contexty stuff Flashcards
language and totalitarianism
- totalitarian regimes have always tired to control the language of their citizens
- -> Nazi greeting ‘Heil Hitler’
- Both Hitler and Mussolini invented titles to suggest at a power previously unseen
- In Orwell’s 1984 ‘Newspeak’ imagines a government limiting language so far that it becomes impossible to even think subversively
Naming in Gilead
- as names only exists for social purposes (if there was only one person, they wouldn’t need a name) controlling names means controlling social roles
- the naming of Handmaids extends our patronymic system (where kids and wives take fathers name)
- -> derive their identity from whichever commander temporarily owns them
re - employing words
Neologisms e.g. salvaging and prayvaganza
–> hard to distinguish between biblical language and advertising jargon
‘It’s genius was synthesis’ - redefinition of meaningful terms erodes Offred’s ability to recall ideas from the past that could help her resist
manipulation of the bible
- Jesus scolds Martha for prioritizing household chores, yet this is exactly what Gilead want their martha’s to do
- Offred only has access to degraded theology, so has a difficult relationship with faith
- thought of amazing grace could be a spiritual moment, but she forgets the words and moves on to a pop song
the risk of speaking
- saying anything in public is risky (tourists)
- Offred is unwilling to resist the state publicly or physically - rebellion restricted to her mind
- controls what she sees and hears, but not how she interprets them. She seeks subversive and alternative meanings (waste not want not)
Small subversion
- Moira’s fierce swearing
- finds beauty in the face of a hanged man
- mental escapes (from blood of the hanged to flowers)
Link to Hamlet
-both pun compulsively in their private thoughts to negotiate an oppressive state
- Offred slips between meanings and symbols to avoid the states imposed meanings, but this alienates her from the world around her
- -> must make conscious efforts to reconnect with reality
Scrabble
-if merely speaking is dangerous, playing with language becomes thrillingly taboo
- ultimately brings out Offred’s subjectivity so she is mentally present in the ceremony
- -> she sees him as a person rather than a rank and role
Limits of language
- in the end her escape must be physical rather than linguistic
- can only truly escape when the narrative ends, and Atwood lets her slip in to silence, historical uncertainty and freedom
American’s puritan past (17th century)
- Mary Webster is a symbol of hope, she was wrongly accused and her neighbors stood and watched as she survived a hanging
- particiutions and salvaging
The Dystopian genre
- imagined societies that reflect some of the social and political realities of the times in which they were written
- historical notes highlights links to real society
- link to Orwell’s narrative approach, but with a new inflection (female P.O.V!)
Religious fundamentalism in 1980s america
- Ronald Reagan as president
- rigth wing backlash against growing liberalism of the 60s and 70s
-Christian religious fundamentalists called for the banning of certain books and tightening on abortion laws
- Gilead crushes the liberal 60s and 70s
- Moira coming out
- pg 82 - the commander reading the bible
Iran and Islamic fundamentalism
-1979 global crisis, American hostages held at US embassy in Tehran
- pg 169: blame on islamic fundamentalism
- salvaging
rise of feminism in 60s and 70s
- the pill (pg 299)
- divorce more common
- women demand right to work and equal pay
- Offred’s mum (pg 113)
1980s - second wave feminism
starting to question the thinking of early feminism
–> pg 120 “you wanted a women’s culture”
Michel Foucault
marxist philosopher who wrote about gender
highlights the relationship between language, power and sexuality
-argues that societies built on surveillance and linguistic control strip women of their sense of self
postmodern novel
- structure: historical notes. audio recorder.
- ties in to dystopia
-experimental. Plays with the conventions of genre. Night 8 –> imagining what happened to Luke
concerns about the impact of human activity on the environment
- 1971 - Greenpeace founded
- impact of pesticides and fertilisers on human fertility
- pg 299
- pg 104-105
Fears of nuclear war and nuclear disaster
explosion of nuclear power plant in 1986 - Chernobyl
-description of colonies
1990-2009 response to novel
- USA and Canada: challenges to inclusion in curricula
- too explicit, profanity/blasphemy, suicide, illicit sex
More recent responses to the novel
- seen as anti-islamic or anti-christian
- never been out of print
- a film, opera, play, ballet and series
modern protests
- 2017: Tennessee ban on late-term abortion
- 2018: Irish referendum legalizes abortion
- 2018: Golden globes
- 2019: US states
context of production
- 1984 west berlin
- Born in 1939. Novel explores how stability can be overturned overnight
- chillingly plausible, does not include anything that is not in the contemporary readers world
Atwood on utopia
“real reason that people expect so much… it set out to be a utopia”
