‘THE HANDMAID’S TALE’: CONTEXT / SYMBOLS / MOTIFS
THE NOVEL AS A POLITICAL SATIRE
- Draws from unpleasant, brutal and horrific events of the recent past.
- Explores social trends.
- Human behaviour is explored and challenged: “You can’t help how you feel,
Moira said once, but you can help how you behave” p.202
- ‘HMT’ explores the rapid changed form an apparently civilised society into
extraordinary brutality and control.
HISTORICAL INFLUENCES AND SOURCES
Time/place of writing…
- Written in the 1980s while Atwood was living in West Berlin, a city at the very
centre of the Cold War encircled by the Berlin Wall.
- Published 1985.
The Puritan History of America…
- 17th century: witch-hunt across Europe and America.
- In America, the main site of the executions was Massachusetts, New England,
where the Pilgrim Fathers first settled.
- Protestant puritanism was strong.
- Gilead is an ultra-conservative theocracy, as its ideology is based on a very
limited interpretation of the Bible – see Rachel and Leah epigraph.
- “They can hit us, there’s Scriptural precedent” p.26
- “‘Blessed be the fruit’ she says, the accepted greeting among us” p.29
Religious fundamentalism in 1980s America…
- Right-wing backlash against the more liberal, progressive developments of the
60s-70s.
- Christian fundamentalists called for the banning of certain books, tighter
abortion laws (what Atwood suggests is not ‘pro-life’ but ‘forced childbirth’),
questioned a woman’s right to choose etc.
- They saw the ‘permissive society’ as damaging through sexual freedom, the
women’s liberation movement, homosexual rights etc.
- “They’d put men and women back the way they were” p.68
- “The Ceremony goes as usual” p.104
- “Each month I watch for blood, fearfully, for when it comes, it means failure”
p.83
Hitler and the Nazis…
- Stress on family values in Nazi Germany, as well as racial purity.
- Book burning and censorship – Gilead’s restriction on reading and writing.
- Gestapo: people were encouraged to betray even those close to them if
unfaithful to the regime. “Perhaps it is a test…Perhaps he is an Eye.” P.28
- Jews forced to wear a distinguishing yellow star - Gilead labels people with
colours, and criminals on the Wall with symbols.
THE NOVEL AS A POLITICAL SATIRE
- Draws from unpleasant, brutal and horrific events of the recent past.
- Explores social trends.
- Human behaviour is explored and challenged: “You can’t help how you feel,
Moira said once, but you can help how you behave” p.202
- ‘HMT’ explores the rapid changed form an apparently civilised society into
extraordinary brutality and control.
HISTORICAL INFLUENCES AND SOURCES
Time/place of writing…
- Written in the 1980s while Atwood was living in West Berlin, a city at the very
centre of the Cold War encircled by the Berlin Wall.
- Published 1985.
The Puritan History of America…
- 17th century: witch-hunt across Europe and America.
- In America, the main site of the executions was Massachusetts, New England,
where the Pilgrim Fathers first settled.
- Protestant puritanism was strong.
- Gilead is an ultra-conservative theocracy, as its ideology is based on a very
limited interpretation of the Bible – see Rachel and Leah epigraph.
- “They can hit us, there’s Scriptural precedent” p.26
- “‘Blessed be the fruit’ she says, the accepted greeting among us” p.29
Religious fundamentalism in 1980s America…
- Right-wing backlash against the more liberal, progressive developments of the
60s-70s.
- Christian fundamentalists called for the banning of certain books, tighter
abortion laws (what Atwood suggests is not ‘pro-life’ but ‘forced childbirth’),
questioned a woman’s right to choose etc.
- They saw the ‘permissive society’ as damaging through sexual freedom, the
women’s liberation movement, homosexual rights etc.
- “They’d put men and women back the way they were” p.68
- “The Ceremony goes as usual” p.104
- “Each month I watch for blood, fearfully, for when it comes, it means failure”
p.83
Hitler and the Nazis…
- Stress on family values in Nazi Germany, as well as racial purity.
- Book burning and censorship – Gilead’s restriction on reading and writing.
- Gestapo: people were encouraged to betray even those close to them if
unfaithful to the regime. “Perhaps it is a test…Perhaps he is an Eye.” P.28
- Jews forced to wear a distinguishing yellow star - Gilead labels people with
colours, and criminals on the Wall with symbols.
