Frankenstein and Handmaid's Flashcards
HT: we have…
Fr: pretty…
Objectificaton of women
a collection … she’s a sociologist … a lawyer … that one was in business.
- Commander
- Lexical choice of ‘collection’ in Jezebel’s
- Pathos
- during the ‘Sexual Revolution’ of 60s/70s there was a double standard reaction; men can act on their sexual desires however the idea of a woman who did as well disturbed conservatives because it might ‘threaten’ society - Jezebel’s present this hypocrisy
present
* Caroline Beaufort
* Alliteration
* Women in Regency Era (1800s) were expected to be submissive, virtuous and happily bound to the domestic sphere
HT: In the days of…
FR: …and do…
Authorial purpose to generate fear
anarchy, it was freedom to. Now, you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it.
- Aunt Lydia
- Oxymoron between ‘freedom to’ and ‘freedom from’, ironic
- The times when women were free to make choices were ‘days of anarchy’ = chaos; in the Sexual Revolution of the 60s/70s, reactions AGAINST this movement feared that the availability of the Pill could lead to a ‘sexual anarchy’ and believe its affects on society more detrimental than a bomb
you not feel your blood congeal with horror, like that which even now curdles mine?
- Robert Walton
- Emotive language, tension
- Gothic literature
HT: What she’d…
FR: A…
Science threatens religion
just showed us was a film, made in an olden-days hospital: a pregnant woman, wired up to a machine, electrodes coming out of her … so that she looked like a broken robot
- Offred
- Science threatens Gilead’s ‘religion’ = propagandic to instil fear
- Ironic: she is made to seem like a product of a supposed corrupt society - one dimensional via ‘broken robot’, when really the Handmaids fit this rhetoric better
a new species would bless me as its creator and source
* Victor revels in the idea of becoming a parental figure to the creature, however for different reasons.
* Instead of having a desire to navigate the creature around life, he solely craves to be revered and admired, much like God.
* The phrase ‘bless me as its creator and source’ reflects this idea, as there appears to be a disconnect of paternal love, and instead, there lies an egotistic yearning of being obeyed.
* The words ‘bless’ and ‘creator’ create a semantic field of omnipotence, which further establishes his willingness to bend over the limits of nature to play God.
* This further accentuates the multifaceted hubris of Victor Frankenstein; although he wishes to prolong mortality, he also does this to satisfy his lust for dominion.
AO3 - enlightenment movement; Paradise Lost by John Milton
HT: Under…
FR: Although…
Panopticon effect
his eye.
- Offred
- short, clinical sentence
- The motif of the eyes reinforces the overarching theme of totalitarianism in the novel.
- Totalitarian regimes often rely on surveillance as a means of maintaining power and suppressing dissent.
the sun shone upon me… I saw … nothing but a dense and frightful darkness, penetrated by … the glimmer of two eyes
- Victor
- Juxtaposition of light and dark amplifies tension
- darkness, shadow and horror = gothic literature
HT: Color categories
FR: the poor…
HOWEVER,
HT: What I have…
FR: deep,
Threat to the female voice
HANDMAID’S
- Uniforms are coloured according to their assigned roles. The handmaids wear red, which is a symbol of blood of menstruation and childbirth, which symbolises their sole reproductive function.
- The Marthas, however, wear dull green which is symbolic of their utilitarianism, as their role is to fulfil domestic duties.
- Dull green isn’t bold and attention grabbing, which highlights their enforced conformity to the established order.
- Overall, colour categories are a visual representation of the women’s subordinate, subservient role in the totalitarian regime, where lack of individuality and dehumanisation are rife.
sufferer
- Victor
- Justine’s imprisonment is the epitome of female entrapment; she has to face the consequences of a man’s actions
- accentuates motif of injustice - people who are in a greater position in a social fabric to not reap their consequences and instead leave it to the innocent
HT: on him is his guilt. At last.
AO1 - Commander feels guilty for the previous Handmaids. Offred gets empowered by this transaction. People higher up have a twisted sense of sympathy
AO2 - first person narrative
AO3 - Parallels him with Adolf Eichmann a Nazi Official who were in charge of the identification and transportation of Jews; a man in power, powerless to act against the regime and his complacency contributes to the Nazi’s crimes.
FR: dark, deathlike solitude
- He does not enjoy the company of others; he is enduring survivor’s guilt and feels guilty for indirectly being the cause of Justine’s murder
- the mere sight of a human being is a constant reminder of Justine’s untimely death. (Element of gothic literature is solitude & isolation)
HT: They’ll always…
FR: A race…
Warnings for the future generation if things keep going on like this
HT: have been in white, in groups of girls; they’ll always have been silent
AO1 - Atwood is trying to warn that if society doesn’t change, the future generation won’t remember what things are like before Gilead, such as freedom to protest
AO2 - anaphora, ‘always’ is also repeated, suggests continuity if this warning is not taken
AO3 - Dictatorships such as Nazi Germany utilise the Hitler Youth in order to indoctrinate young people; Sun-Myeong Moon’s cult in the 1970s/80s had a practice of group weddings (which is what the Prayvaganza practices)
FR: of devils would be propagated upon the earth
AO1 - Shelley tries to warn of how the enlightenment movement and science may be used to endanger our future if ambition is not controlled
AO2 - hyperbole, emphasises how dangerous it is, ‘devils’ creates dark imagery
AO3 - enlightenment movement: an intellectual movement in the 18c, progressive and encourages rational thought unlike romanticist movement
HT: I’ll say…
FR: A frightful fiend…
Fear and feelings of powerlessness
HT: anything they’ll like. I’ll incriminate anyone. It’s true, the first scream, whimper even, and I’ll turn to jelly, I’ll confess to any crime, I’ll end up hanging on a hook from the Wall
AO1 - The fear of Gilead’s oppressive regime is remisnicent in literary dystopias and real-world dictatorships - forces Offred to lose her dignity and want to confess to anything
AO2 - listing
AO3 - 1984, in room 101, Winston wanted the torture to be done on “Julia! Not me!” - literary context
FR: Doth close behind him tread
AO1 - The fear of the monster and the consequences of his actions are realised
AO2 - Intertextuality, Rime of the Ancient Mariner
AO3 - Parallels Victor with the Ancient Mariner who is self-interested and ignorant of nature. They both defy God (the Mariner defied God by shooting the albatross). The Mariner descends into a living hell, a plane with no natural life. Similarly, Victor descends into a personal living hell, living in fear and paranoia of the Creature
HT: Her fault…
FR: I feel as if…
Women’s protective rights are dismissed
HT: Her fault. Her fault.
AO1 - Gilead enforces women to turn on each other as well as encourages self-blaming for the trauma women such as Janine went through - it is “her fault”
AO2 - repetition
AO3 - New Right Movement enforced traditional gender roles; as well as misogynistic ideas that elevates the man but not women - in here, these ideas are made to the extreme.
FR: I were walking on the edge of a precipice
AO1 - Society enables a misogynistic, unfair system to which women do not have a voice such as Elizabeth who’s defending Justine but is simply ignored for it
AO2 - simile
AO3 - A Vindication of the Rights of Women 1792 by Mary Wollstonecraft - Shelley’s mother; a book that Wollstonecraft, a feminist, wrote which proposed the equality for the sexes and criticised the established gender roles
HT: I enjoy…
FR: Power…
Power
HT: the power; power of a dog bone
AO1 - Offred enjoys what little power she has in the Gileadean hierarchy - emphasise how much Handmaids doesn’t have power in Gilead.
AO2 - animal imagery, repetition
AO3 - The Laugh of the Medusa (1957), by Helene Cixous, in the essay, Cixous encourages that women can use the body as a way to communicate. In Chapter 4, Offred sways her hips to feel an impression of power.
FR: placed within my hands
AO1 - Victor realises the power he’s got by making the creature; he slowly recognises his powerful role in removing the one of women’s
AO2 - plosives, alliteration
AO3 - Parallels him with God as the life-giver; or rather, Prometheus who gave knowledge of fire to the people and angered Zeus, as well as emphasising the dangers of the enlightenment movement for breaking the natural order of society
HT: We are…
FR: The picture…
Potential futures
HT: working towards the goal of a little garden for each one, each one of you
AO1 - Aunt Lydia is presenting a utopic, idyllic Gilead as a functioning society which should ‘benefit’ women
AO2 - repetition, imagery
AO3 - This reflects the 17c Puritan values that Atwood borrowed to Gilead; 17c Puritanism aspired to create a utopian society through fear, intimidation, patriarchal rule and harsh living conditions where women are inferior to men
FR: I present to you is peaceful and human
AO1 - The Creature attempts to convince Victor of an idyllic future where he won’t have to be lonely and Victor won’t have to suffer; their worlds would be separate
AO2 - alliteration
AO3 - Paradise Lost by John Milton, The Creature attempts to create a paradise for himself with a potential bride with similar features; like Adam and Eve
HT: I want…
FR: This was…
Thirst for knowledge
HT: to know.
AO1: desperation for knowledge haunts Offred throughout the novel, whether that be knowledge of what is going on behind the scenes of Gilead, Luke or her daughter. She is unlightened about what is going on in her life, and so when she is offered a glimpse of information, she snatches at it.
AO2: short sentence
AO3: people in totalitarian regimes (e.g. George Orwell’s 1984, DPRK, USSR, Nazi Germany) are cut off from outside knowledge, and are forced to be accustomed to an enclosed, desolute environment
FR: indeed a godlike science, and I ardently desired to become acquainted with it.
AO1: The creature is abandoned by Victor and is forced to fend for himself and learns what the world is truly like through his own means. Entirely unaware of what the world has to offer.
AO2: hyperbole (godlike science)
AO3: John Locke’s tabula rasa
HT: Here is…
FR: His words had…
Unreliable narrators
HT: what I’d like to tell. I’d like to tell a story about how Moira escaped … I’d like her to end with something daring and spectacular … But as far as I know that didn’t happen.
AO1: Offred has an insatiable desire to control her own narrative in a world where narratives are manipulated by men. In such a dystopian world, she still clings onto minute hope that a rebellion will ensue, but ultimately, she is merely a microcosm of the disempowered. Silence of female voice; entrapment
AO2: first person narrative, emotive language (link to Herstory)
AO3: Offred’s internal rebellion by clinging onto hope reflects that of people in East Germany’s mental entrapment during the time of the Berlin Wall which caused them to ultimately protest against the regime
FR: even power over my heart – but trust him not.
* said by Robert Walton, about Frankenstein
AO1: Victor is biased and has an agenda that works clearly against the truth. Appearance versus reality
AO2: irony, juxtaposition
AO3: Gothic literature - distrust is a key element
HT: Are there…
FR: He was soon…
Open endings
HT: any questions?
AO1: The reader was previously immersed in Offred’s personalised narrative, and after being forced to experience her narrative being ripped by historians, they are left having even more questions left unanswered; frustration
AO2: short sentence, dramatic irony (because we are left with more questions)
AO3: rewriting history reflects China’s attempts to downplay Tiananmen massacre; the publication in 1938 of the two histories of the Communist Party, both edited by Stalin; in 1984 by Orwell, Minitrue rewrites history
FR: borne away by the waves, and lost in darkness and distance.
AO1: reader is given no closure regarding the creature. No proper justice has been given to him
AO2: imagery, sombre tone, euphemism of death
AO3: causes the reader to ponder upon effects of hubris, which reflects ideals of the Enlightenment movement as intellect was celebrated
HT: The Commander’s Wife looks…
FR: I ought…
Perversion of parent-child relationships
HT: down at the baby as if it’s a bouquet of flowers: something she’s won.
AO1: Parenthood is made a game in Gilead, and the natural love between a child and a parent are gone. It has now been manipulated to serve the elite
AO2: metaphor
AO3: The Child Welfare League of America of 1958 developed the “The Indian Adoption Project” which consisted of widespread kidnapping and relocating of Native Indian children to white, middle-class ‘deserving’ families.
FR: to be thy Adam, but I am rather the fallen angel.
AO1: encapsulates the effects of Victor’s abandonment on the creature, who has now been corrupted with evil. Victor failed to be his moral compass
AO2: metaphor, semantic field of religion
AO3: Shelley lacked a parental relationship with her mother because of her death, and was estranged from her dad after her elopement with Percy (despite previously being close with him); allusions to Paradise Lost
HT: Behold…
FR: Nothing could…
*Ideal families *
HT: my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her.
AO1: Biblical justification for Gilead, so this would be their perfect family. Superficial
AO2: imagery, epigraph, biblical reference
AO3: Taliban deliberately manipulates Islam ethos to control Afghanistan; The New Right ideologies was borrowed from puritan belief, esp the ideas of women being primarily for procreation and seen as inferior to men in marriage
FR: exceed the love and respect the older cottagers exhibited towards their venerable companion.
AO1: DeLaceys are the family that Shelley would’ve had her readers aspire to have
AO2: foil against Victor and the creature’s relationship
AO3: Mary and Percy attempted to build a life together. Sadly, at the age of 17, Mary gave birth prematurely and her daughter died a few days later. Only 1/4 of her children survived.
