Christmas Essay Questions

Choose one of the following questions

1. Authors sometimes tell their stories in a non-linear fashion

(flashbacks). How and for what reasons does Margaret Atwood tell
her story in a non-linear fashion.

2. Discuss the idea that literature can be used as a form of protest?

3. What techniques does Atwood use to convey the “thoughts” of her

characters, narrators or speakers and to what effect?

4. “Great literature is simply language charged with meaning to the

upmost possible degree.” Discuss some of the features that make
the work you have studied great literature.

The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian novel by Margaret Atwood, published in

1985, is about the domination of women by men at a government that has
been broken while the society itself is completely changed to the ways a few
wanted when the United States of America changed to the Republic of Gilead.
The Gilead made women into handmaids which are used just for breeding.
Though not all women are handmaids, mostly because not all women are
fertile. The entire society has been turned into this religious dystopia, a sharply
hierarchical society where clothing as well is used to identify and control
people. The entire story is told from Offred’s, the protagonist and narrator of
the novel, point of view and experiencing events or very often reflecting on her
past. This particularly demonstrates that, Atwood chooses to use flashbacks to
tell her story since they offer particularly an insight into Offred’s identity, into
the oppression existing in Gilead, into the loss of morality in Gilead and into
how is life in Gilead in contrast with the life from the time before in the United
States society.
It is the ‘Night’ sections that the flashback technique is most obvious and
most sustained. The night is a time of freedom for Offred, where she has
privacy, a chance to dream, think and revisit her remembered past. ‘We are
fascinated but also repelled. I used to dress like this that was freedom.
Westernised they used to call it.’ Or ‘Women were not protected then. I
remember the rules, the rules that were never spelled out, but every woman
knew.’ are an example of how oppressed they are now and how the Gilead
society came to be. This is compared to what she was experiencing before with
the present. The Japanese tourists she saw one day, reminded to her the
freedom she used to have. The second flashback offer what was like when the
government was ‘alive’, it shows the unwritten rules that women had to follow
before Gilead society existed, where women had to be very careful and mostly
implied how women should think and act. As with the issue of clean sidewalks
mentioned before these statements by Offred, Atwood raises a dilemma for
the readers to consider. Women used to be afraid of rape or abuse/sexual
assault. These things do not happen in a strictly controlled regime. This is
freedom ‘from’, which, Aunt Lydia, tells the handmaids, should be penetrated.
By this flashback it seems that Atwood’s picture of dystopia is not simplistic.
Offred tries to hold on/cling into her past and remember memories but
however they are fading away simply because Gilead is slowly trying to destroy
these memories by suppressing every human right that a person has, and it
seems the very first one and most important is freedom.
Offred’s flashbacks give the readers an in-depth knowledge about the
narrator, other characters and relationships within the novel. In particular, it is
sure/certain/obvious that at night, the readers will get another piece of her
story to add on their puzzle of Offred’s character, because as she said multiple
times: ‘Where should I go?’ where and when is her next stop on her
memories? It is her story, it is filled with her own emotions, her experiences
and allows the readers to travel into her mind through flashbacks. Offred is an
intelligent, kind and perceptive woman even though through her story it seems
that she possesses enough faults to make her human and relatable but not too
many to make her an unsympathetic character. (On) each night she describes
with detail one of these experiences that gives the opportunity for her to tell a
story with one or more of her special ones, daughter, husband, friend, mother
etc that confirms/proves the above. For example, a good memory of her with
Moira was when: ‘Moira, sitting on the edge of my bed…a cigarette between
her stubby, yellow-ended fingers. Let’s get a beer…I had a paper due to the
next day. Psychology, English, economics, we studied things like that… you
don’t need to paint your face, it’s only me, I just did one on date rape... you are
so trendy...hahaha get your coat.’ From many flashbacks like this one, it is
certain that Moira is Offred’s best friend since college, so they have built a very
strong, long-term friendship even though Moira is the leader, a role model for
Offred throughout her whole life. Outwardly she is much more of a woman
admired for her courage, more rebellious than Offred, she is very outgoing,
(domineering/bossy), always stood up for her rights and is a symbol of
resistance. Moira’s confidence is something Offred really admires, it is in this
was that Moira is like Offred’s mentor. When they are together in the Red
Centre, Moira simply is trying to escape so Offred with or without Moira
manages to survive and pull through, everything that is thrown at her
throughout her life.