{"id":1388920,"date":"2016-04-22T15:00:19","date_gmt":"2016-04-22T19:00:19","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/community.sparknotes.com\/?p=1388920"},"modified":"2016-05-06T16:09:25","modified_gmt":"2016-05-06T20:09:25","slug":"boss-btch-book-club-the-handmaids-tale-week-two","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"\/blog\/boss-btch-book-club-the-handmaids-tale-week-two\/","title":{"rendered":"Boss B*tch Book Club: The Handmaid’s Tale<\/i>, Week Two"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Thanks to those of you who chimed in last week\u2014a lot of interesting thoughts. TKDgirl91 did an amazing job breaking down all the factors that allowed for the creation of society as restricted as Gilead to emerge, and pointed out the (scary!) fact that it’s not \u00a0impossible \u00a0<\/em>to imagine a similar thing happening today. I think what’s even scarier, perhaps, is that, while it’s unlikely to happen in the U.S., societies like Gilead \u00a0do \u00a0<\/em>exist in the world today\u2014in places like Afghanistan and \u00a0Iraq and parts of Pakistan (think of Malala, who was shot<\/a> trying to get an education)\u2014which take extreme forms of Islam as the main source of legislation and law, just as Gilead takes an extreme form of Christianity for its laws. What’s more, \u00a0the way women are viewed\u2014as secondary citizens, property, domestic servants\u2014used to be the norm across the world (yes, \u00a0even in the “Western World”!) \u00a0until the 20th century. So, while Atwood’s world takes it a bit farther, her “invented” world is not, in fact, so far from reality. What scariest to me is how crazy it seems reading it our from the comfort of the 21st century.<\/p>\n

I also want to pick up on AvatarKyoshi’s insightful comment on what distinguishes this novel, so far, from other dystopian books: \u00a0“With [Offred], I can feel the fear and distress and curiosity in every word, because it’s not based on the action of the plot so much as how the characters handle the new world they’re living in.” In other words, it’s Atwood’s focus on the characters and their development. This is a gripping novel, a suspenseful and thrilling one, and yet it is also a literary novel that is highly concerned with language in a way that\u2014as much as I love it!\u2014Hunger Games \u00a0<\/em>is not.<\/p>\n

I. \u00a0Characterization<\/p>\n

Those who did comment picked up on the fact that we know very little about Offred. She’s our heroine and yet we don’t \u00a0get a basic physical description or age until Chapter 24 and have yet to get \u00a0a real name\u2014and in that way it’s the opposite of most novels, which often start with \u00a0these facts we’ve come to see as essential. Why do you think Atwood might have chosen to withhold these details for so long? How does her \u00a0refusal to give them effect \u00a0you as a reader?<\/p>\n

II. \u00a0The Ceremony<\/p>\n

Um…so. Can someone please just break down “the ceremony” for us? What exactly happens? What’s it’s purpose? What “makes it bearable” to Offred? Also can I get some…reactions??? I mean, this is some seriously racy stuff, this is part of the reason Atwood’s novel has been so loudly opposed at many schools. Why even include such a detailed description of the actual, erm, “act”? Do you think it’s pornographic? Does it feel sexy? Also\u2014one last q\u2014Offred asks, at the end, “Which of us is it worse for, [Serena Joy] or me?” \u2014what do you think? Who is<\/em> it worse for?<\/p>\n

III. Nick.<\/p>\n

Oh, Nick, you sexy, \u00a0whistling chauffeur. Predictions? Swoons?IV. … and The Commander.<\/p>\n

Ugh. I hate him, and it seems to me what we have here is a pretty age-old story (man bored and lonely with wife seeks out mistress) but with Scrabble non-euphemistically played…or is it an age-old story?? Is \u00a0his<\/em> need for a mistress\u2014his stressed because he’s important and should have everything!\u2014somehow revealing<\/p>\n

IV. \u00a0Nolite te bastardes carborundum. \u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n

These are the words Offred found carved into her closet. Later, before the ceremony:<\/p>\n

“I pray silently: Nolite te bastardes carborundum<\/em>. I don’t what it means, but it sounds right, and it will have to do, because \u00a0I don’t what else I can say to God.” (Ch. 15)<\/p>\n

Then, later: “It sounds less like a prayer, more like a command.” (Ch. 24)<\/p>\n

OK\u2014WITHOUT GOOGLING or rather, if googling wasn’t the first thing you did when you came across a weird phrase you didn’t know\u2014what do you think these words mean? And why, \u00a0why<\/em>, if Offred has no idea what they mean, why have these words become so important to her? \u00a0What does it mean that their meaning to her seems to shift\u2014from prayer to command?<\/p>\n

V. \u00a0Flashbacks<\/p>\n

We get a lot more about Offred’s past\u2014about her mother, Moira, Aunt Lydia and the Red Center\u2014in this section. \u00a0Why do you think \u00a0Atwood \u00a0includes so many flashbacks to Offred’s life, to the “time before”? Doesn’t all of the “real action” exist in Gilead?<\/p>\n

On a related note: What does Offred mean when she calls her story a “reconstruction” (134)?<\/p>\n

For next week, read up to<\/u> Chapter 36.<\/p>\n

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Thanks to those of you who chimed in last week\u2014a lot of interesting thoughts. TKDgirl91 did an amazing job breaking down all the factors that allowed for the creation of society as restricted as Gilead continue reading<\/span>\n <\/path>\n <\/svg><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":393,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[7],"tags":[628,124,325,21871,612,21819],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388920"}],"collection":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/393"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1388920"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1388920\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1388920"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1388920"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1388920"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}