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The Handmaid`s Tale
作者Author  /  Margaret  Atwood  瑪格莉特.愛特伍德

Study Question

 
 
About Gilead
 
  1. 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;
 
 
   
About Offred
  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?
  • resistant thoughts of Marthas: Rita p. 28
     
  • survival: apparent obedience, remembering all the lessons given by the Aunts
  • self-preservation: Her name p. 108.  "keep the knowledge of [my] name like something hidden, some treasure I'll come back to dig up, . . ." (108);
  • subtle self-assertion:
    -- Self  1. senses: her smell 1, being alive p. 10,
    -- desire Body: exchanges looks with Nick & the guardians 24, 29; enjoys the power of a dog bone 30; for cigarette and traces of black market (signs of hope) 19, 24; for neil polish 39
    -- her idea of freedom 38;
  • Relate to the others: yearning 4-5; talk 13-14; Nick 24; 28-29-30; 45 Ofglen;  the previous girl,
    • Feeling her contact with Nick 104;
      Praying "Nolite te bastardes carborundorum": "Don't let the bastard grind you down."  p. 117
      Watching him (returning the gaze p. 113)
  • Language redefined:  --
    • no reading, no store names. p. 33; Habits 33; food (date rape 50 );
    • metaphoric/metonymic descriptions: 11, 19 (ironic smile), 25 (tree)
    • Re-definition of household p. 103-104; tense, tensed 127; Offred, Off-red.
  • Spaces of freedom: the gym as a palimpsest;  Night p. 49 & memory: Memory – p. 16; 32- Moira, Mother; about Luke 15, 44; daughter pp. 51-52  Remembering as a way of escape: pp. 108-109 (escape); p. 115 (Moira),

    Self-assertion after the ceremony p. 124
     

  • Criticism p. 25; and correcting Aunt's lessons in her head 25; 60 "All flesh is weak.  All flesh is grass.”
  • Revision of the Bible: P. 251-  "My God.  Who Art in the Kingdom of Heaven, which is within.
    I wish you would tell me Your Name, the real one I mean.  But You will do as well as anything.   . . .
    I  have enough daily bread, so I won't waste time on that.  It isn't the main problem.  The problem is getting down without choking on it.  Deliver us from evil.
    Then there's Kingdom, power, and glory.  It takes a lot to believe in those right now.  But I'll try it anyway.  In Hope, as they say on the gravestones.  . . . "
 
 
   
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