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The Handmaid’s Tale critics

  1. Atwood - "My intention was just to document what I was doing and had done"

  2. Atwood - "I didn't make it up. This is the proof - everything in these boxes"

  3. Catherine R. Stimpson - “The Aunts [...] represent Atwood's most disdainful depiction of the petty female boss”

  4. Carol L. Beran - “Offred's power is in language.”

  5. Amin Malak - “If such positive characters do exist, they usually prove miserably ineffectual when contending with ruthless and overwhelming powers”

  6. Catherine R. Stimpson - "In one of her most original manoeuvres, Atwood links the morality of the Aunts to that of radical feminists.”

  7. Catherine R. Stimpson - "In the active syllogism of power, the premises of repression lead to conclusions of oppression"

  8. Lilian Feder - “The self is the greatest challenge to a totalitarian regime's authorise diversions of reality”

  9. Ehrenreich. - “As in 1984, the only subversive force appears to be love.”

  10. Feuer. - “Gilead constructs women as seen objects instead of seeing subjects.”

  11. Coral Ann Howells - “Its shift from Gilead to the historical conference at Nunavit two hundred years later is relatively optimistic.”

  12. Anne Enright - “As a novel, The Handmaid’s Tale is held together by the sexual tensions between the characters.”

  13. Julie Myerson - “Surely one of the reasons Gilead managed to be so spookily convincing was that Atwood cunningly chose to leave so many of its edges blurry.”

  14. Barbara Ehrenreich - “Still, it does remind us that, century after century, women have been complicit in their own undoing”

  15. Amin Malak - “Dystopias essentially deal with power: power as the prohibition or perversion of human potential”

  16. Amin Malak - “dystopias dramarise the eternal conflict between individual choice and social necessity.”

  17. Amin Malak - “If such positive characters do exist, they usually prove miserably ineffectual when contending with ruthless and overwhelming powers”

  18. Stokwisz - “Language is the main instrument of ideological and social control”

  19. Wisker (Comparable to 1984) - “Reduced people to their functions: control, reproduction, service and those who regulate those functions.”

  20. Howells - “Gilead is a totalitarian regime run on Patriarchal lines from the old testament”

  21. Wisker - “There is no sisterhood only division and disempowerment”

  22. Wisker - “In Atwood's novel, language is coded, thoughts policed and all sexual freedom has been lost”

  23. Heidi Macpherson - "Fear of betrayal and inculcated self surveillance keep the Handmaids from speaking out"

  24. Lee Briscoe - "Moira is Offred's rebel alter ego"

  25. Coral Howell - "Atwood's feminist concerns are plain here but so too are her concern for basic human rights."

  26. Patricia Goldblatt - "The work women do, conspires to maintain the subjection of their own kind."

  27. Alanna Callaway - “The evolution of a new form of misogyny, not as we usually think of it ,as men's hatred of women, but as women's hatred of women.”

SM

The Handmaid’s Tale critics

  1. Atwood - "My intention was just to document what I was doing and had done"

  2. Atwood - "I didn't make it up. This is the proof - everything in these boxes"

  3. Catherine R. Stimpson - “The Aunts [...] represent Atwood's most disdainful depiction of the petty female boss”

  4. Carol L. Beran - “Offred's power is in language.”

  5. Amin Malak - “If such positive characters do exist, they usually prove miserably ineffectual when contending with ruthless and overwhelming powers”

  6. Catherine R. Stimpson - "In one of her most original manoeuvres, Atwood links the morality of the Aunts to that of radical feminists.”

  7. Catherine R. Stimpson - "In the active syllogism of power, the premises of repression lead to conclusions of oppression"

  8. Lilian Feder - “The self is the greatest challenge to a totalitarian regime's authorise diversions of reality”

  9. Ehrenreich. - “As in 1984, the only subversive force appears to be love.”

  10. Feuer. - “Gilead constructs women as seen objects instead of seeing subjects.”

  11. Coral Ann Howells - “Its shift from Gilead to the historical conference at Nunavit two hundred years later is relatively optimistic.”

  12. Anne Enright - “As a novel, The Handmaid’s Tale is held together by the sexual tensions between the characters.”

  13. Julie Myerson - “Surely one of the reasons Gilead managed to be so spookily convincing was that Atwood cunningly chose to leave so many of its edges blurry.”

  14. Barbara Ehrenreich - “Still, it does remind us that, century after century, women have been complicit in their own undoing”

  15. Amin Malak - “Dystopias essentially deal with power: power as the prohibition or perversion of human potential”

  16. Amin Malak - “dystopias dramarise the eternal conflict between individual choice and social necessity.”

  17. Amin Malak - “If such positive characters do exist, they usually prove miserably ineffectual when contending with ruthless and overwhelming powers”

  18. Stokwisz - “Language is the main instrument of ideological and social control”

  19. Wisker (Comparable to 1984) - “Reduced people to their functions: control, reproduction, service and those who regulate those functions.”

  20. Howells - “Gilead is a totalitarian regime run on Patriarchal lines from the old testament”

  21. Wisker - “There is no sisterhood only division and disempowerment”

  22. Wisker - “In Atwood's novel, language is coded, thoughts policed and all sexual freedom has been lost”

  23. Heidi Macpherson - "Fear of betrayal and inculcated self surveillance keep the Handmaids from speaking out"

  24. Lee Briscoe - "Moira is Offred's rebel alter ego"

  25. Coral Howell - "Atwood's feminist concerns are plain here but so too are her concern for basic human rights."

  26. Patricia Goldblatt - "The work women do, conspires to maintain the subjection of their own kind."

  27. Alanna Callaway - “The evolution of a new form of misogyny, not as we usually think of it ,as men's hatred of women, but as women's hatred of women.”