Critics read Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale as a cautionary story of oppression against women as well as a critique of radical feminism. Some who focus on Offred, the narrator and main character, criticize her passivity in the face of rigid limitations on her individual freedom: Gayle Green in her article, “Choice of Evils,” published…
Tag: Novels
The Handmaid’s Tale: Setting
International Conservatism In the 1980s, the political climate around the globe turned toward fiscal restraint and social conservatism. In general, this shift was a response to the permissiveness and unchecked social spending that occurred in the 1970s, which were in turn the extended results of the freedoms won by the worldwide social revolutions of the…
The Handmaid’s Tale: Imagery, Point of View & other Literary Devices
Narration The events in this novel take place at different points in the life of the narrator, but the primary setting, the present tense of the novel, is Gilead, where she has been a handmaid in the Commander’s house for five weeks. The reader is introduced to new characters that she meets from this point…
The Handmaid’s Tale – Themes
Sex Roles The roles that are assigned to the two genders in this novel are exaggerations of the roles traditionally played: women here are responsible for domestic duties and men in Gilead run the government functions (since this is a totalitarian state, business and military concerns are part of the government). To most of the…
The Handmaid’s Tale – Characters
The Commander The Commander is a powerful figure in the Gileadean government. He is apparently sterile, although this is not confirmed because, according to law, only women are tested for being fruitful or barren. The first time the Commander is seen breaking the strict social structure is when he sends for the handmaiden to come…
Great Expectations: Analysis
In the Victorian era, reading fiction was an extremely favorite pastime, and new novels were commonly published in serial format in periodicals. Many writers such as Charles Dickens became quite popular and developed huge followings that dutifully bought the periodicals in which they were published month after month, hooked by the entertaining and suspenseful stories….
Great Expectations: Setting
Industrialization Nineteenth century England had flourishing cities and emerging industries. Machines made it possible for those with money to invest to earn great profits, especially with an abundance of poor people who were willing to work long hours at hard or repetitive jobs for little pay. By contrast, the rural system included landlords, farmers, and…
Great Expectations: Bildungsroman & other Literary Devices
Point of View The first-person narrator of Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations is an adult Pip who tells the story in his own voice and from his own memory. What is distinctive about that voice is that it can so intimately recall the many small details of a little boy’s fear and misery, as well as…
Great Expectations: Themes
Alienation and Loneliness Beneath Charles Dickens’ major theme of a great respect for wealth is an analysis of the fate of the outsider. At least four known orphans-Mrs. Joe, Magwitch, Estella, and Pip himself-have suffered loneliness, but each character reacts differently. Pip begins his story as a child standing in a gloomy cemetery at the…
Great Expectations: Summary
The First Stage of Pip’s Expectations Charles Dickens’ Great Expectations opens as seven-year-old Philip Pirrip, known as “Pip,” visits the graves of his parents down in the marshes near his home on Christmas Eve. Here he encounters a threatening escaped convict, who frightens Pip and makes him promise to steal food and a file for…