Starter sentence: Both Atwood and Williams explore ... following on
from the awful authoritarianism post 1945 war, many seemed to feel...
(say how people typically felt) as represented with the Gilead regime...
(add relevant context) Contrastingly, in Williams 1950 play set in New
Orleans, he explores...( and then add context and the overall difference in
background with characters.)
COMPARISON 1 – THE GYMNASIUM and DYNAMICS BETWEEN
OFFRED AND SERENA JOY AND BLANCHE’S FIRST PERCEPTION OF
SURROUNDINGS:
Handmaid’s - In Atwood’s novel we are emersed into a world of
realism, where all the handmaid’s are sleeping in a Gymnasium
and when Offred enters her room it is simplistic and monotonous
with “white curtains”, that cover “a blank space” of the “white
ceiling” - Atwood may be using the semantics of emptiness to
highlight how these women are restricted in their own private
spaces and that the walls around them are blank because they
are meant to be starved from the colour and truth of the world.
Knowledge is truth and letting these women know too much is a
dangerous weapon that could stir rebellion. Therefore, Atwood
may be using the setting as a vehicle to highlight how these
women are left inside their own thoughts and are starved from
any human connection leaving them feel like they are incapable
of feeling love or being desired. Furthermore, it reinforces the
idea and manipulates the reader into thinking that because
whiteness is associated and symbolised with pureness it shows
that these women here possibly been put in a room that reflects
them, machines who just bear children – a cause of a dictatorial
regime. Atwood may be doing this because it can be suggested
that she herself saw the manipulation of those in power be used
very articulately. During the 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s election was
covered with an innocent facade of a Christian ideal were religion
and politics would work, and people would live harmoniously but
his election campaign was forceful and using religion as a weapon
to justify your political agenda is an evasive tactic that is clever
enough to persuade the masses. The men in the Gilead regime
replicate this and the women are left feeling hopeless.
Similarly, this notion is also explored by Williams in Scene One
where he utilises the setting to evoke a feeling of social isolation
that eventually leaves Blanche feeling unwanted and a burden to
those following the social norms of society. Imagery of realism is
continuously used throughout his description of the place, also
, using the semantics of emptiness calling the houses “mostly
white frames” that look like “ornamented gables” and how there
is an “atmosphere of decay” with the “brown river”, representing
an image of disgust and no one caring about the place. The house
is very tightly packed and with the relationship of Stanley and
Stella it leaves Blanche feeling stranded and neglected. She is
left inside with her own mentality with no one to share the
burden of knowing that she indirectly killed her husband because
she judged him to harshly about his homosexuality. Although a
contemporary audience would push back on the imagery of
realism and argue that because of its repetitive use of plastic
theatre it emphasises that Blanche should be less sympathised
for. She has grown up as a Southern Belle, the archetype of
goodness and traditional rules, manners and feminity therefore
she must realise that she should be more accepting of people for
who they are as they do not have the same level of privilege as
she has had. They would say this because of her constant
prejudice against Stanley’s Polish ethnicity and how she
automatically sees him as incompetent, inferior and a brute. This
can be supported by the repetitive use of the Varsouviana sounds
for every time that is heard she automatically feels a sense of
guilt about her husband and how she should have been more
accommodating, even if she doesn’t seem to understand the full
gravitas of what she has done as she turns to prostitution
straight after Alan’s death. But others would argue that its
frequency increasing in the play symbolises how she is all alone
in a society that expects women to always make the right moral
judgement and have the perfect marriage that produces a
traditional nuclear family, as expected during the 1950s before
the Second Wave Feminism began.
- Motif of flowers in handmaids to represent fertility and
growth and the expression of restriction of character.
Picture of flowers with no frame, which would have made it
more shiny and vivid. Replicates the conformity women
must abide by without consent. The sexual act makes them
forced into being quiet beings that have no individuality.
Forced to meet the demands of men but not exercise their
own desires which leads to feelings of remorse and self-
resentment which causes Offred’s isolation and loneliness
she feels. Underpinned by Serena Joy and how she too is a
victim, not of cruelty of the regime which she helped forge
but restricted in her own autonomy. Imagery of gardens and
from the awful authoritarianism post 1945 war, many seemed to feel...
(say how people typically felt) as represented with the Gilead regime...
(add relevant context) Contrastingly, in Williams 1950 play set in New
Orleans, he explores...( and then add context and the overall difference in
background with characters.)
COMPARISON 1 – THE GYMNASIUM and DYNAMICS BETWEEN
OFFRED AND SERENA JOY AND BLANCHE’S FIRST PERCEPTION OF
SURROUNDINGS:
Handmaid’s - In Atwood’s novel we are emersed into a world of
realism, where all the handmaid’s are sleeping in a Gymnasium
and when Offred enters her room it is simplistic and monotonous
with “white curtains”, that cover “a blank space” of the “white
ceiling” - Atwood may be using the semantics of emptiness to
highlight how these women are restricted in their own private
spaces and that the walls around them are blank because they
are meant to be starved from the colour and truth of the world.
Knowledge is truth and letting these women know too much is a
dangerous weapon that could stir rebellion. Therefore, Atwood
may be using the setting as a vehicle to highlight how these
women are left inside their own thoughts and are starved from
any human connection leaving them feel like they are incapable
of feeling love or being desired. Furthermore, it reinforces the
idea and manipulates the reader into thinking that because
whiteness is associated and symbolised with pureness it shows
that these women here possibly been put in a room that reflects
them, machines who just bear children – a cause of a dictatorial
regime. Atwood may be doing this because it can be suggested
that she herself saw the manipulation of those in power be used
very articulately. During the 1980s, Ronald Reagan’s election was
covered with an innocent facade of a Christian ideal were religion
and politics would work, and people would live harmoniously but
his election campaign was forceful and using religion as a weapon
to justify your political agenda is an evasive tactic that is clever
enough to persuade the masses. The men in the Gilead regime
replicate this and the women are left feeling hopeless.
Similarly, this notion is also explored by Williams in Scene One
where he utilises the setting to evoke a feeling of social isolation
that eventually leaves Blanche feeling unwanted and a burden to
those following the social norms of society. Imagery of realism is
continuously used throughout his description of the place, also
, using the semantics of emptiness calling the houses “mostly
white frames” that look like “ornamented gables” and how there
is an “atmosphere of decay” with the “brown river”, representing
an image of disgust and no one caring about the place. The house
is very tightly packed and with the relationship of Stanley and
Stella it leaves Blanche feeling stranded and neglected. She is
left inside with her own mentality with no one to share the
burden of knowing that she indirectly killed her husband because
she judged him to harshly about his homosexuality. Although a
contemporary audience would push back on the imagery of
realism and argue that because of its repetitive use of plastic
theatre it emphasises that Blanche should be less sympathised
for. She has grown up as a Southern Belle, the archetype of
goodness and traditional rules, manners and feminity therefore
she must realise that she should be more accepting of people for
who they are as they do not have the same level of privilege as
she has had. They would say this because of her constant
prejudice against Stanley’s Polish ethnicity and how she
automatically sees him as incompetent, inferior and a brute. This
can be supported by the repetitive use of the Varsouviana sounds
for every time that is heard she automatically feels a sense of
guilt about her husband and how she should have been more
accommodating, even if she doesn’t seem to understand the full
gravitas of what she has done as she turns to prostitution
straight after Alan’s death. But others would argue that its
frequency increasing in the play symbolises how she is all alone
in a society that expects women to always make the right moral
judgement and have the perfect marriage that produces a
traditional nuclear family, as expected during the 1950s before
the Second Wave Feminism began.
- Motif of flowers in handmaids to represent fertility and
growth and the expression of restriction of character.
Picture of flowers with no frame, which would have made it
more shiny and vivid. Replicates the conformity women
must abide by without consent. The sexual act makes them
forced into being quiet beings that have no individuality.
Forced to meet the demands of men but not exercise their
own desires which leads to feelings of remorse and self-
resentment which causes Offred’s isolation and loneliness
she feels. Underpinned by Serena Joy and how she too is a
victim, not of cruelty of the regime which she helped forge
but restricted in her own autonomy. Imagery of gardens and
