Linking Context AO3: Demonstrate understanding of the significance and influence of the contexts in which literary texts are written and received.
Chronology Read the chronology carefully. Which events could be significant in terms of our understanding of the novel?
Context Canada’s most famous novelist. “Best known feminist novelist writing in English today”. Studied at Harvard as a graduate student in 1961. Studied American literature and learned about seventeenth-century Puritan New England. She has experimented with a wide range of genres in her work, including: gothic romance, spy thriller and science fiction.
Context Whilst writing the novel, Atwood researched the American New Right of the early 1980s. This movement was anti-feminist, anti-abortion, anti-homosexuality and racist. The movement also had strong religious underpinnings. The New Right harked back to America’s Puritan inheritance. This group gained political power under Ronald Reagan and Atwood’s writing seems to be a reaction to this assault on liberal social policies.
Context of Reception Gilead does not only satirise America: Atwood used a range of international models, both past and present (Latin America, Iran, the Philippines, Iraq and Afghanistan)
Chapters 3, 4 and 5 What more do we learn about Gilead? Can we make any links to the context we have looked at? What do we find out about Offred? Key events? Moments of defiance from any character?
Who’s who in Gilead? Men Commanders: black clad members of the ruling class- they have privileges. Eyes- spies and secret agents of enforce the Republic’s laws. Angels- soldiers who are accorded some respect and may marry. Guardians- low ranking soldiers who wear green and perform less valued work. Salvagers- public executioners Gender Traitors- gay men who are either killed or sent with the Unwomen (in same clothes to degrade)
Women Wives- married to high status men (Commanders) wear blue Daughters- wear virginal dress (white) Handmaids- fertile younger women in red. Used as surrogate mothers (child bearers) Aunts- older women who control the handmaids- brown Marthas- older women of low status who work as servants- green Econowives- legal wives of poorer men (multi coloured robes as multi functional Unwomen- stigmatised women sent to Colonies (feminists, lesbians, nuns, the infertile, revolutionaries, infertile Handmaids)- grey and clean up toxic waste Jezebels- prostitutes dressed in overtly sexy costumes from a bygone era (bunny outfits, cheerleaders etc…) Short careers then sent to Colonies.
Babies Keepers- normal healthy newborns Unbabies/Shredders- children born with deformities or congenital abnormalities. They are killed.
The Amish Traditionalist Christians in Canada and USA Follow a simple, humble and traditional way of life with no modern technology. Tourists often visit these areas to watch them- much like the tourists watching the Handmaid’s in Chapter Five.