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 novel 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
