More Discussion Questions

Discussion questions: 

  • Offred seems to be a victim of power imbalances throughout the entire household, as she is beholden to both the Commander and Serena Joy. What do you predict will happen? Will either character find out about Offred? How does this mirror Offred’s marginalized position as a Handmaid within the society of Gilead as a whole? 
  • The novel subtly touches on race and ethnicity and their interactions with religion, with more marginalized identities in the U.S. (e.g., Latine/Latinx, Irish, and Jewish communities) tending to be associated with Catholicism and Judaism (religions mentioned in the novel). Additionally, the society has Colonies, which point to Gilead being an imperialist empire that has stakes around the world (seemingly not in Israel or Japan, however). How is this reflected within Gilead’s society? 
  • What do you think of the “Prayvaganzas”? Does this combination of (forced) prayer and “social” event contribute to the extreme levels of conformity in this society? Is there any symbolism in the Handmaids’ position in this society?

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Proles, Memories, and Giving Up

Throughout the novel, Winston is aware of the inevitability of being caught by the Thought Police, though this doesn’t seem to affect him as much as I thought it would.  His hope lies in the proles. It was almost as if Winston had already given up, and he was ready to pass his desire for freedom to the only people that weren’t being monitored.  However, unfortunately for Winston, Orwell implies that the proles probably won’t be able to overthrow the Party. Those who have a memory prior to the Revolution are quickly fading away. We see how Orwell characterizes the old man Winston was talking to: his memory is fragmented, his nervous system no more intricate than bits of thread hastily tied together, but even then, he isn’t really able to recall anything particularly relevant to Winston’s questions.  Does he simply exist as a sum of random impressions? Do we know that what he’s saying is even real? To me, this is Orwell’s hopelessness. Is there really a future for the prole...
Read more

Offred's Possibilities

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 ...
Read more

Predictions

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...
Read more