HMT Structure Flashcards
(5 cards)
How is Offred shown to be an unreliable narrator?
What structural techniques are used in HMT?
framed narrative, cyclical, unreliable narrator.
How does Atwood use framed narrative?
Both The Handmaid’s Tale and Frankenstein use a framed narrative to shape how the reader interprets truth and voice. In Atwood’s novel, the final section, Historical Notes on The Handmaid’s Tale, recontextualises Offred’s narrative as a transcript of oral tapes, discovered and analysed by male academics. This postmodern twist satirises how male-dominated institutions historicise and control women’s stories, turning Offred’s trauma into a distant, almost dismissed “subject of study.” Piexoto’s patronising tone (“we must be cautious about passing moral judgement”) reinforces this, suggesting that even after Gilead’s fall, patriarchal control persists.
Both authors use this technique to raise doubts about objectivity and to critique the reliability of historical or male-authored records.
How is the unreliable narrator used?
Shelley and Atwood both craft unreliable narrators to reflect psychological trauma and challenge absolute truth.
In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred openly admits to reconstructing events: “I made that up. It didn’t happen that way.” Her narrative is fragmented, looping, and full of gaps — a result of living under surveillance, fear, and repression. Atwood uses this to reflect the psychological damage of totalitarianism and how memory becomes unstable in captivity. Both narrators are morally ambiguous, and the reader must constantly evaluate their credibility, a technique which reinforces the novels’ broader themes of uncertainty, truth, and power
How is cyclical structure used in HMT?
Both novels also employ cyclical structure to reflect entrapment and the consequences of unchecked power. The Handmaid’s Tale returns repeatedly to the motif of “Night” chapters — the only sections where Offred has private thought. These create a recurring pattern of temporary escape and reflection, but ultimately loop back to the rigid routines of Gilead, symbolising the illusory nature of freedom. The repetitive structure mimics the oppressive control of her environment, where time is measured not by events but by ritual.
Both texts end ambiguously — with Offred stepping “into the darkness within, or else the light,” and the Creature disappearing “in darkness and distance” — reinforcing their shared theme that neither narrative closure nor justice is guaranteed. Cyclical structure, therefore, deepens the sense of ongoing trauma and unresolved conflict in both texts.
