Investigate!

The Handmaid’s Tale

Sections 1-2

Investigating Section 1:  Make a list of the ways in which

Night - Chapter one
 What impressions have you gained
from this chapter of the narrator
and her circumstances?
Investigate! The Handmaid’s Tale:
Gilead controls its citizens, as
revealed or hinted at in this chapter.
(You will find further material to add
to this list later in the novel.)

 By what means?
 What do you not know that you Section 2:
would have expected to find out -
from the first chapter of a novel? 
 What might be the author’s
purpose in keeping such
knowledge from her readers?

Investigating Section 2:
Shopping - Chapter two 
 Make a list of the ways, revealed in
this chapter, by which the powers
that be in Gilead control people’s
lives, especially those of women.

Investigating Section 2:
Shopping - Chapter three
 Draw up a detailed description of
Serena Joy - appearance, character Investigating Section 2:
and behaviour - as revealed in this
chapter.
Shopping - Chapter six
 Atwood said of her novel 'There's
nothing in the book that hasn't
Investigating Section 2: already happened.’ The Wall, which
Shopping - Chapter four Atwood describes as being ‘hundreds
 Look up the biblical quotations, and of years old’ has been used in Gilead
names based on biblical terms, used for a sinister purpose.
in this chapter:  Use a web search to investigate
‘The car is...a Whirlwind,
Sections 1-2

other examples of the use of

better than the Chariot (or)
the chunky, practical
Behemoth’ - 2 Kings 2:11 /
Job 40:15-24
‘perhaps he is an Eye’ -
Proverbs 15:3
‘Some of you will fall on dry
ground, or thorns’ - Luke
8:4-15
‘Blessed be the fruit’ -
Genesis 1:28
‘Praise be… I receive with
joy’ – 2 Corinthians 1:3 /
Luke 8:13
 In what ways has Gilead twisted
them for its own purposes?
© 2012 crossref-it.info
walls by political regimes which
Atwood may have had in mind,
or which may reflect ideas of
oppressive regimes
You might begin with the
Berlin Wall ... and will also
find information in entries
about walls in Iraq, Israel,
Northern Ireland as well as
other, more ancient ones.
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