Aunts Flashcards
Why are they called the aunts
Ironic as meant to be a second maternal figure
How do they facilitate the indoctrination of the Handmaids
-testifying
-fear and violence with cattle prods
-take away their individual identities
-propaganda and biblical teachings
-infantilise them
-make them believe they are an army by rallieng them
How does Offred feel about the aunts
Writes Snyde comments about hem and mocks
Consider the significance of the aunts in the Handmaids tale
-responsible for the overseeing of training and indoctrination of the Handmaids, births and most executions
-some of the highest ranking women
-irony of familiarity and protection when they bring other women down
-matriarchy carrying roles of patriarchy
-Atwood comments on the anti-feminist right wing movement in 1570s-80s
-Offred rebellion is caused by their ridicule
Consider the significance of the aunts in the Handmaids tale -introduction
The aunts in the handmaids tale are a group of authoritative women, who despite being somewhat oppressed themselves as women in a patriarchal regime,deliver the aims of gilead by indoctrinating women in the red centre. Their name is indicative of how they are positioned as matriarchal figure, but is so what ironic as they are presented largely to control women through fear, rather than out of familial sense of love or care. Atwood might have used these oppressive female figures as representatives if the leaders of the New Right Christian Women’s movement in the 1970s and 80s, which saw middle aged women denouncing the progress of the second Wave famines movement.
Paragraph one - in the novel, the aunts are presented to use a range of psychological methods to indoctrinate and oppress the Handmaids eg infantilism, stripping of identity, propaganda, religious teaching, encourage moral duty
Paragraph 2- they are also presented to use physical forms to oppress eg violence and cattle prods
-‘ they had electric cattle prods (…) no guns though, they could not be trusted with guns. Guns were for the guards.’
-‘ they hauled Moira out, dragged her in through the gate and up the front steps (…) afterwards she could not walk for a week, her feet would not fit in her shoes,they were too swollen (…) her feet did not look like feet at all. They looked like drowned feet, swollen and boneless, except for their colour. They looked like lungs’
- ‘women’s salvagings are not frequent. There is less need for them.These days we are so well behaved.’
Paragraph 3- however, they are also presented as objects of Offred’s ridicule, so become a vehicle for Offred internal rebellion
Within the novel, the Aunts are presented to use a range of psychological methods to indoctrinate and oppress the Handmaids in the Red Centre The Handmaids are infantalaised throughout as they are made to believe ‘modesty is invisibility’ and that the only way in which the Handmaids can go to the bathroom is by putting ‘our hands up, though there’s a limit to how many times a day, they mark it down on a chart’. The indoctrinating lies told by the Aunts are enforced to keep the Handmaids at the regime’s will however, the use of infantilism god the Handmaid’s is ironic as they are being looked after like children, comparing to the duty of their real role which is to serve as a womb for the Commanders. The parallel between this child like routine of having your information ‘marked down’ and then the lesson of ‘modesty is invisibility’ somewhat mocks the expectations of everyday life faced by women as they are expected to keep submissive and naive much like children yet provide for a man’s sexual desire, solely in the regime for the priority of reproduction. Furthermore, propaganda from the past is shown all over Gilead with videos of ‘a woman being slowly cut into pieces,her fingers and breaths snipped off with garden shears, her stomach slit open and her intestine pulled out.’. The graphic image of ‘what once was’ provides an almost euphoric sense to the new distinction of Gilead
