Context

Question 1

Puritanism

Answer 1

Mary Webster hanged as a witch

Cotton Mather - women as ‘handmaids of the Lord’ and renamed women things such as: Silence, Fear and Patience

Question 2

Christian New Right

Answer 2

encouraged a return to ‘traditional values’
Phyllis Schafly
Tried to repeal Roe vs. Wade
Recent Alabama abortion ban

Question 3

Iran

Answer 3

Atwood visited in 1979 - saw change in expectations of women.

Question 4

Literary influences

Answer 4

Modest Proposal - satirical tract criticising rational argument in solving human problems
Atwood’s early book was called ‘Survival’ - showing her interest in victimhood and survival

Question 5

Literary context

Answer 5

Metafiction

Postmodernism

Question 6

Nazism (and White Rose group)

Answer 6

Hitler promised his followers a new Germany with a stress on family values. However, this rapidly turned into oppression of any who did not share his vision and the slaughter of those who were not of the ‘pure’ Aryan race he demanded

Books that were considered to have any seditious or undesirable content were burned by the Nazis. Gilead too has severe restrictions on literature and indeed on literacy

Question 7

Slavery

Answer 7

The plight of the slaves led sympathisers in the north of the USA to help those fleeing their cruel masters and brutal existence, and an escape route to Canada, known as the Underground Railroad, was created. Attempts to escape, and the help given fleeing slaves by Quakers, were vividly depicted in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, a novel published in 1852 by Harriet Beecher Stowe.