Therefore at the heart of Gilead there is not peace,
just the illusion meaning Gilead itself is a fantasy
Feminism
"two-legged womb"
Body isn't "solid"
but a "cloud"
around her womb
which is her most
important feature
Feminine attempts to
lighten the novel never hide
the misery boredom and
dangers of her situation
Offred's narrative illustrates the difference between a woman's private
narrative of memory and the grand impersonal narrative of history
"Doubled, I walk the street
Externally: Handmaids are like personification of
feminine submissiveness and companionship
Internally: Handmaids are parody of femininity
acting out masquerade hiding Gilead's oppression
By reminiscing about Sunday walks with her long lost
husband she is resisting to everything Gilead stands for
Offred refuse to be subjugated by Commander's violation,
instead becoming an explorer of her own dark inner space
Becomes a transforming metaphor (womb expands until
it assumes cosmic proportions) as well as a analogy
"Doubled" links to her many doubles during the novel; Ofglen (Revolutionary), predecessor
(room), Commander's wife (Commander's sexual attentions), Ofwarren (brainwashed Offred)
All these women then linked by the patriarchal regime which oppresses them
Irony
Context/Critiques
Postmodern Critiques
Genres merely social constructions, historically and
ideologically responsive to society in which we live
Linda Hutcheon argues post modern fiction highlights specifities of location which challenge conventions
which are presumed to be universal, fictions critical emphasis is now on resistance to generic conventions
Atwood: "Both Utopias and Dystopias have the habit of cutting off the hands and feet and even
heads of those who dont fit in the scheme" - ironic as shows utopia for some is anothers dystopia
Motifs
Red
Scarlett women are "ancient vessels"
and sisters are "dipped in blood"
Shows Gilead's fascination with
and vilification of female sexuality
"I tell the time by the moon. Lunar, not solar"
connect to her talking about blood - link
between moon cycle and menstrual cycle
Propaganda
"Gilead is within you" - Aunt Lydia
Link to "The kingdom of God is within you"
Gilead is a state of mind not just a territorial state
Likens blank space on the ceiling where the light
fitting has been removed to "wreath" or "frozen halo"
Behind blankness (of every day life) lies Offred's
insistent fears of torture, injury and death
Love of puns, arbitrary connections between
words that sound same but mean different
How word "chair" may refer to "the leader
of a meeting" or "a mode of execution"
And means flesh in French
Word play shows her sharpness of mind and her moral refusal
to flatten language as Gilead does, which leads to confusion
Symbols
Garden
Offred uses "we" and "our"
when talking about garden
In Chapter Offred rhapsodises over garden's full bloom finding in this a moment
where she transcends her physical constraints to enter otherness of natural world
Place of Romantic fantasy
"a Tennyson Garden", "the
return of the word swoon"
In this part of the text traditional images of femininity breathe
through the prose as garden breathes in the light and heat of summer
Observes process of metamorphis
the willow tree whispers promises of romantic trysts
feminised emblem of sexual desire
Not attached to the Virgin Mary's enclosed paradise even though Serena
Joy - who owns the garden - wears the virgins colour blue when gardening
Religion
The phallic power in the novel is underpinned by the Bible
Characters
Offred
She pictures herself as a heroine of romance
Her imaginative celebration of natural beauty and fertility
shows heroic resistance to Gilead's sterile patriarchal power
Internal Resistance is major part of her character
In Chapter 41 she apologises to the reader, evokes guilt
likens structure of her story to a dismembered body and then as a story
personified as a victim of torture or as one of the walking wounded after a battled
She is a self conscious narrator who is aware
of her own "limping and mutilated" narrative
Fragmented structure, isolated secenic units, gaps and blanks,
dislocated time sequence, her own hesitations and doubts
We learn at the end that we are reading transcript from jumble of cassette recordings,
the story is the reconstruction of Offred's reconstruction of her story after she escaped
Yet storytelling is the only
possible gesture against the
silences of death and history
Offred's storytelling process invents her won listeners in whom
she must believe as she needs to gesture to a world outside Gilead
Storytelling is a
way of surviving
Offred's narrative is discontinuos - Atwood "Details, episodes seperate
themsleves from the flow of time in which they are embedded
Atwood wrote novel exploring
meaning of surviving
Offreds first priority is surviving dangerous Gilead physically - "I am
alive, I live, I breath, I put my hand out, unfolded into the sunlight
She retains this rigourous survival instinct even
in most threatening circumstances
Second is surviving physiologically
She does this through storytelling
"What I need is perspective . The illusion of depth ... otherwise
you live in the moment. Which is not where I want to be."
Story told from her point of
view - "ignorant peripherally
involved women
Moira
Always known by first name as never becomes a Handmiad
To offred embodiment of female heroism, to Gilead a "loose women"
Has not escaped at all
Serena Joy
Got famous by being pro ultra-conservative domestic policies