A* exemplar essay points

Criticism of human behaviour intro

• the nature of humans is a key foundation to the messages in both Frankenstein and The Handmaid’s Tale, where Atwood and Shelley attempt to discuss the downfall of humanity through the theme of corruption or over-ambition

Religion

• In Shelley’s Frankenstein, the Creature’s frequently exercises the ‘eye for an eye’ prophecy of The Old Testament.
  (Commences the scientific debate of whether the creature was destined to be bad, if he is an inherently evil being, or whether the rejection and racism which he suffered from was the route to his killing)

• Shelley, similarly to Atwood, criticises the Creature’s tendencies to blame biblical philosophies instead of his own wrongdoing

Promethean

• Shelley chooses to write this novel to criticise the over-ambition seen in the Promethean myth, which Victor only realises moments before his death. (Moral message of Frankenstein is to be aware of ‘lofty ambition’ - for Victor’s ‘aspired…omnipotence’ caused him to be ‘sunk’. The idea of ‘plunging’ or ‘sinking’ creates a semantic field of lowness, which provides connotations of falling, alluding perhaps to the Genesis story of ‘the fall’, in which Adam and Eve ate from the tree of knowledge. The metaphorical consumption from the tree suggests that Victor will be punished for his actions, just as Adam and Eve were through their exile from the garden of Eden. This, again, reinforces the presence of religion in the novel, as well as links back to the Promethean metaphor, as the fire in the mythological story is a symbol for knowledge. The interlacing of religion with Greek mythology to describe Victor emphasise his inconsequentialism in the grand scheme of life; it was unlikely that he was ever able to compete with God
  (desire to change society)

• Such a desire is prevalent also in The Handmaid’s Tale, whereby the Eyes see women as a ‘national resource’ or a tool in order to change the purportedly doomed trajectory of society. The Eyes ‘shot the president’ and ‘machine-gunned congress’ and ‘the army declared a state of emergency’ - the syndetic listing with the repetition of ‘and’ in the book remarking the brute force of the Eyes, and their unwillingness to cease their tyranny until their desires were fulfilled. Therefore, many may draw links between Victor and the Eyes, for their misplaced perseverance to change society, a behaviour which both Shelley and Atwood choose to criticise

Doubling

• Shelley’s criticism of human behaviour is further exhibited through the 19th century convention of the duality of man, and how many debate that the creature is emblematic of the savage monster within Victor. The gothic convention of doubling, between the creature and Victor, contrasts the simplicity of the Commander, who is “just an ordinary kind of guy”.

• The creature, according to Victor, is “eloquent and persuasive”, and Victor, according to Walton, has a “power of… eloquence”. Such descriptions elaborate on the idea that the creature is merely the savage man inside the quintessential 19th century, Victor,  but they both are of the same nature, in actuality. This may be Shelley critiquing 19th century society for forcing Victor to repress his ‘monster’, so much so that he has to create him as something dangerous and inhumane to let it out.

• This highlights the idea that simply because something is possible, does not mean it is right, demonstrating the tension between ethics and possibility. In contrast, the Commander in 'The Handmaid's Tale' chooses to dissociate himself from morals entirely, namely due to the fact that he has interwoven his own, skewered version of ethics with what is possible. He echoes the Freudian idea of “anatomy is destiny”, through Gilead allowing women to “fulfil their biological destinies in peace”. The abstract noun ‘peace’ has connotations of tranquility and calmness, which wholly contrasts the Ceremony and institutionalised rape. Furthermore, the Freudian concept reduces the ability of women to their reproductive functions, and such thinking is reinforced in the Historical Notes, through the crude jokes of the title, with “tale” meaning a woman’s bum, or the comment regarding “The Female Frailroad”.  There is no gothic convention of the duality of man in 'The Handmaid's Tale', because the men are the monsters, they choose not to hide it.