Context Flashcards
When was it written?
Early 1980s
Where was it written?
West Berlin
Setting
Cambridge, Massachusetts under the dystopian regime of Gilead
What is the POV?
First person limited
What kind of fiction is it?
Atwood herself calls it speculative fiction
Context for Atwood herself
Atwood was born in 1939 in Canada. Her father was an entomologist and it was a rural area, possibly affecting the environmental themes in her work. During her degree she studied Puritanism which later influenced the political and religious undertones of her novels. Atwood maintains that even the most unsettling parts of her fiction are based upon real events, often that have happened in the US or elsewhere.
Atwood’s work tends towards the exploration of the dynamics of power and uses her work to explore the ways that people interact under oppression through mundane daily events. Having grown up in WW2 and THT being written in the midst of the Cold War the author understood that established social and political orders could “vanish overnight” - as she wrote in her 2017 introduction to the novel.
Atwood’s work is also heavily influenced by second wave feminism which was reaching momentum in the early 1980s with the increased growth of feminist literature.
Atwood’s quote about regimes disappearing overnight
“Change could be fast as lighting. “It can’t happen here” could not be depended on: Anything could happen anywhere, given the circumstances” (2017 introduction)
The Cold War in 1980s
Atwood grew up with the ongoing threat of nuclear war. At the time of writing THT the Cold War had been ongoing for almost all of Atwood’s life. The mid 20th century saw a rise in fiction and popular culture being devoted to nuclear fallout. E.g. Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind 1982 or the film series Mad Max 1979.
Media about nuclear fallout often pushes at some form of struggle for resources and THT also does so, it’s just that the resource which is lacking happens to be due to the declining birth rate.
Environmentalism
During the 60s and 70s there was a rapid increase in awareness of environmental issues in the US and through the West. In 1962 American biologist and conservationist Rachel Carson published Silent Spring, a book which exposed for the first time the adverse effects of pesticides and chemicals on the environment. Pesticides began to be banned during this time e.g. DDT which was banned in 1972.
The environmental awareness filter in pushed in THT when Offred mentions that grocery stores like Loaves and Fishes rarely open anymore because the seas are so polluted that there aren’t any fish.
2nd Wave Feminism
Atwood writing in the 80s was inspired by feminism’s 2nd wave. Offred’s mother who was probably involved in the 60s and 70s feminist protests in Chapter 7. Moira- Offred’s best friend from collage is also a vocal feminist and uses her sense of humor to undermine sexism where she can.
Offred herself’s focus is more on mental fortitude and survival from what we can see, so she rebels in more subtle ways. Stealing butter to use as hand cream, the affair with Nick and the Commander as well as attempting communication with Ofglen the member of the underground resistance group Mayday.
Politics and religion in the US
@ time of writing, the US was in the 2nd year of the Reagan administration. 1981-1989. Time in office was characterized by defense spending, reduced spending on social and public services and anti Communism.
1980s saw an increase in the pressure on the government by the Christian right wing. He (Reagan) emphasized conservatism and his belief in “family values”- alluding to a tradition heterosexual and nuclear family.
His main appeal was to the white working class Americans who felt resentment against the advances of the Civil Rights movement and to religious groups like the Moral Majority- who believed they were seeing the decay of moral values in American society. 60s and 70s had been a time of increased freedom with the Civil Rights movement.
The Moral Majority
Aimed to fight the secularization of American society. They fought against abortion, gay rights and pornography as well as the exclusion of Christian prayer from public schools.
In THT Atwood is directly speculating on what could have happened if the Moral Majority has achieved ultimate power- the kind of social order desired by fundamentalist Christians like those in the Moral Majority.
HIV/AIDS
First cases were reported in 1980.
By 1984 nearly 4000 people had died and a homophobic moral panic was being produced in American. @ time of writing- the prognosis was death within about one year of an AIDS diagnosis.
In the historical notes we learn from Professor Peixoto that the reduced fertility rates were due to an STD which produced infertility. Public fears about AIDS fed into the very right wing and Christian fundamentalism influenced propaganda that it was due to life outside of the nuclear family dynamic.
It was likely this propaganda which inspired the political backdrop of Gilead.
