Storytelling and memory theme

Question 1

structure

Answer 1

is characterised by many different kinds of storytelling and fiction-making

Question 2

Historical Notes on the Handmaid’s Tale

Answer 2

frames the entire novel as Offred’s story, that she’s said into a tape recorder in the old-fashioned storytelling tradition

Question 3

Aunt Lydia’s Lessons

Answer 3

punctuate her story as the novel continues

Question 4

flashbacks

Answer 4

her flashbacks can be triggered by the slightest impression and they occur so frequently through the novel, that it seems like Offred lives in several worlds’s

Question 5

tenses

Answer 5

adding to the overlap of the past and present, the tenses are always shifting, with some memories in the past tense and some in the present

Question 6

Offred’s fiction

Answer 6

she constantly makes up fictions. She’s often filled with questions

she keeps several stories in her mind at once- seen in her imaginings of Luke’s fate: dead, imprisoned or maybe escaped

Question 7

storytelling as a pastime

Answer 7

no access to entertainment so makes up events from other people’s points of view, making up what they could be saying or thinking

ex: Aunt Lydia and Janine talking about Moira- her frequent memories of the Aunts show how Gildea has dominated her memories

“I would like to believe this is a story I am telling”

Question 8

repetitive

Answer 8

with more stories and memories than current-time actions, the book is profoundly repetitive

like Offred, we are trapped within the echo-chamber of her mind

“I try not to think too much”

Question 9

Offred often uses

Answer 9

lengthy sentences which convey the languorous feel

taking her time because she has time to waste

Question 10

Offred maintains her identity

Answer 10

through making her record

Question 11

through telling her story

Answer 11

Offred learns to see differently from the way she is supposed to, which allows her to see the subversion and cracks in the Gileadean regime

Question 12

effects of Offred decision to see clearly

Answer 12

she understands that the visual is vulnerable to manipulation so changes the way she appears to others in order to survive

Question 13

drawing on Lacanian psychoanalytic theory

Answer 13

one could perhaps see Atwood’s fragmentary and contradictive narrative as reflecting Offred’s own state of mind

Question 14

function of Historica Notes

Answer 14

Offred’s view of Gilead was restricted so it provides the reader with more detail, as well as telling that Gilead hadn’t lasted indefinitely

also told she got near Canadian border, which gives us hope for her escape

Question 15

female narrative

Answer 15

Atwood felt that most dystopia had been written by men in the point of view of men

Question 16

link to 1984

Answer 16

Newspeak uses the prefix ‘un’ to express the opposite of something - “ungood”

Atwood also uses this - “unbabies” and “unwomen”

Question 17

Aunt Lydia often

Answer 17

misrepresents history as a way of justifying Gilead

similar to 1984

Question 18

Gilead often twists language

Answer 18

in an attempt to create a new truth - forbids the word “sterile” as a way to eliminate the concept

as Aunt Lydia points out, the next generation will know no other truth than what they are told

Question 19

the Historical Notes

Answer 19

undermine her narrative and forces the reader to re-evaluate her “story”

Question 20

called a “tale”

Answer 20

and she recorded it in retrospect, which could make us wonder at the truth of her narrative