9. Salvaging

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

Lesson objectives 

We will consider your homework and responses 

We will look at the reliability of our narrator 

We will focus on the anti-hero and narrative choices in chapters Forty to Forty-one 

Concepts we generated: 

Power dynamics, oppression, patriarchy, identity, rebellion 

Concepts HL literature 

One extract from A Doll's House and one from The Handmaid's Tale. 

A global issue that links the two extracts.

You will explore in an essay response (at least 5 paragraphs) how the global issue is shown in the extracts. 

You will explore the techniques (authorial choices) used and their purposes in conveying the global issue. 

11th March comparative summative assessment

“Moira,” I say. “You don’t mean that.” She is frightening me now, because what I hear in her voice is indifference, a lack of volition. Have they really done it to her then, taken away something – what? – that used to be so central to her? But how can I expect her to go on, with my idea of her courage, live it through, act it out, when I myself do not?​

​    I don’t want her to be like me. Give in, go along, save her skin. That is what it comes down to. I want gallantry from her, swashbuckling, heroism, single-handed combat. Something I lack.​..

​Here is what I’d like to tell. I’d like to tell a story about how Moira escaped, for good this time. Or if I couldn’t tell that, I’d like to say she blew up Jezebel’s, with fifty Commanders inside it. I’d like her to end with something daring and spectacular, some outrage, something that would befit her. But as far as I know that didn’t happen. I don’t know how she ended, or even if she did, because I never saw her again. (257 - 258)

Chapter thirty-eight  pg 257 - 258

Is Moira a foil or a double to Offred? 

Using evidence, write a response to this question in your class notebook. 

Offred is an unreliable narrator, and at this point in the novel she actually admits to fabricating parts of her story.​

Chapter Forty 

​“I made that up. It didn’t happen that way. Here is what happened.” pg 269 chpt 40 

“It didn’t happen that way either. I’m not sure how it happened; not exactly. All I can hope for is a reconstruction: the way love feels is always only approximate.” pg 271 chpt 40 

After telling two different versions of the encounter with Nick, Offred admits the falsity of both, but does not offer the truth of what actually occurred. ​Answer these question in your class notebook or exercise book. 

1. What is the difference between both accounts?​

2. Which do you feel is nearer to the truth: what actually happened? ​

3. Why doesn’t Offred (the narrator)tell the truth?​

Offred can be described as an anti-hero, since she is so often a passive rather than active character: things happen to her rather than as a result of her actions, and she not only lacks the qualities of archetypal heroes of novels and folk-stories, but is conscious of this and discusses this disparity with us, her audience.​

​You often find anti-heroes in postmodern narratives, because they subvert the traditional idea of the fictional hero, who is a character that is brave, selfless, and through whose actions the plot is driven forward.

Salvaging Chapter Forty-one pg 275

Find and mark this extract: 

I wish this story was different....This is the story, then. Chapter 41 pgs 275 -276

Chapter Forty-one 

Analyse the extract from Chapter 41. Investigate how Atwood:​

​1. Portrays Offred’s desire to tell her story in a particular way.​

​2. Comments on the nature of this novel and its style and structure.​

​4. Uses conventions of postmodern fiction (relativity rather than certainty, meta-narrative, the antihero, focus on subjectivity rather than objectivity, intertextuality, ).​

Chapter 41 stylistic choices. Which techniques are used? 

" so much whispering, so much speculation about others, so much gossip " 

"And there is so much time to be endured, time heavy 

as fried food or thick fog" 

Simile

Anaphora 

"in the future or in Heaven or in prison or underground" 

Syndeton

"I tell, therefore you are. 

Allusion 

Rene Descartes 

I think, therefore I am: Cogito, ergo sum

"with this sad and hungry and sordid, this limping and mutilated story

Personification

Use at least three quotes in your answer 

" so much whispering, so much speculation about others, so much gossip " 

"And there is so much time to be endured, time heavy 

as fried food or thick fog" 

Discuss how authorial choices in this extract aid in conveying postmodern concerns. 

Write at least one paragraph in your class notebook or exercise book. 

"in the future or in Heaven or in prison or underground" 

"I tell, therefore you are." 

"I keep on going with this sad and hungry and sordid, this limping and mutilated story" 

Lesson objectives 

We will consider your homework and responses 

We will consider the word 'salvaging' - and the use of constructed vocabulary 

The use of dialogue to show ambiguity

Word of the day

Mal = From the Latin word malus that means 'bad, badly or evil' 

Our key word to remember this root is Malfunction meaning to function badly or stop functioning. 

Shortly before the crash the pilot had reported a malfunction of the aircraft's navigation system.

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. 

Malign

Word of the day

Malign (v) - to speak evil of; to slander; to say harmful things that are untrue. 

Look at that silent 'g' in malign. It is a visual clue that malign is related to another word where the 'g' is sounded. What is that word? 

She took every opportunity to malign his character and spread untruths about him.

Malignant

Salvage: to save goods from damage or destruction, especially from a ship that has sunk or been damaged or a building that has been damaged by fire or a flood. 

Cambridge dictionary definition 

What is ironic about the execution being called a “Salvaging”? What might Gilead claim is being “salvaged”?​

"The kind of speculative fiction about the future that I write is always based on things that are in process right now. So it's not that I imagine them, it's that I notice that people are working on them and I take it a few steps further down the road. So it doesn't come out of nowhere, it comes out of real life."

Atwood in 2018

Concepts we generated: 

Power dynamics, oppression, patriarchy, identity, rebellion 

Concepts HL literature