(Feel free to add any helpful notes and tips as well.

My class is focusing on Persepolis, The Handmaid’s

Tale and One Day in the Life of Ivan Denisovich)

➢ The Definitive Guide on How to Not Die in Eng LangLit​ (Very helpful)
➢ ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ - Narrative Technique Grid
➢ Social, political and historical context of 'The Handmaid’s Tale'
➢ Paper 2 THT
➢ Persepolis: ​Paper 2 - The Handmaid's Tale​The Party (Chapter Summary and Analysis)
➢ Mechanics of a graphic novel
➢ NOTES FOR READING PERSEPOLIS
➢

Paper 1
SL IS ONLY ANALYSING ONE TEXT. HL IS COMPARING TWO TEXTS ​Remember for Paper 1 both
texts will have a similar theme. The form, purpose and audience will usually be different and this is what you
compare and contrast. Make sure you state what the overall theme of the texts is about in your introduction and
then you can focus on the form, audience and purpose of each text in the rest of your introduction. Make sure
that you discuss the audience in enough detail and look at all the clues regarding the context.

As part of your conclusion, you can comment on how successfully the writers achieve their purpose (bearing in
mind that they are probably professional writers). You can also comment on the impact that the texts had on
you.

The words below are useful to explain the purpose of a text. You can also elaborate on these by being more
specific when explaining the purpose.

To inform
To persuade
To entertain
To analyse
To review
To comment
To argue
To advise
To describe

● entertain – to amuse the reader or make them enjoy reading the text
● persuade – to influence the viewpoint of the reader - these texts may be biased
● advise – to help people decide what to do - these texts may give ideas and options
● analyse – to break down something to help people to understand it better
● argue – to make the case for something - these texts may be one-sided
● describe – to give precise details about a person, place, object or experience
● explain – to make clear ‘how’ and ‘why’ something works or happens in a certain way
● inform – to tell a reader about something they don’t know, or add to their knowledge
● instruct – to tell a reader how to do something, ordered step-by-step
Ethos - an appeal to logic. A writer may use facts, statistics or quotes by experts in order to build on, emphasise
or prove a particular point. Therefore this is what you discuss wh
en analysing such a point. They don’t use them to prove their credibility so please don’t say this is the case in
your analysis. If the writer has been published we can accept that they are credible or professional.
Revise words for comparing and contrasting. ​‘Differently’ ​at the start of a sentence is NOT correct.

Comparing
Similarly,
Likewise,
Just as,
The writer of Text B also

Contrasting
In contrast,
The writer of text B
On the other hand,
Unlike Text A, Text B is,
Whereas Text A…., Text B….

If you are unsure if a word is an adjective or an adverb then you can refer to it as a pre-modifier 4
E.g He was an unpleasantly angry king.r
Unpleasantly =adverb, angry = adjective-
Both are pre-modifiers. (They modify the noun ‘king’ and are placed before the noun).

In the sentence ‘The king was unpleasantly angry’

Unpleasantly =adverb, angry = adjective
Both are post-modifiers. (They modify the noun ‘king’ and are placed after the noun.

So, if in doubt, use the terms pre or postmodifiers.

The big 5 is a useful structure (Audience and Purpose, Content and Theme, Tone and Mood, Stylistic Devices
and Structure)

Choose your evidence from the text carefully.

Your intro should follow something like:
1. "A cursory examination of this text suggests" "At a glance" "At first glance" "A surface analysis
suggests." This is where you identify the most apparent features of the text, and you bring in simple
context things here, like dates.
2. "After all" "That is to say" "This can be seen." This is to identify the audience and purpose, as well as
provide a small bit of evidence for this surface examination. You might want more than one sentence
here; you're trying to front-load your essay with context, audience, and purpose, as all three must be
addressed (sprinkle them throughout your essay as well).
3. "However" "A closer reading/look suggests." This is getting into the theme of your essay and likely has
to deal with the main idea of the text/a deeper meaning conveyed.
4. "By looking at." This is your thesis. Your thesis should examine 3 formal or stylistic features at a
minimum so that they get taken care of throughout the essay.
In body paragraphs, it should be something like:
1. Topic sentence -- By looking at [Feature] in [Author's name] [Text name], it can be seen that [Point of
thesis/subpoint related to thesis]
2. Point -- Kind of like a topic sentence for each example, but more specific effects than just the thesis.
3. Evidence -- From the text. Images count. Make sure you can identify the feature that you are citing, and
be as precise as possible!
4. Explanation -- Roughly 3 sentences where you explain how this affects the meaning. Bring in the
audience (especially for ads) and purpose (i.e. author's intentions) here.
5. Point
6. Evidence
7. Explanation (you can do this cycle as many times as you want, but 2-3 times is usually best)
8. Synthesis (if necessary)
9. Linking sentence (more optional for organization and coherence; skip them and leave some room in your
paper to put them in later).
Go through this cycle for each body paragraph.
The conclusion should go like:
1. Restate thesis`
2. Bring in more context, and how that relates to the meaning you've been arguing in the thesis
3. Open it up to similar texts/other analysis

Generally, your goal should be to nail the intro. Once you have an amazing intro, it does two things. First, the
examiner knows they're getting into a good essay, and rate you higher because of it. The second is that it allows
you to know where you're going with the essay itself, so your analysis is argumentative and comprehensive. This
is why the suggested time divvied up for paper 1 is:

Reading time -- Choose the text. The best way is by gut

20 minutes -- Plan your essay. At the end of this, you should have your intro done.
60 minutes -- Write the rest of the essay
10 minutes -- Edit and revise. At this point, do not rewrite a full paragraph to make it neater/better, as tempting
as it is. This is to fix absolutely illegible things, fix spelling, and add things you wanted to say earlier.
Poetic Devices
➢ Alliteration: the repetition of consonant sounds, particularly at the beginning of words
○ Example: ". . . like a wanderer white”
➢ Allusion: a reference to a person, event, or work outside the poem or literary piece
○ Example: “Shining, it was Adam and maiden”
➢ Assonance: the repetition of similar vowel sounds
○ Example: “I rose and told him of my woe”
➢ Elision: the omission of an unstressed vowel or syllable to preserve the meter of a line of poetry
○ Example: “Th’ expense of spirit in a waste of shame”
➢ Imagery: word or sequence of words representing a sensory experience (visual, auditory, olfactory,
tactile, and gustatory)
○ Example: “bells knelling classes to a close” (auditory)
➢ Irony: a contradiction of expectation between what is said and what is meant (verbal irony) or what is
expected in a particular circumstance or behaviour (situational), or when a character speaks in ignorance
of a situation known to the audience or other characters (dramatic)
○ Example: “Time held me green and dying / Though I sang in my chains like the sea”
➢ Onomatopoeia: the use of words to imitate the sounds they describe
○ Example: “crack” or “whir”
➢ Slant rhyme (off rhyme, half rhyme, imperfect rhyme): rhyme formed with words with similar but not
wholly identical sounds
○ Example: barn / yard
➢ Synesthesia: an attempt to fuse different senses by describing one in terms of another
○ Example: the sound of her voice was sweet
➢ Symbol: an object or action that stands for something beyond itself
○ Example: white = innocence, purity, hope
○ Example: black = i’m a baa-aa-a-a-a-ad guy
Paper 2

Persepolis
Page  Chapter  Quote 

3  The Veil  “Then came 1980: The year it became obligatory to wear the veil at school” 

4  The Shah: “All bilingual schools must be closed down. They are symbols of 
capitalism...of decadence.” 

74  The Trip  Mother: ​“They insulted me. They said women like me should be pushed up against a 
wall and fucked. And then thrown in the garbage. And if I didn’t want that to happen I 
should wear the veil” 

Mother: “She should start learning to defend her rights as a woman right now!” 

“Soon, it won’t just be food. With all those sluts out there, we’re going to have to 
watch our husbands” 

76  The Trip  Fundamentalist protesters: ​“THE VEIL OR A BEATING!” 

145  The Dowry  Taji (to Marjane): ​“You know what they do to young girls they arrest?! It’s against 
the law to kill a virgin, so a guardian of the revolution marries her and takes her 
virginity before executing her. You know what that means?” 

270     

296  The  Marjane: “Why is it that I, as a woman, am expected to feel nothing when watching 
Convocation  these men with their clothes sculpted on but they, as men, can get excited by two 
inches less of my head-scarf?” 

    “In no time, the way people dressed became an ideological sign there were two kinds 
of women” 
“You showed your opposition to the regime by letting a few strands of their show” 

    “Nevertheless, things were evolving… year by year, women were winning an eighth 
of an inch of hair and losing an eighth of an inch of the veil” 

301  The Socks  Guardian (to Marjane): ​“Yes, but when you run, your behind makes movements that 
are...how do you say...obscene!” 

302  Marjane: ​“It hinged on the little details. To our leaders the smallest thing could be a 
subject of subversion - showing your wrist, a loud laugh, having a Walkman. In short 
everything was a pretext to arrest us.” 

Marjane: “​The regime had understood that one person leaving her house while asking 
herself ‘Are my trousers long enough? Is my veil in place? Can my make-up be seen? 
Are they going to whip me?’ no longer asks herself…” 

310  Guardian: ​“Go on, put on your veils! Let’s load up these whores!” 

332  The End  Farnaz: “From men’s point of view, for one thing, their dicks are irresistible and for 
another thing, since you are divorced, you’re no longer a virgin and you have no 
reason to refuse them.” 

332  Farnaz: “Even beggars in the street, all made it clear they’d like to sleep with her”  
 337  Marjane:​ “If a guy kills ten women in the presence of fifteen others, no one can 
condemn him because in a murder case, we women, we can’t even testify! He’s also 
the one who has the right to divorce, and even if he gives it to you he nonetheless has 
custody of the children! I heard a religious man justify this law by saying that man 
was the grain and woman, the earth in which the grain grew, therefore the child 
naturally belonged to his father? Do you realise?! I can’t take it anymore!” 
 
 

The Handmaid’s Tale

Page  Chapter  Quote/evidence 

    Handmaids must travel in twos 

    Women unable to reproduce are actively discriminated against 

    Janine is openly denounced in the Rachel and Leah Centre for having an abortion as a 
result of being raped at the age of fourteen 

    The Ceremony (obviously) 

    “​There are other women with baskets, some in red, some in the dull green of the
Marthas, some in the striped dresses, red and blue and green and cheap and skimp,
that mark the women of the poorer men. Econowives, they're called. These women are
not divided into functions. They have to do everything; if they can. “

    “​My nakedness is strange to me already. [...] Did I really wear bathing suits, at the
beach? I did, without thought, among men, without caring that my legs, my arms, my
thighs and back were on display, could be seen. Shameful, immodest. I avoid looking
down at my body, not so much because it's shameful or immodest but because I don't
want to see it. I don't want to look at something that determines me so completely.”