Offred's narration

What ways does Atwood present Offred’s narration?

• Lends power to Offred,

• creates intimacy with the reader,

• unreliable.

What quotes show Offred’s narration gives her power?

• The novel’s structure as a narrative from Offred of her own experiences.

• “I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I’ll come back to dig up, one day” C14

• “I repeat my former name, remind myself of what I once could do, how others saw me” C17

• “I am thirty-three years old. I have brown hair. I stand five seven without shoes” C24

How does Offred’s narration giving her power link to the context of the 1980s?

• Atwood’s intention may have been to demonstrate the importance of resistance in order to criticise the anti-feminist backlash of the 1980s, when a hostile response to feminism emerged following the advances made by feminist campaigners during the 1970s.

• Writing in the context of second wave feminism, the idea of reclaiming women’s voices and experiences was central.

How does Offred’s narration giving her power link to the literary context?

Feminist literature often explores how patriarchal attempts to eras or silence women’s personal histories.

What have critics said about Offred’s narration giving her power?

Beran suggests “Offred reacts passively through memory and narration, preserving a sense of self that Gilead has tried to erase”.

What quotes show Offred’s narration creates intimacy with the reader?

• “I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not” C17

• “I’ll pretend you can hear me” C30

How does Offred’s narration creating intimacy with the reader link to the context of the 1980s?

Offred’s confessional narration serves as a warning about what happens when women’s voices are silenced. This is relevant in a time where the conservative values of the far right risked the oppression of women.

How does Offred’s narration creating intimacy with the reader link to the literary context?

Feminist literature often shares female experiences, Atwood allows the detail of Offred’s experience to be seen through Offred’s narration.

What have critics said about Offred’s narration creating intimacy with the reader?

Beran suggests “Offred’s narration draws the reader in as a confidant, a silent listener to her resistance”.

What quotes show Offred’s narration as unreliable?

• “When we think of the past it’s the beautiful things we pick out. We want to believe it was all like that” C6

• “Aunt Lydia did not actually say this, but it was implicit in everything she did say” C24

• “I need to remember what they look like […] blackness eats them” C30

• “I made that up. It didn’t happen that way. Here is what happened. […]. It didn’t happen that way wither. I’m not sure how it happened; not exactly” C40

• “What we have before us is not the item in its original form” HN

• “Professor Wade and myself arranged the blocks of speech in the order in which they appeared to go” HN

How does Offred’s narration being unreliable link to the context of the 1980s?

The 1980s saw renewed fear about state control and the rewriting of history, especially in the light of Cold War tensions. Atwood uses Offred’s faltering memory to reflect how truth is fragile.

How does Offred’s narration being unreliable link to the literary context?

THT can perhaps be seen as taking on a post-modern narrative through the fragmented nature of Offred’s storytelling, creating a contrast between fantasy and reality, reflecting the scepticism toward objective truth and belief that truth is constructed.

What have critics said about Offred’s narration being unreliable?

Howells suggests “Offred’s fragmented narrative reflects the difficulty of reconstructing experience under surveillance and trauma”.