1. Opening pages & influences

• Engels
• Upper Secondary (Key Stage 4)
• GCSE

Seating plan  

Kristof

Eliza 

Luuk

Simar 

Anton 

Mitch 

Guusje

Annefleur

Sanne

 

Eva 

Emma 

Tilly 

Viola 

Vera 

Juul 

Lesson objectives 

We will look closely at the opening paragraphs

We will consider literary techniques used 

We will consider how mood is created and how the world of the novel is quickly constructed. 

We will look at influencing contexts on the work 

Rate the word 1 to 4

1. I do not know the word, and I have never seen it before. 

2. I've heard or seen the word before, but I'm not sure what it means. 

3. I know the word and can recognise and understand it while reading, but I probably wouldn't feel comfortable using it in writing or speech. 

4. I know the word well and can use it correctly in writing or speech. 

Obligate 

Word of the day

Obligate (v) - to force someone to do something, or to make it necessary for someone to do something.

The law obligates financial institutions to make monthly reports on large transactions.

The Handmaid's Tale 

What effect does the title have? 

You may wish to think about: 

- the connotations of the words in the title 

- the expectations this title creates.  

Night 

1. How has Atwood used a recognisable setting to highlight how much has changed in this society? 

2. What are the names of the different groups of people in this society? 

3. How has the way of dress been used to highlight these differences? 

" We slept in what had once been the gymnasium." 

1. Which word or phrase in this sentence suggests that it is set in a time when things have changed? 

3. Write down two pieces of information which the author withholds from the reader in this sentence

4. Why do you think the author withholds this information? 

Why is it no longer a gymnasium ?

Why they are sleeping in what used to be a gymnasium ?

Who 'we' are?

How long it is since it was a gymnasium? 

The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone. A balcony ran around the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in miniskirts, then pants, then in one earring, spiky green-streaked hair. Dances would have been held there; the music lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound, style upon style, an undercurrent of drums, a forlorn wail, garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving ball of mirrors, powdering the dancers with a snow of light. pg 3

1. Write down four things you learn about the gymnasium from this extract.

2. Write down two phrases which show that things have changed.

The floor was of varnished wood, with stripes and circles painted on it, for the games that were formerly played there; the hoops for the basketball nets were still in place, though the nets were gone. A balcony ran around the room, for the spectators, and I thought I could smell, faintly like an afterimage, the pungent scent of sweat, shot through with the sweet taint of chewing gum and perfume from the watching girls, felt-skirted as I knew from pictures, later in miniskirts, then pants, then in one earring, spiky green-streaked hair. Dances would have been held there; the music lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound, style upon style, an undercurrent of drums, a forlorn wail, garlands made of tissue-paper flowers, cardboard devils, a revolving ball of mirrors, powdering the dancers with a snow of light. pg 3

1. Write down four things you learn about the gymnasium from this extract.

2. Write down two phrases which show that things have changed.

In this extract, there is a sense of sadness. Fill in the table to explore how the author’s language choices create this mood.  

Quote	Technique	This creates a mood of sadness because …
‘The music lingered’
‘A forlorn wail’
‘Garlands made of tissue-paper flowers’

In this extract, there is a sense of sadness. Fill in the table to explore how the author’s language choices create this mood.  

Quote	Technique	This creates a mood of sadness because …
‘The music lingered’	Verb choice (lingered) Personification	It suggests that the music does not want to leave or that it is waiting for something.
‘A forlorn wail’	Personification Adjective choice (forlorn) Noun choice (wail) Onomatopoeia	The word choices here suggest sadness and pain. ‘Wail’ has childish connotations and suggests an inability to change the situation.
‘Garlands made of tissue-paper flowers’	Metaphor Diction choice	The ‘tissue-paper flowers’ sound fragile and insubstantial. This could be read as a metaphor for the past.

There was old sex in the room and loneliness, and expectation, of something without a shape or name. I remember that yearning , for something that was always about to happen and was never the same as the hands that were on us there and then, in the small of the back, or out back, in the parking lot, or in the television room with the sound turned down and only the pictures flickering over lifting flesh. 

We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability ? It was in the air; and it was still in the air, an afterthought, as we tried to sleep, in the army cots that had been set up in rows, with spaces between so we could not talk. We had flannelette sheets, like children’s, and army- issue blankets, old ones that still said U.S. We folded our clothes neatly and laid them on the stools at the ends of the beds. The lights were turned down but not out. Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts. pgs 3 - 4

Now we focus on this part of the opening paragraphs. 

What can you infer from each of these quotations? Write your answers down.

Quote	This suggests that ...
‘We had flannelette sheets, like children’s’
‘We had ... army-issue blankets, old ones that still said U.S.’
‘We folded our clothes neatly and laid them on the stools at the ends of the beds.’
‘Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled’
‘They had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts.’

What can you infer from each of these quotations? Write your answers down.

Quote	This suggests that ...
‘We had flannelette sheets, like children’s’	The narrator and the other people who sleep in the gym are treated like children – looked after, but not allowed any autonomy. This is emphasised by the passivity of ‘had’, which suggests they do not purchase these sheets or have any choice over them.
‘We had ... army-issue blankets, old ones that still said U.S.’	This suggests that some sort of war or military take over has taken place, as the blankets are ‘army issue’. The fact that the narrator states they are ‘old ones’ because they ‘still said U.S.’ suggests that the USA doesn’t exist any longer under that name.

What can you infer from each of these quotations? Write your answers down.

Quote	This suggests that ...
‘We folded our clothes neatly and laid them on the stools at the ends of the beds.’	The narrator and the other people who sleep in the gym follow a strict routine. They are tidy and well behaved – but again, they sound very much like children.
‘Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled’	‘Patrolled’ suggests that the narrator and the other people who sleep there are being watched or guarded. Calling these women ‘Aunt’ once again emphasises the impression of the narrator as childlike, or forced into a childlike role.

What can you infer from each of these quotations? Write your answers down.

Quote	This suggests that ...
‘They had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts.’	The ‘Aunts’ are willing to use brutal violence to control the narrator and the other people. ‘Slung’ creates a casual air, suggesting a carelessness or indifference to this brutality.

Discuss these questions on your table. 

1. What are the Aunts’ names? Why do you think the writer has chosen these particular names? 

2. What connotations does the word ‘Aunt’ have?

3. How does the writer’s description of the Aunts contrast with these connotations? 

4. What effect does this contrast have? 

Now focus on the next extract. 

No guns though, even they could not be trusted with guns. Guns were for the guards, specially picked from the Angels. The guards weren’t allowed inside the building except when called, and we weren’t allowed out, except for our walks, twice daily, two by two around the football field, which was enclosed now by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. 

Discuss these questions on your table

1. In this extract, Atwood uses words like ‘Aunts’ and ‘Angels’ in unfamiliar ways, without explaining what she means. What effect does this have?

2. Using your inference skills, what do you think the writer uses these terms to mean? 

What does the author understand an 'aunt' to be, in the world of the novel?

 What does the author understand an 'angel' to be, in the world of the novel? 

Write your answers in your exercise book 

1. In this extract, Atwood uses words like ‘Aunts’ and ‘Angels’ in unfamiliar ways, without explaining what she means. What effect does this have?

2. Using your inference skills, what do you think the writer uses these terms to mean? 

What does the author understand an 'aunt' to be, in the world of the novel?

 What does the author understand an 'angel' to be, in the world of the novel? 

In what ways may The Handmaid's Tale be considered relevant today? 

Read the text given to your group. Discuss.  

What is the difference between utopia and dystopia?

Influencing contexts 

In your group you will make a  mind map using the information I will give you, and that you will read yourself, to construct a mind map of contextual influences that impacted the construction of the dystopian setting of Gilead. 

Influencing contexts - biblical references 

Research the name "Gilead", which is the setting of our novel. Add to your mind map. 

Influencing contexts - dystopian fiction 

“...I am forever grateful to Orwell for alerting me early to the danger flags I've tried to watch out for since. As Orwell taught, it isn't the labels – Christianity, socialism, Islam, democracy, two legs bad, four legs good, the works – that are definitive, but the acts done in their names.”​

​

—Margaret Atwood

Influencing contexts - dystopian fiction 

The term “Utopia”, meaning a perfect society, comes from Thomas More’s 1516 book of the same name. It describes an ‘ideal society’, called Utopia (though the Greek meaning of the word, ‘no place’, suggests that More knew a perfect society is not possible). “Dystopia” has come to mean an imperfect society, usually a totalitarian, oppressive one. ​

​

A major influence on Atwood was George Orwell’s dystopia 1984. The novel is set in Airstrip One (formerly known as Great Britain), a province of the superstate Oceania in a world of perpetual war, government surveillance, and public manipulation. The superstate and its residents are dictated to by a political regime named English Socialism, shortened to "Ingsoc" in Newspeak, the government's invented language. The superstate is under the control of a government that persecutes individualism and independent thinking as "thoughtcrime", which is enforced by the "Thought Police". They remind the public that “Big Brother is watching you”. ​

The Handmaid’s Tale draws on many of these ideas. Atwood also started to write her novel in the year 1984.​ She was also residing in Berlin at that time, which was cut off from the rest of West Germany by the Berlin Wall. (another influence)

Influencing contexts - Old Testament 

Gilead, the fictional dystopian and patriarchal society in which the novel The Handmaid’s Tale is set, is a place where women have few rights. Those lucky enough to be fertile are given the role of ‘handmaids’ and conscripted to be surrogate mothers for the wealthy infertile families.​

​

The society of Gilead is fashioned on Old Testament values, which treat women as little more than the property of men.

Influencing context - The Old Testament 

Genesis 3:16 Adam's role is to be Eve's master "...thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee." ​

​Genesis 16:2 Sarah gave permission to her husband Abraham to engage in sexual intercourse with her maid, Hagar: "Sara said unto Abram...I pray thee, go in unto my maid; it may be that I may obtain children by her.“​

​Leviticus 12:1-5 "If a woman have conceived seed, and born a man child: then she shall be unclean seven days...But if she bear a male child, then she shall be unclean two weeks..." ​

​Deuteronomy 24:1 "When a man hath taken a wife, and married her, and it come to pass that she find no favour in his eyes, because he hath found some uncleanness in her: then let him write her a bill of divorcement, and give it in her hand, and send her out of his house.“​

​Deuteronomy 22:28-29 "If a man find a woman that is a virgin, and lay hold on her, and lie with her, and they be found; Then the man that lay with her shall give to the woman’s father fifty shekels of silver, and she shall be his wife...." ​

​Timothy 2:12 “I do not permit a woman to teach or have authority over a man; she must be quiet.”​

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Atwood makes many references to the Bible, mainly the Old Testament (i.e. the half before the life of Jesus) in The Handmaid’s Tale. Here are some quotes that explore the portrayal of women in the Old Testament. ​

Puritan New England - context  

Influencing context - Puritan New England  

In the 17th century, English Puritans were forced to flee Europe due to their strict Christian beliefs to set up a new life in America, the ‘New World’. Although they aspired to a utopian society, the system that evolved was an oppressive, patriarchal theocracy (theocracy = based on strict religious values).​

This is best shown in the infamous Witch Trials in Salem, Massachusetts, where around 25 women were hanged on the belief that they were witches. The mass hysteria around this time reveals what little power women had in this society, as they could not defend themselves from these accusations, made against innocent women due to personal vendettas. ​

The critic Anne Kaler writes that New England Puritan women were given names like “Silence, Fear, Patience, Prudence, Mindwell, Comfort, Hopestill, and Be Fruitful” so as to be “reminded…of their feminine destiny”. ​They were not allowed to use combs or ​mirrors, and could only wear plain, functional​ clothing.​ Margaret Atwood can trace her family tree​ back to a woman called Mary Webster, who,​ in 1683, underwent attempted hanging as a​ witch – but survived her ordeal. Atwood also​ went to Harvard University, which is in Massachusetts, not far from where the​ witch trials took place. 

The rise of the Christian far-right in the USA

When Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale, Ronald Reagan was the Republican president of the USA. A devout Christian, Reagan placed more priority on the economy than listening to environmental campaigners, did little to support the arts, and did nothing to advance gay rights.​His religious beliefs meant that other Christian groups grew in popularity during the 1980s. These groups warned about the “Birth Dearth”, or falling birth rate, and expressed concern about the right to have an abortion, the rise of divorce, and the Gay Rights movement. ​

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Support for these right wing, Christian groups was especially strong in the ‘Bible belt’, the southern states where church attendance is high. There were several prominent women activists, such as Phyllis Schlafly, who travelled the country mobilising women in support of her views. She has stated views such as “If marriage is to be a successful institution, it must...have an ultimate decision maker, and that is the husband” and “It is women's role to support men in their positions of higher authority through altruism and self-sacrifice"​

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Lesson objectives 

We will consider concepts for this novel and agree on a five to frame this work

We will investigate the dedication and epigraphs of the novel 

We will consider more closely an extract from the novel 

Influencing context - Environmental issues 

Search for: "Flowers of Survival: An Ecofeminist Reading of Margaret

Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale" 

Add to your mind map how ecofeminism is related to the novel. 

Read the article, linked in the next slide, and add that information to your mind map. 

www.ijhssi.org

www.bbc.com

Gilead (Biblical reference

Environmental issues 

Puritan New England 

The Old Testament 

Dystopian Fiction 

Far-right in the USA 

1980s

Influencing contexts 

1. Hang up your group's mind map. 

2. Tour the other mind maps and take note in your exercise book of any important insights that your group did not have. 

Science fiction or speculative fiction 

Atwood is often called a ‘Science Fiction’ (Si-Fi) writer – but she rejects this label.​

​

If Sci-Fi is “ books, films, or cartoons about an imagined future, especially about space travel or other planets”, such as Star Trek or Star Wars, Atwood called Sci-Fi “talking squids in outer space” in a BBC Breakfast interview. ​

​

Atwood later clarified her position after consternation amongst her fans: instead of Sci-Fi, which has “monsters and space ships”, she writes “speculative fiction” which “could really happen”. As such, she often points out that everything that happens in The Handmaid’s Tale has a historical precedent, that is, it has occurred at some point in the world, at some time. ​

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Other examples of this is her focus on environmental issues, of which she is an avid campaigner. 

Your turn - speculative fiction 

Make your own mind map on your own speculative fictional dystopian world that finds its roots in current developments in our society or historical events.  For each idea write also down what reality are your ideas rooted in. Consider some of these aspects: 

- setting 

- names of places, people, environments etc.

- the restrictions placed on inhabitants of this society 

- the powers and type of authoritarian 'government' that controls this society

-the life expectancy and careers of the inhabitants 

- the opportunities, goals and hopes of the inhabitants 

- etc 

Which cover do you feel reflects the themes and narrative of the novel?