Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum. Reading Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" and Christina Dalcher's "Vox" in Dialogue

Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum. Reading Margaret Atwood's Author:
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 334620037X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Dortmund, language: English, abstract: Recently, and especially in 2017, when Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States, Women’s Marches occurred all over the United States. In many of these marches, women used symbols from Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, such as red cloaks and white bonnets (Hauser). ‘Nolite te bastardes carborundorum’ perhaps the most quoted phrase of The Handmaid’s Tale meaning ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down’ became a feminist rallying cry during those women’s marches. The Handmaid’s Tale, which was written in 1985, regained popularity and relevance due to a rising political power of Christian fundamentalists, which led to attacks on women’s rights, particularly women’s reproductive rights (Armstrong). The Handmaid’s Tale made way for similar feminist novels exploring dystopian futures, such as Christina Dalcher’s Vox (LaMonica). Vox and The Handmaid’s Tale are both set in a dystopian future in which the U.S. has become a theocratic state. The women in Vox suffer by being limited to speak only one hundred words a day, while women in The Handmaid’s Tale are forced into circumscribed roles, for example the role of the Handmaid. These women are subject to ritualized rape. The society in The Handmaid’s Tale is reminiscent of societies in former human history, notably the Puritan society (Atwood Age of Trump) whereas the society in Vox is more futuristic and influenced by modern technologies, as this work will show. In this thesis, the patriarchal power structures of the dystopian societies in Vox and The Handmaid’s Tale will be analyzed by examining the sexual politics of patriarchal societies and state power as well as the use of language and punishment. I argue that both novels explore overt and subtle patriarchal structures, which have different impacts on the protagonists’ identities. The protagonists differ in their strategies of resistance and process their struggles differently. While Jean in Vox angrily holds on to her dominant and bold personality and is actively involved in the resistance against the Pure state, Offred is in pain and even numb and passively retreats to her memories and thoughts. Offred’s resistance is less politically motivated but rather anchored in her feelings on a personal level.

Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum. Reading Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" and Christina Dalcher's "Vox" in Dialogue

Nolite te Bastardes Carborundorum. Reading Margaret Atwood's Author:
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 334620037X
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 98

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Book Description
Master's Thesis from the year 2019 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, University of Dortmund, language: English, abstract: Recently, and especially in 2017, when Donald Trump was inaugurated as President of the United States, Women’s Marches occurred all over the United States. In many of these marches, women used symbols from Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, such as red cloaks and white bonnets (Hauser). ‘Nolite te bastardes carborundorum’ perhaps the most quoted phrase of The Handmaid’s Tale meaning ‘Don’t let the bastards grind you down’ became a feminist rallying cry during those women’s marches. The Handmaid’s Tale, which was written in 1985, regained popularity and relevance due to a rising political power of Christian fundamentalists, which led to attacks on women’s rights, particularly women’s reproductive rights (Armstrong). The Handmaid’s Tale made way for similar feminist novels exploring dystopian futures, such as Christina Dalcher’s Vox (LaMonica). Vox and The Handmaid’s Tale are both set in a dystopian future in which the U.S. has become a theocratic state. The women in Vox suffer by being limited to speak only one hundred words a day, while women in The Handmaid’s Tale are forced into circumscribed roles, for example the role of the Handmaid. These women are subject to ritualized rape. The society in The Handmaid’s Tale is reminiscent of societies in former human history, notably the Puritan society (Atwood Age of Trump) whereas the society in Vox is more futuristic and influenced by modern technologies, as this work will show. In this thesis, the patriarchal power structures of the dystopian societies in Vox and The Handmaid’s Tale will be analyzed by examining the sexual politics of patriarchal societies and state power as well as the use of language and punishment. I argue that both novels explore overt and subtle patriarchal structures, which have different impacts on the protagonists’ identities. The protagonists differ in their strategies of resistance and process their struggles differently. While Jean in Vox angrily holds on to her dominant and bold personality and is actively involved in the resistance against the Pure state, Offred is in pain and even numb and passively retreats to her memories and thoughts. Offred’s resistance is less politically motivated but rather anchored in her feelings on a personal level.

Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood PDF Author: Fiona Tolan
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9401204543
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 332

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Book Description
Margaret Atwood: Feminism and Fiction takes a new look at the complex relationship between Margaret Atwood’s fiction and feminist politics. Examining in detail the concerns and choices of an author who has frequently been termed feminist but has famously rejected the label on many occasions, this book traces the influences of feminism in Atwood’s work and simultaneously plots moments of dissent or debate. Fiona Tolan presents a clear and detailed study of the first eleven novels of one of Canada’s most prominent authors. Each chapter can be read as an individual textual analysis, whilst the chronological structure provides a fascinating insight into the shifting concerns of a popular and influential author over a period of nearly thirty-five years.

Dire Cartographies

Dire Cartographies PDF Author: Margaret Atwood
Publisher: Anchor
ISBN: 1101972009
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 43

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Book Description
In honor of the thirtieth anniversary of The Handmaid’s Tale: Margaret Atwood describes how she came to write her utopian, dystopian works. The word “utopia” comes from Thomas More’s book of the same name—meaning “no place” or “good place,” or both. In “Dire Cartographies,” from the essay collection In Other Worlds, Atwood coins the term “ustopia,” which combines utopia and dystopia, the imagined perfect society and its opposite. Each contains latent versions of the other. Following her intellectual journey and growing familiarity with ustopias fictional and real, from Atlantis to Avatar and Beowulf to Berlin in 1984 (and 1984), Atwood explains how years after abandoning a PhD thesis with chapters on good and bad societies, she produced novel-length dystopias and ustopias of her own. “My rules for The Handmaid’s Tale were simple,” Atwood writes. “I would not put into this book anything that humankind had not already done, somewhere, sometime, or for which it did not already have the tools.” With great wit and erudition, Atwood reveals the history behind her beloved creations.

Motherhood in Margaret Atwood’s novels

Motherhood in Margaret Atwood’s novels PDF Author: Ronja Thiede
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3668948674
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 65

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Book Description
Bachelor Thesis from the year 2018 in the subject American Studies - Literature, grade: 1,3, Catholic University Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, language: English, abstract: The aim of this bachelor thesis is to contribute to research on how feminist perspectives on motherhood are portrayed in North American fictional writing. For this purpose, I will use close reading techniques to analyze Margaret Atwood’s novels The Handmaid’s Tale, Cat’s Eye and Oryx and Crake to show that all three foster a feminist view on motherhood. I will argue that in the novels Atwood recognizes motherhood as both a source of oppression and a source of empowerment. Additionally, I will demonstrate how she dismantles the myth of perfect motherhood by portraying disrupted mother-child relationships, authentic maternal experiences and the subjectivity of mother figures that would traditionally be regarded as “bad” mothers.

Religious Fundamentalism in Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale"

Religious Fundamentalism in Margaret Atwood's Author: Melanie Lemke
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3640282698
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 57

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2008 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,7, RWTH Aachen University (Institut f r Anglistik), course: Utopian and Dystopian Novels, SS 2008, 24 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Margaret Atwood needs no longer an introduction in the common sense, because she is one of the most popular and productive writers in the world. Her works, especially her novels are taught at many universities worldwide. Her books are bestsellers and subjects of critical reviews and academical studies. Margaret Atwood wrote her novel The Handmaid's Tale in a time when religious fundamentalism had already been established in the United States. Through this historical background and her own experience with religious fundamentalism and the rising of feminism, it is not surprising that her novels also deal with such a thematic aspects. Moreover, Atwood copies her own experiences and imaginations of religious fundamentalism into the fictive and futuristic world of Gilead.

Hanging Between Heaven and Earth

Hanging Between Heaven and Earth PDF Author: Scott D. Seay
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : History
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
One of the most heavily ritualized spectacles of the 17th and 18th centuries, the public execution, warned of the wages of sin, reconciled the convict to the community, and demonstrated the authority of the state and the church. In New England, a clergyman not only played a central role in this ritual, he also wrote his own monologuethe execution sermon. Seay analyzes nearly one hundred execution sermons preached and published in colonial and early national New England and explores the themes of human sinfulness, the economy of conversion, and the nature and function of civil governament and the ways in which theological thinking about these themes changed over time.

A Study Guide for Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

A Study Guide for Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale PDF Author: Gale, Cengage Learning
Publisher: Gale, Cengage Learning
ISBN: 1410335941
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 35

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Book Description
A Study Guide for Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Novels for Students.This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Novels for Students for all of your research needs.

The Handmaid's Tale (Graphic Novel)

The Handmaid's Tale (Graphic Novel) PDF Author: Margaret Atwood
Publisher: Nan A. Talese
ISBN: 0385544855
Category : Comics & Graphic Novels
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
The stunning graphic novel adaptation • A must-read and collector’s item for fans of “the patron saint of feminist dystopian fiction” (New York Times). Look for The Testaments, the sequel to The Handmaid’s Tale In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian future, environmental disasters and declining birthrates have led to a Second American Civil War. The result is the rise of the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian regime that enforces rigid social roles and enslaves the few remaining fertile women. Offred is one of these, a Handmaid bound to produce children for one of Gilead’s commanders. Deprived of her husband, her child, her freedom, and even her own name, Offred clings to her memories and her will to survive. Provocative, startling, prophetic, The Handmaid’s Tale has long been a global phenomenon. With this beautiful graphic novel adaptation of Margaret Atwood’s modern classic, beautifully realized by artist Renée Nault, the terrifying reality of Gilead has been brought to vivid life like never before.

THE HANDMAID'S TALE - Summarized for Busy People

THE HANDMAID'S TALE - Summarized for Busy People PDF Author: Goldmine Reads
Publisher: Goldmine Reads
ISBN:
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 39

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Book Description
This book summary and analysis is created for individuals who want to extract the essential contents and are too busy to go through the full version. This book is not intended to replace the original book. Instead, we highly encourage you to buy the full version. Change has arrived in America. With it comes a new world order—the rise of a theocratic regime called the Republic of Gilead which takes the Old Testament at its every word. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is told through the eyes of Offred, one of the ill-fated Handmaids in the new Republic of Gilead. In the present world, Handmaids are stripped of their own names, their rights, their families, and even their ability to read and write. Now a mere possession of one of the new regime's formidable Commanders and his Wife, Offred's value lies only in her fertility and her capacity to bear a child. Gripping and grotesque, The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian masterpiece that illustrates what could happen when the liberal transforms into the puritanical, and what people are capable of when the puritanical ultimately distorts into the radical. Wait no more, take action and get this book now!

Summary and Analysis of The Handmaid's Tale

Summary and Analysis of The Handmaid's Tale PDF Author: Worth Books
Publisher: Open Road Media
ISBN: 1504044169
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 49

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Book Description
So much to read, so little time? This brief overview of The Handmaid’s Tale tells you what you need to know—before or after you read Margaret Atwood’s book. Crafted and edited with care, Worth Books set the standard for quality and give you the tools you need to be a well-informed reader. This short summary and analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood includes: Historical context Part-by-part summaries Analysis of the main characters Themes and symbols Important quotes Fascinating trivia Glossary of terms Supporting material to enhance your understanding of the original work About Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale: Margaret Atwood’s dystopian literary masterpiece tells the story of Offred, a Handmaid living in the near future in what was once the United States. A new theocratic regime called the Republic of Gilead has come to power and changed life as she knew it. Once Offred had a her own name and a loving family—a husband and daughter—both of which were taken from her; now she belongs to the Commander and his hostile wife, and her only value lies in her ability to bear a child for them. She used to read books and learn; now such things are forbidden to all women. Gripping, disturbing, and so relevant today, The Handmaid’s Tale is a brilliant novel and a chilling warning about what can happen when extreme ideas are taken to their logical conclusions. The summary and analysis in this ebook are intended to complement your reading experience and bring you closer to a great work of fiction.