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Compare how the writers of THT and F present 'The Other'.…
Compare how the writers of THT and F present 'The Other'.
Argument: define "the Other": something Abject/ different either from society or the self.
F presents the Other in terms of society through the Monster, comments on society's views of difference. THT presents the Other in terms of the self: how O distances herself from her body to retain mental sanity.
Frankenstein
The Monster is seen as Abject and Other. Because of his abject state- once human, now something Other- the monster engenders repulsion in all who see him. Used to be subject of society, now is something other.
Rejection
"struck me violently with a stick"
"On seeing me [...] tearing the girl from my arms."
"I vowed eternal hatred and vengeance to all mankind."
"some fled, some attacked me". "other kinds of missile weapons"
asyndetic list: overwhelming
doesn't even know what the weapons are: sympathy
"monster": monere, latin 'to warn'. warning against society that spurns and hates 'the Other'. Tabula Rasa, it is society and rejection that turns people towards evil.
AO3: monster can be seen as symbol of 1789 French Rev. that began with good intentions + was spurned + hated, turning to acts of extreme violence.
Kristeva's powers of horror: what we find repulsive: breakdown of sign signified relationship of human/dead in F and control of the body in H
Handmaid's
"a central object": can't bring herself to say womb: abject, no name, something feared
political object
"It is only
the insides
of our bodies that are important"
"Now the flesh arranges itself differently": mind of its own. "congealed". Definite article, no connotation of ownership. She is separate from her body
"I resign my body freely to the uses of others. They can do what they like with me.
I am abject.
"
Other to herself
"resign", business transaction
"They": unspecified collective pronoun- threat
In handmaid's, Offred makes herself Other from her body in order to retain sanity. In this way The Other is seen internally as stemming from deep psychological trauma to dissociate from the body and protect the sense of self since her body is no longer her own and she can no longer control it.
"Sanity is a valuable possession [...] I hoard it [...] so I will have enough when the time comes."
psychoanalytic perspective, O's
unstable sense of self
= a defence mechanism to protect her from her reality
AO3: Atwood is critiquing the politicising of the female body. e.g, Romania Ceausescu 1960s, banned birth ctrl, Romanian women of childbearing age should have 5 children each. Atwood: most totalitarian states have attempted to ctrl reproduction in one way or another. Her portrayal of the Other shows the damaging effect on the psyche and how it denies women the autonomy of their own bodies
"What he is fucking is the lower part of my body." Synecdoche