La reconstrucción del pasado (materno) y el discurso científico en Life Before Man de Margaret Atwood

Abstract

Over the last decade contemporary fiction writers have been overtly concerned with the relationship between history and fiction. In their novels, they suggest a view of the past not as fixed and finished but as vitally connected to the present and open to revision. This established dialogue between past and present is also fuelled by our present concerns with scientific discoveries, so that one can argue that this delving into the past helps understand the present, by going back to that past that preceded and produced it. Margaret Atwood’s Life Before Man (1979) anticipates this recent trend in contemporary fiction since the narrative revises the past of the protagonists, which is inextricably linked to the maternal figure, by making use of a scientific framework where the discourses of archaeology, paleontology, astronomy and Darwinism are included from a woman’s perspective.