'The Handmaid's Tale' Context

Question 1

Where was Atwood living when she wrote ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’

Answer 1

West Berlin in the time when the Berlin Wall was up

Question 2

What inspired the creation of Gilead

Answer 2

Living in West Berlin made her wonder what a totalitarian state in the context of North America would look like

Question 3

Secret Police of East Germany

Answer 3

The Stasi - were in charge of surveillance
–> surveillance and control similar to the Eyes and the Guardians at the boarder crossings and barriers

Question 4

Bible quote - fertility

Answer 4

“Give me children or else I die”
- Genesis: Rachel
- Gilead society needing children to continue
- Handmaids needing children to prevent becoming an “unwoman”

Question 5

Hitler quote - mothers

Answer 5

“In my state, mothers are the most important citizen”
- Fertility crisis

Question 6

Goebbels quote - women

Answer 6

“the woman’s place is in the family”
- The Wives are meant keeps order in the home

Question 7

The Magdalene Laundries

Answer 7

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

Question 8

Setting

Answer 8

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)

Question 9

Control through language

Answer 9

‘Aunts’ - reassuring and comforting connotations but are actually used to enforce oppression

–> link to ‘1984’ - Newspeak

Question 10

Family values

Answer 10

President Reagan (1980’s)
- “Family values” equated to traditional, heterosexual nuclear families

Question 11

Second wave of feminism

Answer 11

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

Question 12

Puritanism

Answer 12

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
‘The Republic of Gilead is built on a foundation of the 17th-century Puritan roots that have always lain beneath the modern-day America we thought we knew.’ Atwood

Question 13

Environment

Answer 13

In today’s real world, studies are now showing a sharp fertility decline in Chinese men. Atwood
Environmental disasters 3 mile Island
Nuclear testing in Pacific

Question 14

Significance of names

Answer 14

When I first began “The Handmaid’s Tale” it was called “Offred,” the name of its central character. This name is composed of a man’s first name, “Fred,” and a prefix denoting “belonging to,” so it is like “de” in French or “von” in German, or like the suffix “son” in English last names like Williamson. Within this name is concealed another possibility: “offered,” denoting a religious offering or a victim offered for sacrifice.

Question 15

Title of novel significance of ‘tale’

Answer 15

partly in honour of Chaucer’s “Canterbury Tales,” but partly also in reference to fairy tales and folk tales: The story told by the central character partakes — for later or remote listeners — of the unbelievable, the fantastic, as do the stories told by those who have survived earth-shattering events.

Question 16

Women against other women

Answer 16

Women will gang up on other women. Yes, they will accuse others to keep themselves off the hook: We see that very publicly in the age of social media, which enables group swarmings. Yes, they will gladly take positions of power over other women, even — and, possibly, especially — in systems in which women as a whole have scant power. Atwood

Question 17

Femist book - Atwood’s words

Answer 17

‘Because women … are not secondary players in human destiny’
The mass rape and murder of women, girls and children has long been a feature of genocidal wars… The control of women and babies has been a feature of every repressive regime on the planet.
Of those promoting enforced childbirth, it should be asked: Cui bono? Who profits by it? … Never no one.

Question 18

Costumes

Answer 18

derived from Western religious iconography — the Wives wear the blue of purity, from the Virgin Mary; the Handmaids wear red, from the blood of parturition, but also from Mary Magdalene. Also, red is easier to see if you happen to be fleeing.

Question 19

Clothing in totalitarian states - Atwood

Answer 19

totalitarianisms have used clothing, both forbidden and enforced, to identify and control people — think of yellow stars and Roman purple

Question 20

Religion - Atwood

Answer 20

the book is not “antireligion.” It is against the use of religion as a front for tyranny

Question 21

Atwood on themes and context:

Answer 21

So many different strands fed into “The Handmaid’s Tale” — group executions, sumptuary laws, book burnings, the Lebensborn program of the SS and the child-stealing of the Argentine generals, the history of slavery, the history of American polygamy . . .

Question 22

The literature of witness.

Answer 22

This is an act of hope: Every recorded story implies a future reader.

Question 23

Writing

Answer 23

That is how we writers all started: by reading. We heard the voice of a book speaking to us.

Question 24

Reflects current fears/anxieties

Answer 24

Basic civil liberties are seen as endangered, along with many of the rights for women won over the past decades, and indeed the past centuries.