The Handmaids Tale.

Margaret Atwood

Answer each question/section in full and use quotations where necessary.  

For revision purposes, I would advise you to take note of page references.

“These things have happened before, there is nothing to say they wont happen again” “Four digits and an eye, a passport in reverse” “There is more than one kind of freedom, the freedom to and the freedom from”

Allusions

‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is full of Allusions.  Research the categories below in order to gain further understanding of their significance.

Biblical Allusions. Biblical Allusion; a reference within a literary work to a story, idea, or event that is related in the Bible or other biblical writings. Atwood used these within the handmaids tale to show the skewed take on Biblical concepts and how they were presented in Gilead.

• Biblical Allusions – The whole book is centred around the Catholic Religion. It expands on the characters as Readers can gain further understanding through the similarity between the Religious aspects and Gilead. Justification for horrible events – this is very topical at the moment. Irony that exists between the image that they do these things for the good of the population and use the bible to justify their actions while actually playing against these lies. The suppression of women is a common connection between the Allusions.
• Jezebels – Jezebels is a secret brothel where women are asked to work as prostitutes of sort under the republic of Gilead. Biblical women were offered the choice between being sent to the Colonies or working as a Jezebel. Many preferred the sex trade where they were allowed certain privileges like cigarettes and make up. This comes from the adaption of Jezebel, the Biblical queen who was killed and remembered unfairly as sexually immoral. The sexual immorality of prostitution as viewed by many alludes to the perceptions of the ancient Queen’s sexual immorality. The location of Jezebels, an old hotel Offred remembers from the older days, is of importance as well. Offred and Luke were in the beginnings of an affair when they first stayed there. An Affair is a sexually immoral action and it is yet another allusion to the sexual immorality surrounding Jezebel within the bible.
• Rachel and Jacob – The pair from the bible have substantial presence in the novel as the essential idea of offering forward a handmaid as passage of making a baby. ” When Rachel saw she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said unto Jacob, ‘Give me children or else I die.’ And she said, ‘Behold my maid, Bilhah. Go unto her and she shall bear upon my knees so that I might also have children by her.’ “. The subtle naming implications of bible references such as the Centre which Offred was in, “Rachel and Leah Center”, and the Christian Fundamentalist group which took over the US going by “Sons of Jacob”, further alluded to the overpowering sense which the structure of Life in Gilead followed that of verses of the Bible. “Republic of Gilead” is an authoritarian, theocratic regime. Within the bible, Gilead is the place which Jacob fled to with his father in law in pursuit. Jacob took his family of Rachel and children away with him in fear of Laban deceiving him and taking his family from him. This is another direction allusion to structure of life for Handmaids in Gilead. They are tricked and deceived into a mindset of stupidity and simplistic, primitive life – defined by a single purpose and held back from any individual decisions.
• Gilead – The ideal image of what Handmaids Tale’s Gilead wishes to be. Peaceful, Fertile, Clean. A place of fertile crops and land which the people of the area don’t suffer from detrimental effects of toxic and unhealthy environment. “Gilead was a tormented city, full of evil men and the memories of their sins” Hosea.“There is no Balm in Gilead” Jeremiah 8:21
• Freud and his theories – ‘Penis Envy’ – If you don’t have a penis, you do not have rights. The women are strictly classified as how adjacent they are to a man ( Penis Carrier ). Also alludes the pun “Pen is Envy”, as women are stripped of their individual freedom and lose the ability to pass information and contribute. Literally the inability to access a pen has removed the possibly of writing and reading and therefore the main route of communication.
• Marxism – Not so much to do with economic class more to do with Gender. Women are seen as lower men upper, yet without the women the men would have nothing. This is the concept that the working class fuel the upper classes. The handmaids were essential to upholding the society. The classes can be seen in the sitting room, the different levels at which different classes present themselves show their status clearly; Offred on her knees, Serena on a chair at the front, Commander coming as he pleases. “Religion was the opiate of the masses.” Karl Marx .
• George Orwell’s 1984 – “The majority of Dystopians, Orwell’s included, have been written by men and the point of view has been male. When women have appeared in them, they have been sexless or rebels who’ve deified the sex rules of the regime. I wanted to try a Dystopia from the female point of view, a world according to June” Margaret Atwood. 1984 is centred around the Big Brother, a world formed around the control of thought and fear. The parallel is the Eyes integrated into society , the complete unknown of when the powers are listening to you. All manipulate the population through control of fear, thought, language, class.
• Descartes’ theory – “I think, therefore I am” The concept that in order to think is the proof of your own existence. Theres a good quote on pg279.
• Puritan New England

Why has Atwood included Allusions in the text?  What do they tell us about Offred and Gilead?

As a point of relation and to enforce the idea that these things could ever so easily happen again.

Setting

The setting in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is incredibly influential upon its characters.  It is suggested that the novel is set early in the 21^st Century.  The story spans the 3 – 4 months of summer and flashes back in time often.  The flashbacks indicate that Gilead seems to be around five years old. Offred’s daughter was in day-care, “about three or four” when the revolution took place.  She is five when they try to escape, and “she must be eight’ when Offred sees her photo. As readers we know that Gilead is relatively new, through information such as “blankets that still said the U.S” and through the fact that the Handmaids are told they are pioneers, front-runners of the new system: “You are a transitional generation.”

Work through the points below, giving as much detail as possible and using quotations.

• Where is the novel set?
• In which contemporary geographical place is Gilead located?  Cite evidence.
• What contemporary university is referred to?  Give information about this university. Why is its inclusion important?
• What are we told about the world outside of the house/Gilead?  What is the significance of that?
• Make notes on the following areas of the Commander’s house, using quotes to support your comments: Offred’s room (Chapters 2 and 9); The garden; The sitting room (Ch. 14); The Commander’s study (Ch. 23)
• Make notes on the town and specific settings within it
• Makes notes on Jezebel’s.  Focus upon the contrast with the rest of the Gilead settings (Ch. 37)
• Research a Totalitarian regime; either one that is contemporary or historical.  How does Gilead echo this setting?

The novel is set in a post revolution area in USA which has been renamed as “Republic of Gilead” is an authoritarian, theocratic regime which Offred exists in. Gilead is set in a fictional, futuristic New England where the government has been overthrown. The handmaids tale also dwells on the grounds of Harvard University, one of the most prestigious University famous for extremely competitive nature and high standing requirements to even be considered to study there. It is a place where some of the most intelligent and even minded of our race spend their time specialising. Yet in the Handmaids Tale, Gilead practises techniques of ignorance and general inequality which goes with the strand of significantly less intelligent times. The world outside Gilead is in the wake of a nuclear war, the colonies are used as a form of punishment, a place one is sent to help clean the waste of the radioactive war weapons. This indicates that the rest of the US and possibly the world is left as a broken, radioactive wasteland from a fight between previous superpowers. The regime in Gilead could be created from the simple misguided energy to keep the human race alive while higher powers attempt to sustain a skewed perception of what life used to be. Some of the seemingly absurd practices in the totalitarian regime are not so unrealistic. Things such as Public executions, covering dress, and the patterns of violence and oppression all relate to Catholic practices and totalitarian practices in places like the Middle East and North Korea. The only information on the outside world comes as news of war which could not even been fought and general fake news. Dripping information so that it only pushes people towards the leading party. The society is controlled by the faith that they are always being watched and that all is known yet they don’t have a known dictator which is holding a gun to their head. The what ifs are left to their minds and this pushes the doubt out which further singles out the non believers.

Offred’s Room: Seemingly bleak, yet Offred mentions a lot of sun light entering the room. The idea that hope as light gets past the bars on the windows and through the immensely saddening situation. Also the fact that nature cannot be contained. The complete stripping of any opportunity to open a possibly of escaping not to the outside world away from her world. “The stains on the mattress like dried flower petals”. Single bed, it is no common occurrence to see a women of age in such a confining and rigid safe. Bedrooms tend to be a safe place and an area to share with a loved one and sex which is fuelled by passion rather than the pure purpose of reproducing. Her bare bedroom shows how her individually and freedom has been stripped away. Devoid of emotion, personality and thought.

The garden: Representing Nature. Flowers have many connotations especially within the novel they symbolise blossoming life, beauty, fertility, freedom and prosperity.

The sitting room: The room which marks the conception phase. The whole act is so planned which also draws it back to becoming almost sterile the complete irony of what the ceremony is made in efforts of. The juxtaposition of the setting, the room is luxuriously decorated in Serena Joy’s mixed style of quality and sentimentality. Serena Joy’s perfume, Lily of the Valley, smells like innocent girlishness but it is a “sweetly scented yet highly poisonous woodland flowering plant.”

Commanders Study: It is seem as a place of both liberation and temptation. She takes part in acts of unlawful classification such as the scrabble games, moisturiser, and normal chat with commander. There is symbolism of the words she comes up with – exercising her freedom within the Oasis from the barren forbidden world. It is the closest link to previous times, “A flip backward of time”. The propose of her visting the space, Atwood has included in novel, these captures remove some of the tension and dissipates the dark reality of the rest of the scene. It highlights how filtered the handmaids tale really is, the intense wakening of how suppressed and forbidden her life really is when she is allowed to read to exercise her thought. The room also highlights how simple the Commander is, he encourages the things he goes so hard against and also he uses it to exercise his boredom through the shadow of the good deed he is creating for Offred. The complete isolation which the regime has built around everybody has now come back to play against him and his deep directors of selfishness enables him to cover his own fulfillments through false kindness. Cynical, in his acts of teasing her and pilling her debt to him. Dangling her freedom as bait which in-fact reduces her freedom further as she would take the brunt of the blame.

Town: Sterile, The wall with bodies hanging on it – manipulation and fear, Movie Theatre, Church, Scrolls. Palimpsest landscape.

Jezebels: Sex was too easy to have so laws came into function. “Its like walking into the past” Commander. Offred is completely on display, she is there to be objectified, to be in a sense feasted on by their eyes, her body reviewed by most in the room. It displays how childish the Commander really is, his winks when no one is looking, the games, wanting to watch her apply lotion.

Themes

Control is the overriding theme presented within the novel, but there are subsets of this theme.  Using the subsets below, find three examples (use quotations and list the page reference) that highlights each idea.

• Control of thought

“Knowing was a temptation, what you don’t know cant tempt you” “Thought must be rationed” “Thinking can hurt your chances and I intend to last”

• Control of women

• Control of movement

“A rat in the maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze” “

• Control of sexuality

• Control through fear

Closely analyse one section of the text that shows ONE theme and discuss how it encapsulates the theme (photocopy this and annotate it)

Characters

• Major Characters

Offred

• 33 years of age, had a daughter and husband in pre-Gilead, she has brown hair and stands about five foot seven.
• Offred resists inwardly, she is not a hero, merely an anti hero who has submitted to the system in fear of her own and her close families safety. Offred is no feminist either, she flicked back to memories of times when she shied away from mentions of her mothers activism. She began her relationship with Luke being his mistress and meeting him in cheap hotels for sex. This does not indicate much inclination of deep rooted feminism within Offred. Most of all, despite living in constant fear, anger, and being continually controlled, she never is bold enough to join the resistance and make a change.
• Offred is educated (University graduate; good job in library).
• Offred is the narrator and protagonist, she tells us the story through her vivid memory, in almost excessive detail ( a sign of the desperate boredom her intelligent mind is in ). She internally despises the system yet does nothing to improve her situation. Offred is a normal being placed in this horrible situation as a scientific prediction of how the world that Atwood lived in may have unfolded to be like and the situation normal people among us would have suffered in.

The Commander

• Commander Fred Waterford is the head of the house hold and the husband of Serena Joy who is in his 50’s.
• The commander does openly oppose the system and is suggested that he was among the key founders and leaders of Gilead. Yet in the storylines time, he has become bored with his regimented life and feels his wife no longer understands and confines in a one sided relationship with Offred. By doing so, he forfeits his clean appearance and opens up the side of him which opposes the new environment of Gilead he may of helped create. In the small acts of taking Offred to his study and large defiances like Jezebels, his opposition is made clear.
• Relatively old fashioned and seemly educated to a good extent. Enjoys the forbidden simulation of board games.
• The commander is just another piece of the puzzle who opposes the system deep down but does not do anything note-able to create opportunity for change.

Serena Joy

• Thin  lips, hair blonde; her eyebrows are “plucked into thin arched lines”, blue eyes (“a blue that shuts you out”), with eyelids tired-looking.  She has a large face and knuckled, diamond-studded hands. In the past life, Serena ( Pam ) was a famous gospel singer but has now become bound to her home.
• Serena is a mere agitated lady whom despises the inconvenience Gilead has brought her but not any further than her own needs. Although she turns a blind eye to the Commander’s antics and encourages Offred to take unorthodox methods to get pregnant indicating she has little to no respect for rules.
• Serena was a talented performer but has grown old and cranky due to the unsatisfactory life she now has to live.

Moira

• “quirky, jaunty, athletic, with a bicycle once, and a knapsack for hiking. Freckles, I think; irreverent, resourceful.” Moira was Offred’s roommate in College and they are long time best friends.

Nick

COVER THE POINTS BELOW:

• Facts, for example – Offred is 33 years old, has had a daughter….
• Actions, for example – Offred capitulates to the regime because she is too afraid for her daughter to protest
• Adjective/Phrases – Offred is educated (university graduate; good job in library)
• Conclusions/ overall description – For example; The whole story is told from Offred’s p.o.v…She is not a hero…She is passive…

1. Minor Characters

Janine/Ofwarren

Luke

Offred’s mother

Aunt Lydia

FOR THE MINOR CHARACTERS, COVER THE POINTS BELOW:

• overall description, as well as their discussing their significance.

Narrative structure

The structure of this novel is discontinuous, fragmentary, revelatory, episodic.  There is considerable use of interior monologue. Rather than following a straightforward chronological narrative, the story is gradually revealed to the reader through some narrative and dialogue combined with interior dialogue that includes a great deal of flashbacks, hint and allusion.  It gradually builds a cumulative picture of the setting, the characters, the themes and events of the story. The story needs to be pieced together, like a jigsaw puzzle, with the final picture revealed only as the last pieces are put in.

• What do you notice about the use of present and past tense?  Of speech marks? Of capital letters?
• Very little actually happens in Offred’s story.  Why is this appropriate to the themes of the novel?
• What is the strength of this type of narrative structure?  Why is it appropriate and more effective than a straightforward narrative would be?
• What is the point of view of this novel?  What is the effect of this POV on this story?  How reliable is the narrator?
• What is the dominant overall tone of the writing?

Margaret Atwood and her writing techniques

• Research Margaret Atwood (this background information is important for including in essay analysis)
• ‘THT’ fits the genre types of; ‘Dystopian’ and ‘Speculative’ fiction. Discuss the importance of such literature and the effect they have for their readers.