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The Handmaids Tale - In-depth Notes, Language Analysis, Context, Quotes and Themes
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The Handmaids Tale - In-depth Notes, Language Analysis AO2, Context AO3, Quotes and Themes AO1
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Notes:
The formation of Gilead is used for the control of the female body and the control of
reproduction in response to the drop in numbers of children being born after Chernobyl and the
Three Mile Long Island (radioactivity).
Title – Allusion To Geoffrey Chaucer (13th – 14th Century), Canterbury Tales: A group of people are
on a pilgrimage and are telling each other stories. Both AHT and Frankenstein are cautionary
tales/stories.
Atwood is drawing attention to the fact that depending on who is telling the story and who’s
perspective from which someone is telling a story changes the events and feelings which takes a
place.
A Handmaid is a nurse or surrogate that is there to serve a man in the Bible (Genesis).
‘The’ – this definite article and determiner shows that Offred has power through her words and
the telling of her story and ability to communicate.
The contents are structured like Offred’s day, there are seven nights in which being a witch but
she survived (16th & 17th Century)
Dedications: Perry Miller – Atwood’s director of American studies in Harvard, a man who pointed
out the hypocrisy of the Puritan’s actions and theology.
Epigraph I – Genesis, the biblical rational which underpins Gilead – the wives who cannot
reproduce are given women who can. It’s a world of Totalitarianism.
Epigraph II – Johnathan Swift, a satirist who said that to end the Irish famine they should just eat
their children, this emphasizes the stupidity and satirical quality of Gilead’s theology’s.
Epigraph III – Sufi Proverb, sometimes you don’t need orders to do the rational thing. Sufi
theology says to find God purely for love whereas in Gilead God is forced upon its people.
Section I Chapter I: Night – Narrative Perspective: 1st Person, Offred
Offred reflects and remembers – the night sections of the book is where the reader learns more
about Offred and the formation of Gilead.
Dedications: Mary Webster – Atwood’s Puritan ancestor who was hanged for
Offred doesn’t have her own name anymore, they give the mans name to her in order to
reduce/rid her of her identity, Offred sounds like offered because she has to offer her body but
also the colour red is the colour of her outfit to represent menstrual blood.
In both AHT and Frankie, Offred and the Creature both do not have names for themselves and
both are starved of the communication and touch that they deserve.
There are 167 years between the publication of the two books and yet they have such similar
messages and ethics.
The setting of the gymnasium (the gym of Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts) gives
the feeling of panic or problem.
The lack of nets shows the fact that the women have no right to play a sport such as basketball,
the gymnasium is no longer used as it once was.
The description of the clothes go up in the period of time, moves through the decades of fashion.
‘Palimpsest’ – a document that has been used over and over again in which they write over the
writing that was written before, just like how Gilead does, writes over old writing which is why it
is so difficult in the world of Gilead because there are always reminders of her past life – she
remembers her time at Harvard.
, ‘remembers that yearning’ – she is so controlled that there is no use of yearning for anything
more than what she has or is, the sentences here are so long because they are her memories
flooding in.
Familiar vs Unfamiliar, doubling.
Chapter 2: Shopping – Themes: Regimentation, Loneliness, Loss of Relationships
Offred has a very functional role, she has no recreational purpose, her life mirrors that of the
Puritanism in the way that her life is ordered and simple with no room for pleasure or play.
Moves on to Present Tense, Narrative Voice with a Conversational Style.
The Handmaid’s have no way of forming their own opinions, they don’t even have access to
the Bible because Gilead wants to restrict the information that they have access to in order
to prevent the Handmaid’s from getting any ideas.
‘A chair, a table, a lamp’ – very simple and sad.
‘removed anything you could tie a rope to’ – the girls were hanging themselves.
‘they like’ – very unsettling, makes the reader begin to think of questions, who is ‘they’?
‘a return to traditional values’ – this is Gilead’s way of life and belief – they want to go back
to the way people lived before feminism and modernism.
‘I am not being wasted’ – shows how the women are being used for what is believed to be
their purpose, reproduction.
‘flowers are still allowed…’Government issue? Think of it as being in the army’ – the women
are being used to serve and protect, they are being controlled completely.
‘though must be rationed’ – she knows that she can’t think too much of the past lest she
destroy her own mentality, this no doubt required much mental strength on Offred’s part.
‘I intend to last’ – from the beginning, shows Offred’s intention of living through to the end,
an indicator that Offred is a passive character who outwardly shows herself as submissive
and only rebels in the privacy in her own mind.
Gilead controls everything about these women, Offred has no choice in neither her own
death nor her own life.
‘reduced circumstances’ – the meaning of this has changed, now the women don’t have any
money or choices and other women are just discarded when they are sent to the colonies.
‘I live, I breathe’ – the only control she is living and she is her breathing and the fact that she
can put her hand out.
‘bell that measures time, is ringing’ – the bell is what controls their time and tells them what
to do at any given time. This means that wherever she is, she is controlled by the bell.
Nunnery – a very Puritan-esk lifestyle and they have no need for pleasure just like nuns who
live very simple celibate lifestyle, however it is ironic because Offred’s position and function
is the opposite of that of a nun and she is most defiantly not celibate.
‘red shoes...red gloves’ – red is the colour of blood, everything she does is steady and
methodical, she shares every minute detail to help her stay sane.
‘the colour of blood, which defines us’ – red is the colour of menstrual blood, showing their
purpose of giving children, an allusion to ‘Scarlett Red’ by Nathanial Hawthorn. The colour
means that she belongs to a kind of group or cohort.
Even the clothes she wears control her physical and metaphorical vision, limiting the
information she can gather, they are kept blinkered. Just like the creature who cannot freely
look at the De Lacey’s
‘basket’ & ‘path through the forest’ – allusion to Little Red Riding Hood, all about temptation
and following orders. The mora l of the tale is to stay on the path of righteousness and
follow orders to survive.
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