The handmaids tale and Frankenstien Comparison A level

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his home is inglostad ; place where the ideas of the french revolution began, the idea of where the monster was to be created began

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talk about the locations outside of his home e.g. st petersburg, ireland etc -> links to how the spread of the french revoltuion across europe, like his monster being uncontainable

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the monster doesnt have a home, hes abandoned by his creator, hes an outcast due to not being sublime

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victor himself never stays home, prefers isolation in far off places away from his family - you can argue hes narcisstic His high self image keeps him from being social, always leading him towards isolation. His isolation is result of pride, which might be due to the fear of being proved wrong thus not engaging with others

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offreds story is interesting because she has experienced both what was familiar to her in the pregileadean society and the current regime she lives in

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no home, no sense of beloging, nothing belongs to the handmaids, not even their rooms, bring in quotes how she avoids saying its her room

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as a woman, she doesnt belong in society other than having 'viable ovaries' which is why shes still alive and kept there

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happens in masuchussets america, showcasing even the pwoerful america cannot escape such drastic extreme changes in society, even the most progressive return to their puritanical and biblical times - links to how 'home' may change drastically, as it does for the characters

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no idea of beloging with people, encouraged to betray and think suspciously of everyone 'perhaps hes an eye' link to context of germany where hitlar promised a stress on family values and to betray even those within the family is they threatned to go against it

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Novel is ‘speculative finction’ but also science fiction

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Handamdsi clothes mirror those of traditional muslim women

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Novel written in West Berlin

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Written after elections of Ronald Reagan and margaret thatcher

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Novel is an effective satire which highlights horrific events in past and contemporary society, how humans behave towards each other Moira ‘you can’t help what you feel.. but you can help how you behave’

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Atwood uses regimes to show how civilised society can be changed to brutality

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Atwood aims to examine the idea ‘change could be as fast as lightining’

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Hitler promised a Germany with stress on family values. Encourages to betray even family members ‘she is my spy, I am hers’, doesn’t trust nick : ‘perhaps he is an Eye’

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In china, mai Zedong felt communism was being diluted - he formed the red guards, intellectuals were singled out and uni life ended, books were burned aside from ‘the little red book’

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Islamic groups : sentences such as public stoning, dressing all covered, ban on education - she visited Afghanistan on her world tour 1978

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Explores the ‘rapnuzel syndrome’ where women experience internalised isolation

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Symbols of consumerism (clothes, drugs, prositition) become confused with symbols of liberty

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AIDS raised causing hysteria mainly from gay community - new rights accused them stating this as a punishment for god for sexual freedom which they were opposed to - seen in collapse in birth rates on gilled , new rights argued against contraception as there was a decline in birth rate

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Against Puritans who she believed came to America to establish their own regime and persecute people they way they had been in Europe

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Her intentions were to makee people realise this can happen anywhere, and she had a rule for herself to not include anything that hadn’t already been done some place

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Her name offered also alludes to ‘afraid’ , ‘off red; suggesting she’s rebelling against the symbol for fertility, ‘off read’ misread, alluding to professor pixeto and his colleagues - novel is an exploration of her identity

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Offered is significant as she was not born in a dictatorship she knows what freedom, love, feminism and family looks like - which makes her narrative interesting

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In bible, Sarai who is barren, not Abraham , - also true in Gilead were patriarchal law dictates men cannot be deemed infertile

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Sarai given Hagar, both have hostile relations to one another - parallels seen as Serena joy whilst she fought for this now watches her husband copulate with this hagarian figure

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Gilead happened in Massachussetts, America - in in 1985, America was seen as paradigm for the western followed and followed - Atwood highlights it can happen anywhere

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Gilead is rooted from Puritan ideaologies which are the very vales America was born from

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Novel shows how unprogressive society is - gilled has returned to biblical or puritanical times

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offred is based of mary webster, first woman persecuted during salems witch trial and survived - hopeful historical

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child care system - based of totalitarianism such as nazi germany where leabon born children were intentionally bred by hitler, later ostrasized after ww2 as disposed

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canada during the writing of the book had low birth rates which was the stated was due to pollution (thus gilead becomes carbon neutral) and mainly due to women joining workforce (thus stopping women working in gilead) - allusion to this as canadian government asks gilead how they got their birth rate high as they want similar

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romania implemented decree 770 banning contraceptions to increase birth rate then put guards at gynea to insure they did their pregnancy test once a month (seen in gilead)

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ceremony , birthing in public, done in public in royal families to make sure the king heir isn’t switched

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name becomes offred as her commanders name is fred, direct reference ri translantic slave trade, stripping of identity

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illegal nightclub jezebel, relgious reference to a woman who was a murderer and prostitutite, - brothels during nazi, believed it was a necessity for soldiers to keep morale high

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colonies, being promiscuous leads to women being sent to labour camps, based off with the american plan in a system where these type of women were jailed as seen as a national threat from men going to war (seen in unwomen)

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salvagings public excecution, based of the book germinials, (gilead they stone men who rape) similar concept