deeply pessimistic/hopelessness in individual

Question 1

lack of hope in future

Answer 1

• winston gives up hope of rebellion in ministry of love
• ‘if you want a vision of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face – forever’
• power has created humanity’s oppression. The narrator doesn’t see hope in the future, only further persecution, and it is this hopelessness that fuels those in power. illustrates the Party’s oppressive, violent reign, where all citizens are helpless and suffer under the omnipotent rule of BB
• AO3: Nazi Germany: Nazi concentration camps for political prisoners: 1933-45 over 500,000 non Jewish people were sent to camps for political crimes, severe deterrent to opposition, opposition parties such as KPD and SPD illegal
• AO5: DALRYMPLE “where hopes are unrealistic, fears often become exaggerated”
• historical notes on the handmaids tale, offreds story about patriarchal oppression is being retold by a man.
• Pieixoto’s striking comment that Gilead should not be judged too harshly because all such judgments are culturally conditioned echoes and questions moral relativism common among academics today. Pieixoto’s appeal for understanding, and the applause that follows it, suggests that such moral ambivalence sets the stage for future evils.
• AO3: Nazi occupied france, for years refused to except existence of totalitarian regime and glossed over past, much like pieixoto is doing. would not acknowledge co-opertaion with Nazis until 1995, 50 years later
• AO5: “the dystopians look to the future with pessimism”

Question 2

love cannot prosper

Answer 2

• w+j betray each other
• despite claiming to love each other, they both betray in room 101
• winston indoctrinated into loving Big Brother
• A03: Nazi germany, mothers cross may 1939, mothers with four children got bronze, six got silver, eight got gold, SS forced to marry Aryan, control over women’s bodies put pressure on duty to bear children and made it difficult to love
• ‘because of how strong the gov in a dystopian setting is, love is impossible to maintain’ SANJAYA
• THT: offred is taken away from her husband, luke, and her children, indoctrinated into becoming a handmaid
• A03: Ceaușescu’s Romania: women’s bodies controlled, awarded Romanians for having many children, president of Romania, last Communist leader, made abortions illegal, created conditions in which birth defects proliferated, created conditions in which rape was almost incentivised, control over women’s bodies put pressure on duty to bear children and made it difficult to love

Question 3

censorship of history and information

Answer 3

• P1, C4: Ogilvy, minitruth, all history is a palimpsest
• totalitarian regimes use censorship to control the masses
• Pimlott: “totalitarianism was a stalking fear. Nazi Germany in the recent past, russia and china in the present framed the western political conscience.”
• A03: prevention of lit: ‘totalitarian regimes view history as something to be created’ Wrote for the Indian section of the BBC’s Eastern Service, Wife Eileen’s in Government Censorship Department, Gave insights into bureaucracy and creation of propaganda, Shaped conception of Ministry of Truth, What governments are willing to lie about in times of conflict, 1937 homage to catalonia suppressed by left wing publishers due to negative portrayal of communists during spanish civil war
• THT: montreal satellite station blocked by gov of Gilead, only christian worship and news allowed
• highlights extent of gilead control
• A03: 1980’s Tiananmen Square protests: most sensitive and most widely censored topics in China, googling it will result in temporarily severed server connections, discussion about protests forbidden, 12% of newspapers and 150+ films banned. Nazi germany book burning, mccarthy era book burning during red scare. public reaction to tht: instantly caused a stir, banned in some US high schools, increased popularity and sales