Reading the Romance Plot in The Handmaid’s Tale

by amandrho

In Madonne Miner’s article,’ “Trust Me”: Reading the Romance Plot in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale’, she makes the claim that by paying attention to the novels ‘signifying systems and the construction of meaning’, Atwood expresses real ambivalence about its characters enactment of ‘the love story’. I find this claim to be fascinating, because throughout my reading of the novel I found myself wondering about love and its place in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. Miner argues that love is a force subverting Gilead’s power; in her article she quotes Coral Ann Howell’s assertion that, ‘heterosexual love is the excess term which the system can neither accommodate nor suppress  Its stubborn survival continually subverts the regime’s claim to absolute authority, creating imaginative spaces within the system and finally the very means of Offred’s escape from Gilead.’ And while I do agree that these reactions make sense, I question whether it is actual love or desire, or maybe a combination of both.

As I was reading Margaret Atwood’s novel, the reoccurring theme of extra martial affairs caught my interest. For example, before Luke and Offred were married in the life before Gilead, they had an affair for months. Luke was married to another woman, and Offred used to yearn for the stolen moments with Luke inside cheap hotels. Later, Luke had fulfilled his promise to Offred by divorcing his wife and marrying her. I found it extremely ironic that Offred chose to be the outsider, or the ‘other woman’ so to speak, in an affair with Luke because when she becomes a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, she’s forced into being a concubine for her commander. What she had once done willingly she now was forced to do to survive. The juxtaposition of these two circumstances are extremely appealing.

What drives an affair? One could argue love; but once could also argue desire. Many aspects must be taken into consideration-i.e. the situation, the people, the relationship. This is what I plan to do in my essay.

Dailey- Blog Post 4

by cmdailey2

A Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood is a novel that has become a topic of many controversial discussions and interpretations.  Negative images of the future are present throughout the novel, which can give readers a frightening view on our potential world.  It falls under the dystopia category because of its anti-utopia setting. When dystopian books are written there are always questions regarding the likelihood of events in the novel to occur in reality.  The natural thoughts wondering how soon could our world become a dystopian society haunt the minds of many readers.  Gorman Beauchamp attempts to answer those questions in his scholarly journal The Politics of The Handmaid’s Tale.

Beauchamp claims that Atwood’s novel is “an absolute historical improbability” in his critique.  Beauchamp is urging readers to not worry about how long America has until it becomes the Republic of Giliad because of how unlikely it is.  He points out the major flaws in the details of the plot that make the novel so unrealistic.  I found his argument to be very compelling through his various examples and evidence to support his claim. One of the major points to Beauchamp’s argument was the fact that there are very few true supports of the new world in the novel.  He describes this void of supporters as “a fanatical regime without the fanatics.”  The Aunts seem to be the only characters in the novel that are going along exactly with what the republic wants.  They are not very high in the hierarchy, but by trying to teach the Handmaid’s the new law, they are still followers.  On the other hand, the Commander, Serena Joy, Nick, the doctors, a group of Handmaids, and also high status citizens all partake in outlawed behavior and activity.  There are so many characters throughout the novel that secretly break rules, that as readers we should question how the revolution began and where the power to enforce the rules actually comes from.   The novel is very ambiguous with the motives behind the revolution and who is behind it.  Without a clear group of followers for the revolution, the events that take place in A Handmaid’s Tale are not as convincing and therefore less worrisome for those who believe America is headed for a dystopia.

“A hermeneutic exploration of the literature of technology”

by dannyfar

This article explores the novel Frankenstein in terms of the common theme of technology. Although this is a common theme, the author takes a very interesting spin. He claims that Frankenstein struggles explicitly with the issues of control and a modernistic agenda of narcissistic control over the natural world. To simplify, he is claiming that Dr. Frankenstein trying to make himself the master of death – and ultimately failing – caused all of the negative externalities that occurred in the novel.

            The author furthers the claim by saying that a moment of reverie is the cause of the timeless aspect of Frankenstein. As he himself wrote, “It is for this reason that, in the same way that the classical Greek myths invoke powerful images that speak to contemporary situations with startling clarity, Frankenstein calls up feelings of horror and pity in the modern reader.” The claim is then elaborated on with quotes from psychologists from the University of Delaware who link the aspects of the novel to our modern society.

The author also cites such novels works as Berman, written in 1981, to exemplify his claim that the modern world is struggling to control nature. He claims that we are increasingly less willing to except that certain elements are beyond our control. One such example is with antibiotics. We are trying to kill bacteria and fight disease, but the consequences of this are super strains of bacteria. Also, the human immune system is weaker due to our reliance on modern medicine. This will eventually lead to a pandemic. 

Irony in the Handmaid’s Tale

by Betsy S.

Betsy L. Smith
4-8-13

         In her piece From Irony to Affiliation in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Jennifer Wagner-Lawlor makes a bold statement by claiming that Offred’s narrative is “simply too ironic”(1). Wagner-Lawlor tells her audience that she believes Offreds, as well as Atwood’s stance at the end of the novel is much more than a political cop-out. The author observes that because of Oddred’s back and forth nature, she is hard to pin down as a character. Wagner states that, “Offred’s narrative is famously indeterminate; it’s very structure is characterized by ironic provisionality, the refusal to commit to any one version.” This description makes Offred seem to be an even more appealing character, especially to those who have not read the novel.

                Wagner also explores the detail behind Offred’s decisions in the novel. She uses her decision to not take the offer of artificial insemination from her doctor to show how though Offred’s purpose is to have a child; it is also a way to assimilate to the Gilead regime.  Wagner does not feel that it was Atwood’s purpose to create a novel everyone saw as a “feminist Utopia” (2). She claims that Atwood, “offers no blueprints for a just society…” but teaches readers to think about irony both narrow and widely (2). Wagner show readers that The Handmaid’s Tale is not just a dystopian piece because the irony throughout the piece leads the audience away from that judgment.

Who is the True Monster?

by taylary

By Taylar Young

Blog Post Number 4

     Using JSTOR, I found the following article: <i>Legacy of Frankenstein: The Monster is the One in the White Lab Coat.</i> As made obvious by the title, the main claim in the article questions the authenticity of those who name Victor Frankenstein’s creation as the true monster in the story. Paul Northman, the author, makes it apparent that in the modern technology age where genetic sciences, genome mapping, and forward thinking approaches are becoming the new faces of science, we must question the authenticity of the men we place in charge of such projects. We must consider human nature. Mary Shelley has been quoted having said,” Experimental scientists, like all human beings, may be too prone to ego gratification, self-centeredness, obliviousness to the implications of their actions and a tendency to shirk moral responsibility.” Today’s scientists are supposed to be driven by values that further the sciences for all mankind.        

   In <i>Frankenstein</i>, that was not the case as Victor vigorously pursued the completion of the monster not for the advancement of human knowledge but for the glory it would bring him in the scientific world. To relate back to the claim, the article explains Victor’s role in society at the time, “The scientist, not the monster, is portrayed as the greater threat to middle-class ethics and sensibilities.” This is shown especially well in the novel as Victor neglects his family and obtains relationships with people as a means to an end to complete his research. It becomes obvious as we continue to read this article that the scientist behind every creation gone-wrong is the genuine monster.

The Education of the Monster

by rebehann

In most stages of the novel, Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein discusses or alludes to education. What this means for the characters varies, although both Victor and the monster are changed drastically by their learnings. In Shun-Liang Chao’s article, Education as a Pharmakon in Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, Chao argues that education is a bittersweet guide in the novel. Chao starts from looking at Victor’s initial desire to enliven a body, and how that is done through his arduous studies. He is immediately filled with “breathless horror and disgust” (39) once the monster is created, and flees the scene. The monster then struggles to rid himself of his origins by learning human language. Chao sees this as evidence to education being a “pharmakon”- a transformation that brings both pleasure and pain.

 

Throughout the article, there are references to the family that the monster watched while acquiring his newfound communication. The support for the “pharmakon” nature of education comes partly from the monster’s desire to gain knowledge, but once he does, he is more acutely aware of his deformities. This both brings him closer to engaging with society in a way he desires, but also realizes what is stopping him from interacting in a way he tries to emulate. I believe that this claim holds true for Frankenstein, and that Chao gives sufficient evidence to support this.

The Importance of Gender Roles in a Society

by mbrianna2013

            Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a major theme of gender roles; “The subservience of women- their restriction to the domestic sphere and classification in the terms of childbearing abilities- reapplies ancient models of sexual difference and masculine imperative.” Explains Pamela Cooper in Sexual surveillance and medical authority in two versions of The Handmaid’s Tale. Gender roles play an important part in our daily life in modern times as well and are still a largely debated topic.

            In The Handmaid’s Tale we see how men are largely idolized in this dystopian society. In the novel we watch how a very free and liberal society is transformed to a strict and structured society. Women hold less of a place in the society and are mainly used for procreation, opposed to love, emotional attachment, and partnership.

            In the novel, the Handmaids- whose sole purpose is reproduction- is forced to lie between another woman’s legs and have detached, emotionless sex with a commander in hopes of becoming pregnant. This process is similar to “the biblical story of Jacob and Rachel” which the Republic of Gilead uses to stress that women are punitive and their society is technological and depersonalized in order to obtain a masculine order.

            It appears in the novel that this “Republic of Gilead” thinks in order to maintain a tight grasp upon society it must place unequal and strict reinforcement of gender roles. “The proprietorial eye of male desire becomes the weapon of fascism in Gilead.” Women have fought decades for their rights and this novel suggests that even in a modern world it is still thought that men should be more dominate then women and that they should receive their wants and desires above women’s. “Woman than stands in patriarchal culture as signifier for the male other, bound by a symbolic order in which man can live out his fantasies and obsessions through linguistic command by imposing them on the silent image of woman still tied to her places as bearer or meaning, not maker of meaning.”

            In conclusion, it is evident that males even in a modern time or a glimpse at the “future” seem to dominant or hold more power than females. Gender roles have been battling back and forth for generations and The Handmaid’s Tale depicts this well.

Overlooking Offred

by jaylajohnson

Jayla Johnson

Complit 122

Blog Post #4

 

            The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is the motivation for many scholarly critiques arguing for various abnormal sexual and societal undertones throughout the novel. One scholar in particular who wrote the piece, “Trust Me’: Reading the Romance Plot in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale”, argues that this novel is not one that emphasizes the wrongdoings of a dystopian society, but rather it is an attempt to highlight the toughness, determination, adaptability, and versatility of women. While the book is told from the handmaid’s perspective, and the reader is forced to see things from her view (ie, the reader does not read because she does not read, the reader is forced to view the ceremony from her position, etc.), the mental stability of the handmaid is constantly overlooked. We as readers fail to acknowledge that this women lost her child and was later told that the child has been given to a “more fit” guardian, has no husband, and is forced to be a sex slave because she is fertile. We also overlook the pressures placed on her by society, like being forced to break the law and sleep with another man because the commander is sterile, having the pressure of the commander’s wife constantly thrown at her because of the wife’s jealousy and impatience throughout the situation, and ultimately, being in love with a man she cannot be with. The most decisive way the critic emphasizes Offred’s mental toughness is through her review of the distinctions that Offred makes between the men in her life. She sees the commander as a duty, Luke as an irreplaceable lost love, and Nick as a forbidden new lover. Being able to categorize men in the novel further stresses Offred’s mental capacity to sift through taxing situations and maintain a positive outlook on life. 

Blog Post 4

by gregoryboehm813

 While researching on the online database JSTOR I found Paul Northam’s article, “Legacy of Frankenstein: The Monster is the One in the White Lab Coat”, which I chose to reflect upon for this blog post. The article is a critique on many of our common misconceptions about the Frankenstein story and other things we may overlook.

Northam focuses on how the true character of Victor Frankenstein is often overlooked in the story. He focuses on the lack of fundamental moral judgement in Frankenstein makes leaves him at primary fault for the catastrophes that ensue from his creation. Northam goes on to discuss how the creation in the story is often viewed as evil or monstrous because he is the physical being that actually kills Frankenstein’s loved ones. However, as Northam says, “the monster is only a tool”. Frankenstein created this tool and did not have the moral judgement to think of the consequences of his action. He abandons the creature and because of this sparks the chain of catastrophes that the monster brings about. According to Northam, Frankenstein alone causes the horror that befalls his family and loved ones and because of this he is the true monster of the Frankenstein story.

Blog Post 4

by nuga94

Many people know of the novel Frankenstein, and many people have read the novel. While it is well regarded as one of the novels that all people should read at least once in their lifetime, the reason as to why Mary Shelley even wrote the novel in the first place has remained an enigma of sorts. However, one Anthony F. Badalamenti has made an attempt at decoding and taking apart Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein in order to determine the purpose behind Shelley writing her novel. In the article, “Why did Mary Shelley write Frankenstein?” Badalamenti claims that the main reason as to why Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein is because it was a way of expressing her emotions of pain in response to Percy Shelley, her husband. Badalamenti also claims that Shelley’s emotionally damaging past experiences contributed to her writing the novel. Badalamenti goes further and says that the creature that Frankenstein creates is a method in which Shelley processes the fact that certain aspects of her relationship with Percy Shelley were so painful that it turned into a monster of sorts.

At first, I was unsure as to where Badalamenti was going to take the issue in his essay. Also, I did not know whether to agree with him or to disagree with him. However, the more I read into his essay the more his claims made sense. Just the fact that Mary Shelley’s relationship with her husband was an unstable one, to say the least, was enough to have me partially convinced, but upon reading through Badalamenti’s argument and seeing how he supports his claim, convinced me as to why Mary Shelley wrote Frankenstein, which was, in essence, a reaction to the way she felt towards her husband and their relationship with each other. Of course, others will argue that Mary Shelley had different intentions behind writing Frankenstein, but I think that Badalamenti’s claim has some, if not concrete, truth in it.

Luke Kim