Handmaids Tale Context

Question 1

Who is serena joy based on?

Answer 1

Phyllis Schaffly- TV personality- Televangelism

Question 2

Atwood criticises radicalism

Answer 2

Through the character of Offreds mother

Question 3

Puritans

Answer 3

Atwood studies American puritans who went to America for a theocracy- Gilead is much like a Puritan society- autonomous to other societies

Question 4

Ronald ragen

Answer 4

Push back of women’s rights
Atomic family
Patriarchal gender roles
Restricted laws on abortion
1981 closed the office of domestic violence
Christian fundamentalist who used the bible to shape law
Murders related to sexual assault and domestic violence increased

Question 5

Maos China

Answer 5

Loyalty to the state
University life ends
Books burnt

Question 6

Nuclear scare

Answer 6

Cold War- Atwood is an environmentalist

Question 7

Infertility

Answer 7

AIDS epidemic

Question 8

Afghanistan and Iran

Answer 8

Atwood went and observed fundamentalist societies
Imposition of public executions
Atwood criticises justice system

Question 9

Hitler and the Nazis

Answer 9

Dehumanisation- you have to make an it

Hitlers youth movement- try to make handmaiden tabula rasa and re educate them

Question 10

Slavery

Answer 10

Abolished in 1865 but had been a way of life for years

Gilead- children of ham deported chap 14

Question 11

Phillis Schlaffly

Answer 11

Radical televangelist representative of the character serena joy

Question 12

Feminism

Answer 12

Take back the night movement

Question 13

Nazi setting

Answer 13

Colonies are the ghettos and concentration camps