000; Nastase, 2018]. However, none of these works examines the text of the short story from the point of view of dialogical theory. The research material is the text of M. Atwood’s short story “Rape Fantasies” [Atwood, 1977]. The theoretical base is M.M. Bakhtin’s classification of varieties of the double-voiced discourse, as well as the works of representatives of feminist literary theory devoted to the consideration of the works of M. Atwood and the representation of violence in literature (T. Horrek, S. Jacobsen, C. Gilligan, N. Workman, etc.). Basic research methods are narratological, semantic, and structural-typological. Research results. This article analyzes M. Atwood’s short story “Rape Fantasies” (1977) in the light of M.M. Bakhtin’s theory of dialogism, the process of formation of a multidirectional two-voiced discourse is traced.