Unravelling Possible Worlds in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: Examining Rhetorical Devices

Abstract Recently, considerable literature has grown up around the theme of possible worlds as a new way of understanding literary texts. The main thrust of Possible Worlds Theory lies within the world-creating power of the reader’s imagination. Despite a considerable amount of literature on Possible Worlds Theory, investigating the consistent correlation between this theory and rhetorical devices such as intertextuality and metaphor still seems a productive endeavour. What remains unclear is how intertextual references and metaphors trigger alternative possible worlds, which may or may not be consistent with an actual world. In this regard, employing Ryan’s Possible Worlds Theory (1991), this paper seeks to unravel the underlying possible worlds of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) by tracing its rhetorical devices, which develop the main idea of the novel. Additionally, a significant feature of postmodernist writing, i.e. ‘fiction within fiction,’ is examined to assess characterization. This research provides an exciting opportunity to advance our knowledge of possible worlds within the poetics of postmodernist fiction.