Throughout the process of reading the novel, I will ask you to analyze the setting and the responses characters have to the setting. The explanation and questions below will help you analyze these two aspects of the novel.
SETTING – How is the world within the novel flawed, corrupted, fallen? How do its flaws reveal flaws in the modern world?
"Something is rotten in the state of..."
These dystopias are all set in some imagined version of the future, but each of these future is based on some aspects of the modern world. (In the modern world, we have video surveillance. In 1984, every moment of life is under video surveillance.) The authors ask the question "What if this or that aspect of modern life were to grow, to expand, to take over? How would human life change?" In dystopian novels the authors are especially interested in how certain aspects of modern life could worsen human existence or could so radically change it that being human would become unrecognizable.
While reading your novel consider the question, what aspects of modern life appear (perhaps in an exaggerated or expanded or intensified form) in the novel? How does the novel critique these aspects of modern life? How does the novel function as warning to the modern reader? How does the novel warn against expanding and intensifying some of the beliefs and behaviors made possible in the modern world?
Then, evaluate the critique of modern life. How revelant is the critique? In other words, how likely is the sort of future presented in the dystopia? Or, how likely is something *like* the future presented in the dystopia? And, how similar are aspects of *our* world to aspects of the novel?
Then, consider whether you agree or disagree with the implied critique? (For those reading 1984, Is video surveillance really that bad? Would it be better if there were more of it in our world? Or for those reading Oryx and Crake what do you think about genetic engineering in the novel and in our world? Think along these lines.)
CHARACTERS – How do characters respond to living in a flawed, corrupted world?
"Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer/The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,/Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,/And by opposing end them?"
How do the characters respond to the dystopia, the flaws in her or his world? Do they suffer the slings and arrows? Do they take arms against a sea of troubles? What do they do? How do they assert (or not assert) their sense that the world is broken, corrupt, flawed, an unweeded garden? Or do they not have that sense? Do they see nothing wrong with the world as it is?
Consider what each of the major characters thinks about the world within the novel and how each of the major characters responds to it. (The answers will vary from character to character. The characters in Hamlet see the world quite differently and they respond quite differently too. The same will be true in your novel.)
11 comments:
1] Handmaid's Tale represents a world ruled by men. The dystopia satirizes multiple things: woman's role in society, childbirth, sexuality, religion, etc. Women, as well as men, are split into levels (similar to a caste system). Women can be split up into many different types, but most importantly, handmaids or not. Handmaids are women who are specifically employed to procreate. They live with their employers and the wife, and are allowed only to do their job: make babies. The women have been programmed in a sense to believe that this is the right thing to do, but more importantly, it is their duty and sole contribution to society. The handmaids don't keep the children but solely produce them. Handmaids are not allowed to socialize, for the most part, although there are secretive, and dangerous, ways around it. The procreators are given very little information about the current affairs of the world. Because the novel is told from a Handmaid's point of view, the reader knows little for certain about the society. It is known that there are "Eyes", most likely spies for the [male controlled] government, who are watching for suspicious behavior. The reader is also aware that the dystopia has been created rather recently, as the main character has recollection of her past (being a mother, a wife, a real employee, etc). In this new world, any type of magazine has been destroyed, especially ones like "vogue". Pornography, which was very common, is outlawed. Lacy negligees are banned. Women are forbidden to show skin. There has been a general ban on sex appeal, and consequently, sexuality. Sex is considered the process for procreation, and women are merely tools.
The handmaids tale is made of a world that is ruled by men. The women in this world are very inferior and one of the only things that they are viable for is producing children that they are not aloud to keep.These woman have been taught that this is the way that they should live. The Handmaids are the only women that are not split up into different types. The Handmaids live a very non social life style and try to figure out ways to live around it because they know that this is not the way their life was before.
2] The main character in Handmaid's Tale is a handmaid. The novel is told from her perspective. She remembers a time before the transformation of the world, and has flashbacks of her husband, her mother, and her daughter, as well as the gradual infection of her world. She recounts losing her job and an escape attempt. She tells of "the Center" a place where women are "programmed" to accept their role as babymakers. She is living with a man and his wife, trying to preserve her mind and soul in a society that is incessently trying to smother it.
The dystopian novel Handmaid’s Tale is a demonstration of a world ruled by men. Women’s part in society, sexuality, and reproducing are all aspects that are mocked throughout the story. The handmaid’s, who are the women who know very little about the world in which they live and are excluded from most of the every-day information in their societies, are the specific women who’s only use and purpose is to breed children. Sadly, because of their lack of knowledge of right and wrong, the handmaid’s go along with the only thing they are allowed to do in their society, which is procreate. There is an indication that this world has been recently created when the Handmaid who is narrating the novel often has flashbacks to memories of being married and being a mother. Because of this instinctive feeling of a different past, some of the Handmaid’s try to work around their lifestyles now because of some subconscious but evolving thought that something has been altered and messed with, drastically.
The narrator of the story, which is a Handmaid herself, is the novel’s main character. Her role alone is vital, but her subliminal ambition and curiousness reveals the satirizing that is taking place in the novel. Her flashbacks of a different life before she and the others had become only procreators could easily lead her to madness or out break, however, her so far calm but questioning attitude may just lead to a break in this empty construction of a world.
1) The Republic of Gilead, where the Handmaid’s Tale takes place, is an unnerving dystopia where people are divided into ranks with specific positions they are forced to uphold. The reader gets the most vivid picture of the life of the Handmaid, as that is the position of the narrator. The world in which the Handmaid lives is clearly still new and is closely monitored by Eyes, who are presumably a secret governing force that uses fear to keep all the citizens within their respective positions. This new world seems to have been created to combat the declining number of successful childbirths, which has been dwindling. This new world is also strongly against science and research, and publicly hangs those known to be in that field, along with other rebels to their cause. It is not clear yet why this new world is so opposed to such scholars.
2) The Handmaid’s Tale offers an interesting view of a dystopia because the characters have been newly subjected to the world in which they all now live. The governing body uses force and fear to keep their citizens at bay, although it seems that most of the citizens long for their previous way of life. The Handmaid constantly longs for her old life, with her husband and daughter. In addition, the wife of the family to which she has been assigned despises her as much as she was warned. The Handmaid’s job is to provide a fertile womb so that men of a higher class with no children can proliferate. The Handmaid is forced to live in near solitude with little human contact except for the monthly fulfillment of her duty. It is possible that the lack of human interaction is meant to make the Handmaid more willing to fulfill her duty.
SETTING
The Handmaid’s Tale is an interesting dystopia in that I critiques two flawed worlds with opposite problems. In the pre-revolutionary world, relationships have become, for the most part, valueless. There are motorized Pornyconers and the unlimited access to sex and women have caused a loss of feeling in the male population. It is also evident that part of the complaint could stem from the loss of power felt by the men as women become stronger and more empowered. This part of the dystopia warns of the possible side effects of economizing sex and leaving nothing sacred. The novel, in addition to giving a glimpse of the world where sex has become bland, shows one way in which a group has decided to combat this problem.
The second dystopia, which is more flawed and more thoroughly exposed, shoes a world where human interaction is severely limited, as are human rights in general. The Republic of Gilead, which is the new state set up after the coup, is ruled by men and controlled by fear and violence. In a sick attempt to make women sacred again, the Controllers created a stratified, color-coded organizing system for women that control their every action. Handmaids in particular are branded and trained like cattle to be completely passive and accept their duties as wombs of Gilead. The reader finds out later in the novel that the position of Handmaid was created in an attempt to combat the plummeting Caucasian birth rates and propagate the lineage of the high-ranked Commanders.
Although this detail seem to warn about carelessness toward fertility, increasing the population is probably not going to ever be an issue for humans. What’s more important is the ethnocentric view towards the decline in Caucasians and the extreme reaction toward it. The male dominance of Gilead also feeds into this ethnocentric warning because the inhumane treatment of women can be translated into the mistreatment of races and ethnicities, which is a problem in the word today.
Being of the female sex, I strongly disagree with the nature of this dystopia and the dehumanization of women. Although it is clear that Atwood feels the same way, it’s frightening that some anti-feminists would probably agree with some of the ways in which this dystopia controls women.
In addition to satirizing the dehumanization of women and the illegalization of sex appeal, Atwood uses specific wording by the narrator to show how human contact and sex are neccesarry for life and that removing it is a form of torture. The narrartor's new obsesstion with sex and reproduction is exemplified by her repeated use of descriptive words associated with the body, sex, human interation, reproduction. "Her voice of raw egg white," "flexible and pink, like lips." There are also many references to flowers, which are the sexual organs of plants and thus very fitting to the theme of the novel.
ps. I am aware the we were not asked to discuss word choice and such, but I found this to be an interesting pattern/motif and thought I might mention it.
CHARACTERS
Most of the characters in The Handmaid's Tale reject this new world that had been created for them, apparently for their own protection. Sucide is everywhere and everyone must be kept under strict surveilence. However, for those that want to survive, conforming is the only way. However, as seen in the thoughts of the narrator, the past has not been forgotten and she has many flashbacks of her former life. There is also a "Mayday" resisitence force that has been created by those who refuse to conform. It is assumed that the narrator is rescued at the end by members of the resistance force, but it is ambiguous.
Athough there are different levels to which each character in the novel rejects the new society, almost all the characters defy the rules of society in some way. The narrator engages in secret sexual meeting with the chauffer, Nick, for both of them are crave human contact. Even the Wife, afaid of her husbands sterility, sets the Handmaid up with a illegal"sperm donor." Probably the most paradoxical rejection of the implemented values comes from the Commander, who played a major part in the creation of Gilead, but breaks many of the rules, including letting his Handmaid read, write, and come to a type of club with him. The Commander seems to understand "Nature" and human needs when it applies to himself and his needs, yet allow inhumane conditions to persist in Gilead. This relucance for most people to fight, either by conforming, cheating or committing suicide, is frightening and exposes the willingness of humans to be passive even when they know that what is happening around them is wrong.
Throughout the journey and the leading up to the conclusion of the Handmaid’s Tale the construction of two worlds of contrary conflicts takes place. Within the world prior to the new one, the rising up of women and their position within society occurs, while in the process the men are feeling less powerful and less superior to the women. All of this is the suggestion that by making procreating into such an empty and secular part of life and the louder the voice of the women and their ambitions get, the more intense the fight is towards this vacant lifestyle that’s been created. On the other end is the world ruled by men and operated through fear and hostility, and any contact or relationship between individuals is forbidden. The Handmaid’s happen to be the guinea pigs or experiments that the Controllers use to train them to obey the rules of their lifestyles and purpose in life, which is solely to give birth. As the novel goes on the reader is presented with the news that the Handmaid’s principle and point within society were originally to continue the family of the Commanders. The domination and authority the men have over the women in this novel is sickening and disturbing. Especially being a female myself, I feel that even the idea of this lifestyle and inhumane way the women are utilized should not even be brought up or acknowledged.
Because of the flashbacks that the Handmaid has of the previous lifestyle of women prior to the repulsion they live now allows and persuades the other characters within the novel to disagree with the way they are treated and refuse the tasks in which they are placed upon. Throughout the novel, there is a “Mayday” resistance force that is constructed by other rejecters of this treacherous lifestyle and who end up saving the main character and storyteller, the Handmaid herself.
Toward the conclusion of the Handmaids Tale the two worlds eventually come to conflicting views withing eachother.The prior world that was there gave you a sense of how the woman were becoming more powerful and their part to society was much more viable than just their ovaries.During the moment in time that woman were getting an upper hand the men started to feel much less superior.The men of the world start to feel as if that more the woman of the world are heard the more power that they will have.This leads to the lifestyle that is to become in this world. The world that has begun being ruled by men that want power and control. This gave the men the upper hand to make the decision for the woman of the world instead of them being able to choose.The woman of this new world were almost treated as dogs they were trained by their controllers to learn rules and obey their controllers of their lifestyles which is to bear a child.As the novel goes on it is is almost repulsive as to how disrepected women are treated within this society.I feel as if the woman of the society should be able to speak up for themselves because they have flashbacks of the life that they remeber from before.
The flashbacks allow the woman of their new world realize somewhat how their lives are so twisted. Since they get flashback and memories of how they remeber life used to be it enable the woman of the new world to have some sort of disagreement on how they are treated within the world.
Most of the woman within this novel have a high disagreement of the how they are treated. Although there are men throughout the society that dont agre in the way that woman are treated but they are also not very well liked throughout the society.
SETTING:
The dystopian world of the handmaids is satirized in many different ways; the novel deals with many modern day problems in the world. There is the issue of sex, sex appeal and availability of women, women’s role in society, women as victims, and feminism, as well as the ideas of oppressive governments and pacifist peoples, of pollution. Of course the novel is largely about women, but the latter few issues are important. The Republic of Gilead (that has replaced the US in a military coup) is an oppressive government. The women are forced into roles of wife, handmaid, daughter, Aunt, feminist; few women are content with this way of life, but wield no power to do anything about it. The men, on the other hand, have some power, in the sole fact that they are men. Those men, we find from Offred’s conversations with the Commander, have little or no passion to change the oppressive way of life, dismissing it as necessary to better other issues, like the rising number of rapes and murders of women (in pre-Gilead). The Commander used the extraneous yet poignant phrase “You can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs”, touching because of Offred’s feeling that her spirit is in fact being shattered, like an eggshell. The reference to pollution is important to the development of women’s role in society as child bearers, as pollution was a leading cause of sterility in women. It is true that these themes are not the most important within the novel (government, and folding to authority, pollution), but they are still extremely relevant to the modern world, and should not go without recognition.
CHARACTERS:
Offred is a static character in the novel. She is dependable in her willingness to expose her emotions. The Gilead the reader knows is created more from emotion than actual fact, as much of the narrative is told in this way. It was encouraging that in the end, Offred may have made it away from Gilead. I think by leaving the ending unsaid, the author couldn’t have made it more clear that the point of the novel isn’t about the character but about the world. Ultimately it doesn’t matter whether or not she made it out, Offred was merely a tool in ridiculing the modern society which has many of the problems that pre-Gilead had, but also many that Gilead has. So where is the happy in between? The tranquil middle? In writing the novel, Atwood has experimented; she created a world that supposedly fixed prior problems, and saw that new problems were created. It is interesting in that the characters seem to act the same as they would in the prior world. There is still scandal, lies, deceit, happiness, love, joy, despair, sex. I find it interesting to see that you can change a world completely, but the characters continue to find ways around the rules, making them pointless, and nullifying the purpose of the new world. Essentially, it seems as if the characters make the world they live in, as opposed to the world shaping the characters. Human nature will prove to be stronger than rules, in the Handmaid’s Tale.
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