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| The Handmaid`s Tale |
| 作者Author / Margaret Atwood 瑪格莉特．愛特伍德 |
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Study Question
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| About Gilead |
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- What does Atwood want to satirize through the imaginary nation, Gilead?
- Gilead's hierarchy, color & names:
Commander, Eye (24, 29; 38),
Angel, Guardian of the Faith (27-28),
Guards, 30
Wife, 16, 18-19; 20-21-22, Serena Joy, and the previous wife
Aunt, pp. 4, 25; 33
Handmaids: their names, Janine p. 35, 36; Martha, p. 13-; 28; Econowives p. 32, widow, p. 32, Unwoman
Gilead's color: black, blue, etc. pp. 12, 29
- Gilead's location: clues --
Offred escape north of Maine;
the Historical notes: Maine p. 381
News broadcast: p. 107
The underground organization has sent resources to Canada.
Five Quakers were arrested in a place which used to be Detroit.
Montreal Satellite station is blocked. 105
-- Atwood's own interpretation: Boston.
"The Wall is the wall around Harvard yard. All those little shops and stores mentioned are probably there at this very minute. I lived in Boston for four years. It's also the land of my ancestors. . . . They were Puritans of the 1630 - 1635 immigration. . . ."“ (87).
- Gilead's geography:Commander's Compound (Kitchen, lawn with flowers, handmaid's room); gate 18; p. 23;
Red Center, --punishments p. 118
the streets and the stores (Lilies, Milk and Honey, All Flesh) pp. 31
the Wall, pp. 42-
Jezebel * pp. 105, 107
- Gilead's Control:
- Spatial control: Offred's room: p. 9-10 Archaic, Reduced to the basic facilities
- Thought Control:
- Aunt pp. 25; 33;
- No talking, no thinking p. 10; total control of news broadcast 105-107
- salutes and sayings: e.g. p. 26
"Blessed be the fruit"; "May the God open"--p. 25; "Praise be." p. 26; farewell = "Under His Eye" p. 59. "Waste not, want not." p. 9; "Think of yourself as seeds." p. 25; "The Republic of Gilead knows no bounds. Gilead is within you." p. 31; two kinds of freedom p. 33; "Modesty is invisibility" p. 38; "All Flesh is weak" p. 60. "Men are sex machines" 186
- Control of women: fewer widows p. 32
- control of sexuality: Not about romance, passion or desire; only a matter of duty. p. 122
The man can still enjoy it with two women.
Women turned into ailing mothers” p. 123.
Sexual intercourse ritualized; endorsed by the Bible.
Offred: like a furniture, arms being held by Serena p. 121
- Who gets killed at the wall? Why?
- Why Gilead? background of 1980: authoritarian moves in the 70's and 80's.
1) Feminist controversies over porn, abortion;
2) conversatism: Reagan era in the United States and Margaret Thatcher's era in Britain. The 1980s brought a backlash against the feminist movement. The tide had turned in favor of conservative values,
3) religious fundamentalism: --conservative movement in American Protestantism; emphasizing as fundamental to Christianity the literal interpretation and absolute inerrancy of the Scriptures, the imminent and physical Second Coming of Jesus Christ, the Virgin Birth, Resurrection, and Atonement. In opposition to modernist tendencies in American religious and secular life. (source)
- Gilead's Spaces: Red center; Offred's bedroom, bathroom chap 12. the sitting room; Birth Center 149 - the commander's study 176;
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| About Offred |
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How does the narrator, Offred, re-construct her identity after she is reduced to just the role of being a handmaid? What does she remember?
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