Gender Roles Flashcards
(6 cards)
Key ideas
The ossification of regressive gender roles through Christian fundamentalism
The monolithic patriarchy who skill fully prevent the solidarity and connection between the females
Biological essentialism and utilitarian
Imposter syndrome and mimetic desires
Religious linguistics acting as a shadow screen to disguise what is essentially forced rape and mass enslavement of fertile woman
Male control of dystopic body - hijacked and raped
Nick and offred
Nick
An ambiguous figure; although a male, he lacks the status of more powerful men like the com, indicating that other stratifications besides that of gender sustain gilead’s hierarchy
Forbidden to desire the women around whom he works, he too is victimised by the restrictive sexual gospel of the kingdom. Nonetheless, as a measure of their shared rebel impulses, he and offred enter into a love affair that is simultaneously comforting, exhilarating and dangerous.
Some cfeminist critics regard offred’s infatuation with nick as regressive, throwing her back into heterosexual thrall at the very time she should be moving toward greater autonomy ; other see it as a crucial step in her evolving recovering of self as well as a reaffirmation of the potential for healing male and female bonds beyond the power abuses of patriarchy.
Sensuality and erotica
Nick’s room is unadorned and military-seeming. He smokes a cigarette and offred wants to get naked to enjoy the smoke. He turns out the light and takes off offred’s dress and she is overwhelmed with love and passion. ‘I made that up’. He looks at her seriously and she feels judged, ‘stupid and ugly’— offred starts crying and he comforts her, brings her to bed and kisses her, telling her ‘no romance’ which means they shouldn’t sacrifice themselves for one another. Offred says it wasn’t like that either. ‘Reconstruction’ and ‘the way love feels is always approximate’ - felt she had betrayed Luke by responding so enthusiastically.
V1 : ‘no preliminaries; he knows why I’m here….’ . Syntax= very procedural and rapid we see the lexicon of the romance, untrustworthy.
V2: ‘I made that up’ - classic post-modernism, unreliable narrator, METAFICTION, ‘and so’ feels trustworthy, making it up.
V3: takes away our belief and certainty.
Triumphant assertion of love and humanity…
In the face of a dictorship
Reclaimed her body as an instrument of …
Pleasure with somebody else
Comparisons
Objectification of women
Nature being feminine
Monolithic undisputed power of men
