AO3s (Contexts)

Question 1

Othello

Answer 1

Jacobean era, in between KL and M; Des and Cord both Christly. KL, O, and M all do not know themselves.
Renaissance influenced…
= Challenging traditional values; First noble black protagonist in English literature, Desdemona outspoken and assertive. BUT end of play, O is “barbarian”, “thick-lips” and “thing”.
= Intellectual rebirth; reason and improving man’s abilities. Time of Niccolo Machiavelli. Emotions are destructive.
Original story ‘Un Capitano Moro’; changed ‘Ensign’ to Iago, but Ensign was motivated by lust, Iago ambiguous, motiveless force of evil.
Cyprus war; ‘Moor’ = African (non-European) or Muslim (non-Christian), an outsider to be distrusted.
Venice = recognition by prostitution.

Question 2

The Great Gatsby

Answer 2

Quite autobiographical; Fitzgerald as Gatsby, Zelda as Daisy.
WWI shock; the lost generation.
Jazz age for extravagance and glamour to satiate desires.
Socio-historically, capitalism at its highest.
The American Dream; money is king. Woman seek freedom by turning masculine (Jordan Baker) or by sexuality (Myrtle).
Emergence of “New Woman”, self-expressive, smoking/drinking, rejecting traditional roles.

Question 3

A Streetcar Named Desire

Answer 3

Father was an alcoholic, abused his mother. Sister (Rose) accusing father of attacking her sexually, became mentally unstable.
Became homosexual in New Orleans.
New Orleans = Free, self-success, American Dream, industrialised immigrated America.
South = Segregation, racism, old tradition.

Question 4

Feminine Gospels

Answer 4

Lesbian unmarried mother.
First female British Poet Laureate (not anon anymore).
Grew up 1960s, ‘sexual revolution’, hippy lifestyles, rebellious era.

Question 5

The Handmaid’s Tale

Answer 5

Atwood lived in West Berlin, encircled by Berlin Wall.
Massachusetts - Witch hunt trials, women burned. Her ancestor, Mary Webster (like Offred) survived the Puritan state (forms Atwood’s ‘Dedication’ part of book).
Gilead satires extreme American New Right (1980s) religious ideology.
Dystopian parallels; Orwell’s ‘1984’ - totalitarian states trying to control lives and thoughts: “Big Brother is watching you”.
Atwood growing up in WW1; “It can’t happen here [can’t] be depended upon”.
Science fiction genre; Shelly’s ‘Frankenstein’ - imagine practical and ethical consequences (what if’s).
Links to Canadian literature theme of survival, but sets in America where such thought is more common.