Utopias and Dystopias 2021 - Keshav Gandhi

Offred and the Commander developing a relationship has to be one of the most unexpected things I could have imagined, largely due to the power imbalance. The “head of the household” who yields the most power coerces a woman who has arguably the most marginalized position in the novel, so much so that it feels almost caricatured. This “relationship” is completely fake, in that Offred has to perform for her own survival, and the Commander seems too short-sighted to even notice. What’s ironic is that eventually, Offred seems to have made connections involving power imbalances throughout the book (or rather, she is being coerced into doing certain people “favors”), including figures like Serena Joy. Everyone seems to bend the rules in their own way, even those who ostensibly benefit from the dystopian society’s practices. But the thing is Offred can’t say “no” because of these very power dynamics.  Thankfully, Offred seems to have developed her first real ally in this world (besides M...

Offred can only trust her own mind, and she’s doing her best to compartmentalize all of the trauma she’s facing in a very logical way. For instance, she simultaneously imagines Luke as being dead, in prison, or alive and escaped—all in hopes of ensuring that she’s prepared for each outcome. She dreams of her daughter, but also considers her to be simultaneously alive and dead. In a dream and in reality.  Imagination and possibility are all that Offred has. She places the daffodil within the bed based on a hope, a longshot. She’s desperate for the possibility that her token will help the next Handmaid, similar to how she discovered clues in her room from the previous Handmaid. But again, all Offred has is the ability to account for all these scenarios.  How does preparing for the future while reconciling with events in the past affect her psyche? Will Offred ever fully recover from this society? For those who’ve read the novel in its entirety, how does this theme relate to the ...

Discussion question: I thought it was interesting how the first chapter was a flashback compared to the rest of the reading, as it frames the current dystopian world as opposed to what was the beginning of the dystopian world. Both Offred and Winston remember life before the dystopia. How does the way Atwood uses flashbacks compare to the way Orwell uses them?

I guess I’ll start by talking about the doctor’s usage of the word “sterile.” It seemed to surprise Offred. This goes hand in hand with my prediction from last week—that something might have happened to make men go sterile all of the sudden. But men can’t be sterile in this world; in Gilead, reproductive failure is always because a woman is “barren.” And this is used to justify the oppression of women, cementing the role of the Handmaid.  About that, the Handmaid’s role. It was initially hard to tell what Atwood was referring to, as much of the language surrounding the topic was within Biblical euphemisms. And while I’ve never read the Bible, it definitely seems like the society of Gilead is twisting phrases and taking quotes out of context in order to subjugate women. I think that this speaks to the larger role religion as well as the suppression of media can play in oppressive systems.  For example, I remember learning in history class that enslaved people were taught twist...