What to revise for The Handmaid’s Tale

I have has a lot of questions about what to focus on when revising ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. It is a long book and there are so many things that could write about. So here are a few suggestions.

Show the marker of your essay that you’re familiar with how the book reflects feminist concerns about Western (and particularly American) society’s views on women’s rights in the late 20th century; issues such as rights to equal employment, to political activity, to contraception and, crucially, for The Handmaid’s Tale – rights to abortion.

Also, it’s impressive if you can mention that the Handmaid’s Tale reflects a dystopian world (the opposite of Utopia). It depicts a totalitarian state where those in power seek to abolish all personal freedoms – even those of thought; this theme is also explored in 1984 by George Orwell and in Brave New World by Aldous Huxley, and is a common theme in 20th century fiction.

In terms of the quotations to remember, I would go into the exam with quotations which provide evidence of:
– Character (qualities) and characterisation (how the writer tells us/reveals to us what they’re like)
– The significance of the setting(s) in time and place
– The narrative point of view and how it can give us a privileged insight into the character’s mind
– Key moments/scenes in the story (plot features) and
– An ability to describe the structure of the story – not chapter wise, just a broad general outline.
– I would also want a quotation which I could use at the end of the essay in the conclusion – something that you think gets right to the heart of what the book is about.

Quotations

Here are some key thematic quotations you might want to consider:

1. ‘This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will.’ End chpt 6.
Gilead can transform a natural human response into horror or blankness.

2. ‘If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending.’
Offred feels story telling is a rebellion. Gilead can’t control her inner life.

3. ‘I’m in a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear which is hard and more real than I am…’
Offred shows here she has internalised Gilead’s psychological persuasion that her womb is a national resource.

4. ‘He was not a monster, to her.’
Shows the Nazi guard mentality of the Commander – kind, gentle but responsible for oppression.

5. ‘The main problem was with the men. Inability to feel. Men were turning off sex, even.’
Atwood commenting on a post feminist backlash nightmare. Here men explain how feminists emasculated them (‘an inability to feel’) thereby justifying a consequent regaining of status through limiting women’s and their own freedom.