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The Handmaid's Tale - (C) (A04 (Wizard of Oz - Dorothy is given red…

- - - - AIDS - first recognised in America in 1980s before Atwood wrote the novel
        
        Nuclear Explosions - Pieixoto also refers to nuclear-plant accidents. Probably the most serious of these in America prior to Atwood's writing of The Handmaid's Tale was the Three Mile Island plant incident in 1979. Although no-one in the vicinity was killed or injured, many doubts have been raised about adverse effects on the environment and on human and animal health.
        
        Romanians - Pieixoto mentions the banning of birth control in Romania. Under the dictatorship of President Ceausescu, who wanted to increase his country's population, birth control and abortion were banned after 1966. Romanian women of childbearing age were each expected to have five children. As a consequence, thousands of unwanted children were born and many thousands abandoned. Atwood uses this real disaster to make her readers consider Gilead's laws on childbirth and its anti-abortion stance.
  - - - Islamic regimes -
        A refusal to allow girls to be educated - Offred notes that reading would be punished by having ‘only a hand cut off’
        Insistence on women being fully covered, including the face, by a head-to-toe veil or burqa - strict dress codes in Gilead, Handmaid’s have to wear red
        The imposition of brutal sentences, such as amputation and public stoning to death, for what are perceived as breaches of Sharia Law.
  - - - Abortion - Abortion is legal in many countries - in chapter 6 of The Handmaid's Tale, when Offred sees the bodies of hanged doctors who have carried out abortions, she comments that ‘in the time before.. such things were legal.' - not allowed abortions in Gilead due to the decrease of population
        
        Homosexuality - Whereas Atwood often puts both sides of an argument, she seems to offer no excuse for Gilead's harsh treatment of homosexuality. This can be seen in:
        Chapter 8, where Offred sees the bodies of those hanged for Gender Treachery
        Chapter 38, where Moira tells Offred that other so-called Gender Traitors are sent to the Colonies.
        Moira herself, who is in many ways Offred's model of heroic rebellion, is a lesbian, who tells Offred in chapter 28 that ‘she'd decided to prefer women'.
        Attitudes to homosexuality - Attitudes to homosexuality have varied over the centuries and in different cultures:
        There is an ongoing world-wide dispute about attitudes to homosexuality;
        In some countries, notably in the West, homosexual practices are legal and protected by human rights legislation. Several countries have legalised same-sex civil partnerships or marriages
        In others, especially Muslim countries, it is illegal and can be punishable by death
        Even in countries where homosexuality is legal, the attitudes of the public towards homosexual practices are frequently divided, with disapproval or stronger opposition often depending on religious views.
        
        Adultery and divorce - Attitudes to sexual freedom, to adultery and to divorce vary throughout countries, cultures and societies. In Muslim countries where Sharia law operates, attitudes are strict and adultery is often punished by imprisonment, flogging or even death. In much of the western world, however, attitudes vary between extreme laxity and concern that standards are being eroded - adultery is a crime in Gilead
        
        Pornography - The growth of pornography, especially that which depicts violence against women, is a cause of great concern to many people and perhaps especially to feminists such as Atwood. There are several instances in the novel where it is seen as horrific, and Atwood's mention of the proliferation of ‘Pornomarts' immediately prior to the takeover of the new régime of Gilead suggests a trend she deplores. In her later novel Oryx and Crake, she specifically attacks child pornography.
        
        Racism - For Atwood, growing up in North America, discrimination against black people of African ethnic origin would be a very obvious form of racism. She would also be aware that there had been discrimination against Native Indian tribes in Canada. In the USA, where millions of people were brought from Africa as slaves to work in the plantations from the sixteenth to nineteenth centuries, racial discrimination against black people continued long after the abolition of slavery. Though now illegal, it still exists in some areas and in the attitudes of some people today.
        
        Freedom - lack of self-expression, Gilead has to follow state rules otherwise punishment
- - - - Offred and Ofglen - walk the streets together as not trusted individually- Offred comments (chapter 8): ‘She's like my own reflection, in a mirror from which I am moving away.' In chapter 27, as she feels closer to Ofglen and more friendly, she says that they are ‘Siamese twins'.
      - Offred and Serena Joy - both wear long robes, Offred even sees the Commander's wife as a reflection of herself (in chapter 40): ‘I see the two of us, a blue shape, a red shape, in the brief glass eye of the mirror... Myself, my obverse.'
      - Offred and previous Offred - Current Offred is aware that, when in her robes, she is a replica of the previous Offred, who hanged herself. Thus, when she falls asleep on the floor of the wardrobe, finding her there must have seemed like ‘déja vu' for Cora, before she realises, ‘But it was you.'
    - - The novel is entitled The Handmaid's Tale, not A Handmaid's Tale, so although we can never be entirely sure of the identity of this Handmaid it is clear that we are focusing on one individual. And this is a significant part of Atwood's message. Whoever the Handmaid is, she is to be viewed as an individual, a person who is important in her own right. This means acknowledging her unique personality. In the sections called ‘Night’, Offred explores her inner self, and her most personal memories.
      - Clothing - attempted to remove the individuality of its citizens in many ways. Everyone is classified into a rigid hierarchy, with different uniforms in specific colours to denote their role within the state organisation. Without a choice of clothing, the differences in individual appearances are minimised.
      - Naming - In addition, names are limited. Although we know that the kitchen workers at the Commander's are Rita and Cora, his name is never given, and the Handmaids are specifically forbidden their own names: they are only known by the names of their ‘owners'. Handmaids are also identified by a number tattooed on their ankle, just as prisoners in Nazi concentration camps had a number tattooed on their arms.
      - Economic status - For women, individual power is even more restricted, as they are no longer allowed to work in professions. Some of the women now at Jezebel's were once ‘a sociologist.. a lawyer.. in business, an executive position'. They cannot have bank accounts, or ‘hold property any more' (chapter 28). Every woman must be under the control of a male.
      - Shock factor - There is more than one occasion when Atwood deliberately uses images which seem inappropriate, to shock us into a realisation of the way in which the horrific has come to be completely accepted in Gilead. For example, at the Salvaging described in chapter 42, the woman about to be hanged is: ‘helped onto the high stool as if she's being helped up the steps of a bus... the noose adjusted delicately around the neck, like a vestment.' The juxtaposition of tenderness and holiness with brutal repression wakes up the reader to the ease with which Gilead is achieving its oppressive ends.
  - - - Dystopias often start with an illusion of a perfect society, or UTOPIA. But as the story progresses, the reader and character both realise that this fictional world is the opposite of perfect.
      - Citizens of the dystopian society live under harsh control-usually the control of government, a corporation, technology, religious or philosophical ideas.
      - The truth about the world is often kept a secret from most of society.
      - The story sometimes takes place after an apocalyptic event that ends the world as we know it and gives rise to a new world and a new way of life.
      - Citizens are expected to conform strictly to society’s expectations. Individuality is seen as a bad thing.