...general fears that civilisation had in the 1980’s about declining birth rates and the dangers...
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...The theme of oppression is constant throughout both The Handmaid’s Tale and The Crucible. Both show how religion can be twisted into a form of control in society and they show the huge detrimental and devastating effects this control can have. Arthur Miller’s The Crucible shows the horror and appalling nature of the Salem witch trials of 1692, but beneath this surface it shows the parallels to aspects in Miller’s own life at this period, with the idea of McCarthyism going out of control in America. McCarthyism was a result of the second red scare in America in the late 1940´s/1950’s. It was a fear driven movement that swept across the United States where the threat of a Communist world revolution seemed like a very real threat. In response to this branches of the government set up organisations such as HUAC (The House Un-American Activities Committee) to help fight Communism from infiltrating the state. Unfortunately in the end it simply led to a ´witch hunt´ in which people were brought to trial and accused of being communist, Miller amongst them. HUAC and McCarthyism were simply examples of how when those in power feel threatened they will do anything to maintain their position which is what Miller set out to show in The Crucible. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood took a different approach, with a dystopian text which shows a world in which women are heavily oppressed and religion is used as a tool to brainwash and control the population. Atwood has made a point of showing how...
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...broken state of society it is written to parallel. With inspiration from Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood writes The Handmaid’s Tale using these tactics to warn the society in which she lives. She creates a negative utopia informing Americans of the possible implications of their actions and ideals. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale displays the horrifying results of a society that oppresses women, feuds over Religious differences, and does not equally represent citizens to indicate American society’s harmful trends and suggests the need for urgent change. Margaret Atwood displays women’s oppression in current society through the Republic of Gilead, a negative utopia which bases its governing law in the Old Testament of the Bible. The conservative society lays under “the Eyes of God” (Atwood 193) and gives little rights to women of...
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...The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood in 1985. It is set in the republic of Gilead which has a highly structured hierarchy and a strict set of rules. The story is narrated by a young handmaid named Offred. Atwood says, “that the novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination.” Which is exactly what the novel serves as when it makes us criticise and reflect on the cracks in our society such as the totalitarian regimes that still reign today, gender inequality and the brutality of people higher up in society. In Gilead there is an obvious totalitarian regime and through the narrative of Offred, Atwood gives us a clear idea of her opinion on that. Offred was once a happily married woman with a daughter but she has now been caught up in the new Gilead totalitarian regime which has taken all that away from her and turned her into a handmaid whose only purpose is to bear children for her commander. The society is so strict that Offred has basically been reduced to a childlike state, she can’t pick what she wears, eats or says, she isn’t allowed basic necessities like moisturiser and she can’t even go to the bathroom unsupervised. The Gilead regime has taken away all of her personal freedom. Societies like these make us reflect on those in our own world such as the situation in North Korea. North Korea is run by a totalitarian regime, it is so strict on the people and they are in a similar situation...
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...In Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction, The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood introduces a society where men place domination and governance over women. Women’s bodies, particularly Handmaids’ bodies, are used as political instruments that are under the government’s complete control. The epigram Genesis 30: 1-3 provides biblical justification for the Handmaid system and serves as a prophecy for how women’s worth in Gilead is dependent on their ability to bear children. Corresponding to the novel, the character Offred from the Handmaid’s Tale resembles Bilhah from Genesis, while Offred’s higher authority, Serena Joy, correlates with Rachel from Genesis. In Genesis 30:1-3, Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid plays a similar role to Offred, both of them are both...
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...Women are motivated by money and success in Top Girls. This is evident when (2)However, Success for women in The Handmaid Tales is not defined by money but by surviving while keeping their values intact. The Handmaidens “learned to whisper without sound” and “learned to lip read” so that they could “exchange names”. By using the verb “learned” Atwood shows these women capable to acquire knowledge to adapt to situations while doing this together the women exchange pieces of their identity with one another establishing a stronger relationship. (3)In the past women hadn’t had the same freedom they once did. For example the character, Lady Nijo in Act One stated how she “belonged” the Emperor a position she was “brought” up from a “baby”. The word belonged suggests how she is a possession, an object, a thing without feelings to her a woman capable of making her own decisions. It implies it is the purpose of women to serve men; it’s what they’re bred for. The recurring b’s her conveys that she felt angry but there was very little she could do about it.(4) By contrast the women in the future dystopian novel once had freedom before and lost when Gilead came into power. Offred compares the value of the board game Scrabble when it was “once the game of old women”, “Now of course”; the value is “Now it’s different” it “is freedom”. Atwood uses the repetitive “Now” to emphasize how the sight Scrabble is intoxicating Offred and how she longs for freedom. It also demonstrates how the short...
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...I recently finished reading a book, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, which was published in 1985. This book is fictional, and it is set in a futuristic time in the United States where women become property of men once again, and have essentially lost all aspects of individual rights. Women are forced to change their names to government regulated, predetermined names, cannot have a career, cannot have their own family, or even speak their opinions. These women are forced to wear a certain color to distinguish between one of the few ‘jobs’ that they are allowed to have. One of these different jobs is to be a handmaid, which is essentially to be the mistress of a commander when his wife cannot conceive a child. These handmaids are expected...
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...realize that they had been duped. The founders of Gilead took conservative ideas and implemented them to the extreme. Women’s rights are taken away. Reading is forbidden. Handmaids are introduced to bear children. The government takes over and a dystopia is born. They control almost every aspect of the people’s lives, down to the food that they consume. Though the totalitarian government of Gilead tries to break spirit of the women to control them and keep the people ignorant, it does not succeed in preventing the people from rebelling in their own small ways. The women are the key to the survival of Gilead. In order to ensure their survival, the founders of Gilead drew up a philosophy that they drilled into the women’s heads. They first broke down the women’s spirit by essentially re-educating them about what would now be accepted in society and would not be tolerated. "Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary" (Atwood 33). The Aunts drill this propaganda into the Handmaids’ heads to ensure that they will remember. This type of brain washing helped break down the Handmaids’ morals. Continuously being told that what they were being tasked was right made it easy for the Offred, the main character who is a Handmaid, to be impregnated by the Commander. She disregarded the Commander’s wife, not of spite but out of indifference. The propaganda spread by the government eventually...
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...Although we trust that our governmental constitution ensures that everyone is equal and we all have the same rights, some people believe that is not true in any way. We often are quick to accept this as a fact, but authors like Margaret Atwood show us that this is often an illusion. Through her dystopian novel she effectively explores themes of control and power and hope in a society that is no longer egalitarian. In order to illustrate the true value of equal rights and to show how women, no matter how often they’ve been subjugated, are powerful enough to reassure themselves time and again. Women play a great role in this dystopian city, but as a powerful symbol of less control. The new form of government presented in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale, must leave women without freedom or choice, because in this way they can assure that their city will consist of their commands over woman and therefore, be successfully transformed into a society focused on traditional ideas. The diminutive control women experience in the Republic of Gilead does not make women feel that it distorts their individuality, even...
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...they sent her to a women center so that she will be trained to become a handmaid . A handmaid job is to help maintain the white population of the republic of Gilead and to serve any of the high classes people . Her only duty is to carry a child of high ranks people and become the birth mother of their Children s . She couldn't get pregnant from her first two tasks. She is now in her third task. Her task is to carry the commander child. She will have to get pregnant this time Or she will be declared as Unwomen ,and if she become un unwomen she will be sent to one of the colonies to clean wastes and toxic garbages until she dies. Most parts of the story were flashbacks about the narrator past memories. The memories of her husband , her daughter , her friend Moria , and her mother. The only thing that she was always thinking about desperately is to find a way to escape from the commander house, and reunited with her husband and her daughter. Biography Margaret Atwood was born in 1939 in Ottawa, and grew up in northern Ontario and Quebec, and in Toronto. She received her undergraduate degree from Victoria College at the University of Toronto and her master’s degree from Radcliffe College. Margaret Atwood is the author of more than forty volumes of poetry, children literature, fiction, and non-fiction, but is best known for her novels, which include The Edible Woman (1969), The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), The Robber Bride (1994),...
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...How far do you agree with the view ‘that women do not possess innate maternal desires’? Compare and contrast the presentation of motherhood in Top Girls with Atwood’s presentation of motherhood in The Handmaid’s Tale It could be argued that women possess innate maternal desires, however some would argue that women are socialised by their environment to be maternal. Churchill’s feminist play ‘Top Girls’ explores the idea of natural maternal instincts through characters such as Joyce and historical figures Lady Nijo and Patient Griselda. ‘Top Girls’ is set during Thatcher’s government and explores the role of motherhood, with an all female cast Churchill uses theatre of alienation and characterisation to constantly keep the audience aware that the play is not realistic, this technique is done purposely so the audience focus less on the plot and more on the political and social issues. Similar to the play, feminist author Atwood explores ideas of motherhood and how women treat each other within society through her cautionary tale; The Handmaid’s Tale, the fictive autobiographic novel presents characters such as Offred, Ofwarren and Serena Joy who all share problems with maternal identity. Most of the women presented in the texts have a desire to be a mother yet the societies they live within prevent them from successfully realising this desire. Top Girls is set in 1979 at the end of the decade and the beginning of Thatcher’s tenure. Marlene is representative of all of Thatcher’s...
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...the “rusted” and “crusted” atmosphere of decay is representative of Mariana’s psychological deterioration and the stagnant “blacken’d waters” and “moated grange” act as an obstruction to her integration with the outside patriarchal world. This reflects the wider Victorian attitude regarding the home as “the centre of virtue and the proper life for women” and brings to light the impact that passivity in the greater context of society has on the role she plays in her private relationship. This idea of external influences is echoed much less figuratively in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ where “decreased birth rates” stimulated a change in the functioning of the governmental system and the politically organised passivity of women, creating a dystopian vision of patriarchy. A change in societal structure resulting in female passivity is also present in ‘Othello’. Desdemona’s transition from an assertive female who “challenge[s] that [she] may profess...
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...Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 i RTNA01 1 13/6/05, 5:28 PM READING THE NOVEL General Editor: Daniel R. Schwarz The aim of this series is to provide practical introductions to reading the novel in both the British and Irish, and the American traditions. Published Reading the Modern British and Irish Novel 1890–1930 Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Daniel R. Schwarz Brian W. Shaffer Forthcoming Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel Paula R. Backscheider Reading the Nineteenth-Century Novel Harry E. Shaw and Alison Case Reading the American Novel 1780–1865 Shirley Samuels Reading the American Novel 1865–1914 G. R. Thompson Reading the Twentieth-Century American Novel James Phelan ii RTNA01 2 13/6/05, 5:28 PM Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Brian W. Shaffer iii RTNA01 3 13/6/05, 5:28 PM © 2006 by Brian W. Shaffer BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Brian W. Shaffer to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and...
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...A Tale of Two Cities Charles Dickens This eBook is designed and published by Planet PDF. For more free eBooks visit our Web site at http://www.planetpdf.com A Tale of Two Cities Book the First—Recalled to Life 2 of 670 eBook brought to you by A Tale of Two Cities Create, view, and edit PDF. Download the free trial version. I The Period It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way—in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only. There were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a plain face, on the throne of England; there were a king with a large jaw and a queen with a fair face, on the throne of France. In both countries it was clearer than crystal to the lords of the State preserves of loaves and fishes, that things in general were settled for ever. It was the year of Our Lord one thousand seven hundred and seventy-five. Spiritual revelations were conceded to England at that favoured period, as at this. 3 of 670 A Tale of Two Cities ...
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...i FOREWORD ______________________________________________________________________________iii Of the Beginning of Days ____________________________________________________________________ 12 Of Aulë and Yavanna _______________________________________________________________________ 17 Of the Coming of the Elves and the Captivity of Melkor____________________________________________ 19 Of Thingol and Melian ______________________________________________________________________ 24 Of Eldamar and the Princes of the Eldalië _______________________________________________________ 25 Of Fëanor and the Unchaining of Melkor________________________________________________________ 28 Of the Silmarils and the Unrest of the Noldor ____________________________________________________ 30 Of the Darkening of Valinor__________________________________________________________________ 33 Of the Flight of the Noldor ___________________________________________________________________ 35 Of the Sindar______________________________________________________________________________ 42 Of the Sun and Moon and the Hiding of Valinor __________________________________________________ 45 Of Men __________________________________________________________________________________ 49 Of the Return of the Noldor __________________________________________________________________ 50 Of Beleriand and Its Realms__________________________________________________________________ 56 Of the Noldor in Beleriand...
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