'The Handmaid's Tale' Context Flashcards
Where was Atwood living when she wrote ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’
West Berlin in the time when the Berlin Wall was up
What inspired the creation of Gilead
Living in West Berlin made her wonder what a totalitarian state in the context of North America would look like
Secret Police of East Germany
The Stasi - were in charge of surveillance
–> surveillance and control similar to the Eyes and the Guardians at the boarder crossings and barriers
Bible quote - fertility
“Give me children or else I die”
- Genesis: Rachel
- Gilead society needing children to continue
- Handmaids needing children to prevent becoming an “unwoman”
Hitler quote - mothers
“In my state, mothers are the most important citizen”
- Fertility crisis
Goebbels quote - women
“the woman’s place is in the family”
- The Wives are meant keeps order in the home
The Magdalene Laundries
Put to slave labour –> similar to colonies
Women given a biblical name upon arrival to replace their real name –> similar to Handmaid’s having their identity taken away from them
Setting
Set in futuristic USA at the beginning of the 21st Century
–> functions as a warning based on the world around Atwood at the time of writing (1980’s)
Control through language
‘Aunts’ - reassuring and comforting connotations but are actually used to enforce oppression
–> link to ‘1984’ - Newspeak
Family values
President Reagan (1980’s)
- “Family values” equated to traditional, heterosexual nuclear families
Second wave of feminism
2nd wave was during 1980’s
- Women were beginning to embrace lives that existed outside of the traditional, domestic sphere
- In Gilead, those in charge want a return to the pre-Second Wave conditions of domesticity and strict gender roles
Puritanism
Many of the practices of Gilead are reminiscent of those of the Puritans, who lived in a rigid theocracy based on a few choice selections from the Bible:
- Gilead’s attitudes towards women as an inferior sex are directly linked to a Puritan mindset
