Critics HMT

Question 1

Feminist

Answer 1

Female narrator

Howells argues it turned traditional masculine dystopia genre upside Down

Question 2

Psychoanalytic critic

Answer 2

Developed by Freud- human behaviour- determined by desires of which we are unconscious

Night - fear and Luke

Question 3

New historic criticism

Answer 3

Several fragments of history

Question 4

Comment on Offreds power

Answer 4

‘Offred’s power is in language’ - Beran

Question 5

Comment on the realistic nature of Offred

Answer 5

‘Utterly convincing. It is the voice of a woman we night know, of someone very close to us’- Johnson

Question 6

Negative Criticism

Answer 6

‘Atwood’s novel lacks the direct, chilling plausibility of Nineteen Eighty-Four and Brave New World’ - Gray

Question 7

Comment on reasons behind the lack of female resistance to the imposition of dystopia

Answer 7

“The Gilead takeover can be read as stemming, in part, from women’s lack of solidarity in pre-Gilead culture and society’ - Callaway

Question 8

Comment on women’s emotions towards each other

Answer 8

There is ‘The evolution of a new form of misogyny, not as we usually think of it, as men’s hatred of women, but as women’s hatred or women’- Callaway

Question 9

Comment on Gilead and technology

Answer 9

‘Gilead if working in the opposite direction, moving towards a time when technology was of limited development’- Gulick

Question 10

Comment on the aunts

Answer 10

‘Mouthpieces for the ideas of the patriarchal leaders of this society’- Gulick

Question 11

Comment o the influences for the book

Answer 11

‘One of my rules was that I would not put any events into the book that had not already happened’- Atwood

Question 12

Comment on strength of Offred

Answer 12

‘Offred is, in some respect, a rather weak person’ - Petterson

Question 13

Comment on the character of Moira

Answer 13

‘Moira is Offred’s rebel alter ego’ - Briscoe

Question 14

Comment on Offred’s feelings towards the commander

Answer 14

‘It’s all too easy to create a humanity for someone’ - Stokeisz

Question 15

Comment about nicks impact on Offred

Answer 15

Nick serves to release Offred. Through her friendship with Nick she even discovers satisfaction with her life

• Freibert

Question 16

Comment on commanders motives

Answer 16

‘Lonely enough to hide in his study and play scrabble with his young breeder -Steinem

Question 17

Comment on how Offred has no real chance of success

Answer 17

‘The central characters cannot be made responsible for his or her ultimate failure’ - Gottlieb

Question 18

Comment on how Offred sees through Gilead

Answer 18

‘Offred interrogates, wilfully misunderstands and plays with Gilead’s trite messages in a way that shows up their inadequacy’

Clist

Question 19

Comment on why women are responsible for the failings of society

Answer 19

The work that the women do conspires to maintain the subjection of their own kind’ - Goldplatt