points of comparison

Question 1

similarity

How do both authors show nature

Answer 1

Victor’s narrative voice refers to nature as “she” and “her”, Atwood describes the fertility of the handmaids as a “natural resource”

Question 2

How both authors show men domineering over female creation

Answer 2

Victor’s desire to be a ‘father’ to the creature (perverse dream about elizabeth), The Commander ‘doing his duty’ during the Ceremony.

Question 3

The perverse representations of birth?

Answer 3

Victor’s toils in the lab described as disgusting, the description of the birth of Janine’s baby, taken by the Commander’s Wife, it is no longer her baby, detachment.

Question 4

Light imagery in their endings

Answer 4

• The Creature: “Light, feeling, and sense will pass away; and in this condition must I find my happiness.” Creature rids himself of any hope of light, must find happiness in inevitable death.
• Offred: “And so I step up, into the darkness within; or else the light.” unsure of her ending as she is, yet hope can still be found.