3. Shopping

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

Lesson objectives 

We will consider our reading

What is the importance of this to your reading? 

What is the importance of this to your reading? 

Keep a note of what events are grouped together under what titles. 

 

The titles of the groups of chapters 

Night 

Shopping

Waiting Room

Household

Birth Day 

Soul Scrolls 

Jezebel's 

Salvaging 

Why does the novel switch to the present tense?​

Shopping (pgs 13 -17) 

‘A window, two white curtains. Under the window, a window seat with a little cushion. When the window is partly open – it only opens partly – the air can come in and make the curtains move. I can sit in the chair, or on the window seat, hands folded, and watch this. Sunlight comes in through the window too, and falls on the floor, which is made of wood, in narrow strips, highly polished. I can smell the polish. There’s a rug on the floor, oval, of braided rags. This is the kind of touch they like: folk art, archaic, made by women, in their spare time, from things that have no further use. A return to traditional values. Waste not want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?’ (pg 13)

1. What do we learn about Offred as a character from the opening description of her room?

2. Why and how does Atwood focus the reader's attention on the setting? 

A bed. Single, mattress medium-hard, covered with a flocked white spread. Nothing takes place in the bed but sleep; or no sleep. I try not to think too much. Like other things now, thought must be rationed. There’s a lot that doesn’t bear thinking about. Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last. I know why there is no glass, in front of the watercolour picture of blue irises, and why the window only opens partly and why the glass in it is shatterproof. It isn’t running away they’re afraid of. We wouldn’t get far. It’s those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge. (Ch2. Pg 13/14)

What oblique references are made by the narrator here? Why are these references import for the reader's understanding of Offred?

Lesson objectives 

We will consider some of the characters in The Handmaid's Tale

We will explore Atwood's techniques and how historical references are included in the novel. 

We will consider the use of dialogue and thought - inner and outer world and use of simile and metaphor 

Tests back on Wednesday

Seating plan term 2 

Alastrina 

Andrea 

Emilia 

Deeshitha 

Hugo 

Kate 

Elsje 

Erik

Sham 

Mia 

Anna 

Robin 

Megan 

Damien 

Neysa 

Cleo 

Aamu 

Ella 

Lena 

Coen 

Rik

Kim 

Zoe

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 correctie in writing or speech. 

Eulogy

Word of the day

Eulogy (n) - speech or piece of writing to praise someone or something particularly at a funeral

eu - comes from Greek and means ' good, well or pleasant' 

logos - Greek noun meaning word 

 

 

The minister delivered a long eulogy for my uncle. 

Word of the day

Think of another word that you know that starts with the prefix EU

How does the meaning of good, well or pleasant fit with the meaning of this word? 

 

 

‘The bell that measures time is ringing. Time here is measured by bells, as once in nunneries. As in a nunnery too, there are few mirrors.​ (pg 18)...A Sister, dipped in blood.’ (pg 14 -15)

Find and mark this extract. Then answer the questions 

Look carefully at the description of Offred’s ‘uniform’.​

​1. Why does Atwood remind the reader of “nunneries”? How does this link to Offred's attire?​

2. What do you think is the symbolic reason for the blood-red robe?​

​3. What do we learn about Offred when she sees herself in the mirror? How does she see herself?​

​4. The colour ‘red’ also symbolises Offred’s rank, as a handmaid. What colours symbolise the ranks of the commander and the commander’s wife? 

1. What are the similarities between Atwood’s Handmaids, and these other religious costumes?​

​2. What does it suggest about how they are meant to behave, and be viewed?​

3. What is the effect of all Handmaids having to wear the same thing?​

In the New Testament, Martha is the sister of Mary and resents being tied to household chores while Mary finds favour with Christ and follows him.​

​

Remember that this society is a Christian theonomy and so the laws and many of the names are derived from Christian mythology as recorded in the Bible.

Cora and Rita – the Marthas​

Theonomy

The state of being governed by God

Collins dictionary 

The Commander's Wife 

1. What do we learn about the commander’s wife?​

​2. Choose three pieces of evidence from this extract and explain what they reveal about the character of the commander’s wife, whom the reader has not yet met.​

3. To what extent does the narrator (Offred) influence or prejudice our understanding of the commander’s wife through the presence of her own feelings towards her?

"This garden is the domain of the Commander's Wife... I am a reproach to her; and a necessity." (pg 19) 

Language, Community & Identity 

“There are several umbrellas in it: black, for the Commander, blue, for the Commander's Wife, and the one assigned to me, which is red”

Discuss on your table what these quotes suggest about:​

​

• Identity ​
  
• What language is used for now​ (in the novel)
• The power of language ​
  

“She's in her usual Martha's dress, which is dull green, like a surgeon's gown of the time before”​

“The Marthas are not supposed to fraternize with us.” ​

“How I used to despise such talk. Now I long for it. At least it was talk. An exchange, of sorts.”

"All right," I say. I don't smile. Why tempt her to friendship?”

“There will be no curiosity, no enjoyment of the process of life. All competing pleasures will be destroyed. But always— do not forget this, Winston— always there will be the intoxication of power, constantly increasing and constantly growing subtler. Always, at every moment, there will be the thrill of victory, the sensation of trampling on an enemy who is helpless.

If you want a picture of the future, imagine a boot stamping on a human face— forever. ”

― George Orwell, 1984

The future 

Concepts we generated: 

Power dynamics, oppression, patriarchy, identity, rebellion 

Concepts HL literature