Handmaids Tale Part Two Flashcards
What does Earl Ingersol state about surveillance and give evidence that contradicts it
“Atwood shares Orwell’s liberal-humanist anxieties about a future in which a totalitarian state offers individuals the grim option of either freedom and anarchy or repression and security”
- 1984, there isn’t SECURITY whereas there is in The Handmaid’s Tale.
What does Earl Ingersol state about humanity
‘As readers of these dystopic narratives, we are encouraged to identify ourselves with the focal characters who seem the “last man” or “last woman” in their desperate struggle to preserve their humaneness’
Give a book which THT’s ecological and environmental concerns are central to
J.G. Ballard’s The Drowned World
In which the ice caps have melted and London has become a swamp
Give an example of a post-literate society in the Handmaid’s Tale and a boo it relates to
In Ray Bradbury’s 1953 dystopian novel Fahrenheit 451
Atwood also describes a regime that frowns on education and books and where pictures have replaced words on shop signs
Give a book that relates to the Puritanical tyranny
The Chrysalids
Brutal fundamentalist Puritan society destroys babies with abnormalities in the name of ‘the Purity of the Race
Nick is more important for his…..rather than his character; he represents romance rather than………… Their relationship is significant for underlining Offred’s powerful conflict of………..and the strength of her sexual desire
Role
Realism
Loyalties
Give a quote about love, the significance of it and a boom it links to
“Falling in love,” I said
Pun on the word falling - fallen women
Eve, Tess of the D’Urbervillesby Thomas Hardy
Give evidence of corruption at the heart of Gilead (Serena Joy)
When suggesting to use Nick
What about the Commander?” I say.
“Well,” she says, with firmness;
Subtly corrupt, not looking out for Offed’s best interest; she wants a child
HOWEVER - “her voice was almost soft” - provides a contrasting image, she clearly longs for a child and the act is done out of desperation.
Sense of benevolence and humanity. She’s reaching out to her fellow woman to help her
In the TV show by Mike barber, how are the commander’s wives presented on Birth Day
Courageous in comparison to the handmaids, as if the Commander’s wife has borne the child.
The Birthing Stool reflects the hierarchy in Gilead. Literally and metaphorically looking down on the Handmaids; as if giving birth is the province of the servants.
In the TV show by Maike Barber - what is significant about Janine’s reaction after giving birth
Indicative of the hierarchy in Gilead; child taken from the mother.
The family in Gilead: Janine’s role is complete and the Handmaids are disposable. Her role is done; she is not needed and her status is defined by that.
How does the environment reflect Gilead
“Who knows, your very flesh may be polluted, dirty as an oily beach, sure death to shorebirds and unborn babies. Maybe a vulture would die of eating you”
The environment reflected an uncontrollable enemy to Gilead. However,the environment is socorrupt and diseased that it facilitates their control. The environment symbolises the true corruption of Gilead. They try to say that they symbolise purity and yet they are sick at heart too.
What is significant about the supposed biblical quote
“From each according to her ability; to each according to his needs”. It was from the Bible, or they said.
Not from the Bible at all: it is actually a version of a well-known statement by Karl Marx. It should read “From each according to HIS ability, to each according to HIS needs”
- pro-equality
The leaders of Gilead, always looking for ways to emphasise the burden on women to please men, have twisted the slogan […] the women are giving; the men are taking.
Give a noel that links to the perversion of sexual urges
Alex undergoes the ‘Ludovico technique’ in A Clockwork Orange’ in which he learns to associate sex and violence with feelings of nausea.
Atwood - “I was tired of people saying it……happen here”
Can’t
What was the Equal Credit Opportunity Act in 1974
Before it, banks required single, widowed or divorced women to bring a man along to cosign any credit application, regardless of their income
Evaluate the quote ‘There is more than one kind of freedom, said, Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don’t underrate it
Aunt Lydia wants the Handmaids to think protection is more valuable than freedom. FALSE UTOPIA: the handmaids being made to think that this is perfect; being lulled into society.
‘Anarchy’ - the opposite of the uniform and controlled nature of dystopia
Evaluate the quote ‘They made mistakes, says Aunt Lydia. We don’t intend to repeat them. Her voice is pious, condescending
Religion istwisted by religious values as they follow an extremist religious theology.
‘They made mistakes’ […] ‘We don’t intend to repeat them’ - as in 1984 with the children’s history books, history is presented as something to be feared.
Gilead cherry-picks ‘awful’ examples from history to demonise the past when THEIR present is actually worse.
Lydia and the regime present the past as if there’s no other alternative.
Evaluate - ‘Once we had to watch a woman being slowly cut into pieces, her fingers and breasts snipped off with garden shears…Consider the alternatives, said Aunt Lydia…That was they thought of women, then.
To make the Handmaids value the new regime, stop them from stepping out of line.
Lydia is sensationalising the past and rewriting history; aiming to indoctrinate the Handmaids to trust the new regime.
In Atwood’snovel Oryx and Crake -porn becomes exceptionally commercialised and very graphic and dark to fit the needs and pleasures of all.
The videos Lydia refer to parallel the anarchy that Atwood creates in her other novel.
What is the Commander’s facial features reminiscent of and gives some quotes to support this
BB - the face of authority is masculine and possibly reminiscent of European dictators. ‘Silver hair’ - age, wealth, wisdom, power. ‘Silver moustache’ - a mask.
What does the diary link to in THT
The words in the Scrabble game: daring, sensual or sexual words. The alliteration and sibilance are erotic. ‘It’s as if he’s offered me drugs’ - unspeakable power and pleasure and rebellion.
Commander - “The…..have been burnt”
Books
Fahrenheit 451 – books burned in society to destroy thoughts and the dangerous topics that literature can raise.
How does Offred describe how the Commander looks at her
“A look you’d give to an almost extinct animal, at the zoo.”
Something to be observed, pitied, a novelty but NOT an equal.
How do the Jezebels relate to Gilead
The club is seedy and corrupt, reflecting the underlying morals and power structure of Gilead
What does Collete Tennant state
The Aunts “have names taken from women in the bible. It is fitting that Gilead would choose to rename female authority figures with biblical names as it continually uses the Bible as a means of asserting its right to the authority and power it has claimed”
