What are the major themes of The Handmaid’s Tale? Choose one character and assess how they contribute to any of these themes. What does this character reveal about Atwood’s attitudes and values? How does the narrative voice of the novel affect the reader’s understanding of this character? I feel that the major themes of The Handmaid’s Tale are fertility and birth. Emphasis is placed on the grief experienced by individuals in society who incapable of reproducing. The character which best displays
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Source 1 On-This-Day – Obituary. Assassination in India: A Leader of Will and Force; Indira Gandhi‚ Born to Politics‚ Left Her Own Imprint on India. http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/bday/1119.html. Accessed 21/1/15. Origin: The article appeared in the New York Times‚ after Mrs Gandhi’s death. The article is an obituary written by the freelance journalist; Linda Charlton (deceased). Charlton was a former journalist with the New York Times for 10 years before going freelance.
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Question: Analyse how Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale imaginatively portrays individuals who challenge the established values of their time. Texts are not created in isolation. They are reflective of the values‚ attitudes and beliefs present in their compositional milieu. Margaret Atwood’s critically acclaimed novel The Handmaid’s Tale (1986) narrates the story of Offred‚ a woman who is forced to become a Handmaid and bear children for elite couples that have problems conceiving. The character
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Cora H. English III Honors 4 April 2013 WWOD: What Would Offred Do? How far would someone go to protect their rights? What is considered passive behavior during the fall of the free world? Would someone risk their life to defend freedom? Margaret Atwood raises these questions and many more in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale. She uses the character Offred to demonstrate passive behavior and acceptance of a totalitarian regime after the fall of the United States. In the new Republic of Gilead‚ Offred
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One of the main ideas in the novel The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood‚ is relationships and their importance as there is lack of intimacy and human contact which are both controlled and prohibited in Gilead. We can see that in this totalitarian society‚ all relationships are controlled strictly and monitored and there are boundaries which you must not cross. In this society‚ even sex is controlled. As a handmaid‚ you are obliged to have sex with your Commander at fixed times and this
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Maunika Tummalapally Mr. Fleenor AP Literature 10 December 2013 Handmaid’s Tale Research Paper A characteristic of most novels with a confidante is their reliability and constant companionship. Sometimes‚ however‚ they also function in ways that stray from this general idea of a confidante. In Margaret Atwood’s‚ The Handmaid’s Tale‚ the main character‚ Offred‚ describes such a character that existed in her past. Moira was Offred’s best friend and was a rebellious and outgoing character in her life
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Past and present‚ Offred’s peers play a huge role in how she narrates The Handmaid’s Tale. In the last few chapters of this reading‚ Offred encounters her old friend‚ Moira‚ who is now working as a prostitute at a secret club. In the times before biblical religion was the only form of governance‚ Moira was described as a fiery and rebellious woman‚ who was always there for Offred. While in the center‚ she teaches Offred how to care for the other women and keep her wits about her during this horrific
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In her novel The Handmaid’s Tale‚ Margret Atwood uses symbolism to illustrate the handmaid’s role in the society of Gilead. The handmaids are the women who had broken law of Gilead‚ and were forced into the role of a surrogate mother for a higher ranking couple. The handmaids had no rights or free will. They were under constant surveillance and this caused them to be very cautious. The author characterizes most handmaids as a tentative and distrustful‚ which is perhaps why Offred never puts in words
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Writing Task C Rationale I chose to write an extra chapter for the book ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood. This book is about the Republic of Gilead‚ a dictatorship‚ where most women are infertile due to nuclear waste. The few fertile women become ‘Handmaids’‚ birth-mothers for the upper-class. The main character is Offred‚ who became a Handmaid after attempting to escape Gilead with her daughter and husband‚ Luke. She was separated from them became a Handmaid in the house of the
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Extended Response to The Handmaid’s Tale Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale‚ written in the 1980s‚ is a highly complex post-modern dstopian text that explores the issues of feminism. The dystopian genre attacks the myth of a utopia‚ bringing all possibilities to an extreme while the term post modernism explores the consequences of monocracy on modern society and the dynamics of language. Atwood’s use of a female perspective on a hypothetical dystopian society enables her to pursue the controversy of
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