Date of Award
Spring 2026
Degree Type
Thesis
Department
English Language and Literatures
Director of Thesis
Anne Gulick
Second Reader
Catherine Keyser
Abstract
This South Carolina Honors College senior thesis provides a detailed comparative literary analysis of the depiction of motherhood and the legal system in two selected novels: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) and Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere (2017). Feminist women writers have used narratives to articulate and represent marginalized experiences suppressed by systems of power. By reading these narratives, readers can emotionally connect with the perspectives shared while engaging with the underlying feminist commentary. This explores how Atwood and Ng illustrate the failure of American legal and social systems to understand or fully protect motherhood and fertility—complicating, confounding, and redefining many women’s relationships with their identities, bodies, realities, and possibilities. Drawing on the intersection between multiple disciplines, this thesis applies close reading of these texts to illuminate parallels and distinctions in both authors’ commentaries.
First Page
1
Last Page
60
Recommended Citation
Scott, Addison Elaine, "Voices of Motherhood: A Comparative Analysis of Feminist Commentary on Law in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Celeste Ng’s Little Fires Everywhere" (2026). Senior Theses. 896.
https://scholarcommons.sc.edu/senior_theses/896
Rights
© 2026, Addison Scott
Included in
American Literature Commons, Family Law Commons, Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Commons, Feminist Philosophy Commons, Law and Gender Commons, Literature in English, North America Commons, Social Justice Commons