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Author Background .

poet, novelist, The Handmaid’s Tale Handmaid’s The The Handmaid

Alias Grace Alias Ottawa, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada 18 1939 November ofRadcliffeToronto; College, University Cambridge; University, Cambridge and Harvard Toronto, Canada

They have been classified in the genres of historical fiction, thehistorical haveof been in They genres classified The Tempest ”. s website, Wikipedia, The Foundation Poetry website s ’ ’

MaddAddam Trilogy MaddAddam s works have embraced themes of the power of language, of power the embraced language, have of the s works themes s first published works appearedfirst works in s published Author ’ ’ Margaret Born: Birthdate: Educated: Lives: deplorable behavior.deplorable I made a rule for myself: I would not include anything that human human that anything would I not include for aI made rule myself: otherplacewhich doneorfor or in beings had some time, not already ofnotwishexist.didalready accused be I to not the did technology for potential human the misrepresenting or of inventions, dark, twisted power politics power Atwood began writing Atwood writing began Wall bookthe time. 1985, Published that in the at Berlin by Berlin, encircled still print since. been has out of never LongPen inventorthe Atwoodthe is also of a a and the Internet, in tablet ink, someone PC, using write allows remotely to Conrad Black used by to was The robotic technology hand. under arrest. signing while house Sources: Shakespeare Atwood myth, climate change, and and religion identity, and Canadiangender identity, “ last Atwood this resisted has fiction,however fiction,and science dystopian term, the designation preferring from solely imagination: her do not spring of six, during a childhood spent travelling around Ontario and the backwoods ofbackwoods around andOntario the travelling a during spent of childhood six, determined she entomologist. Atfather,forest her asixteen, Quebec she with writer. professional becomewanted a to Atwood a B.A. in offor she studiedToronto, where University the of at College Victoria poetry, ofpublished English. Her privately book first twenty over the of 1961, forLiterature in Canadian E. Medal J. Pratt of her course theover continuing herandhonours uponawards bestowed andfiction, works critical of forty poetry than more writtencareer. has Atwood including essays, 2000), the Margaret Atwood is aMargaret at her poetry andplays agethe own Shebegan writing environmental activist.

Book Groups @ Blue Mountains Library s ’

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’ has endured not only not only endured has

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Book Summary The Handmaid The

Brave New World New Brave , s The Handmaid’s Tale Handmaid’s The ’ Four - has become one of the most powerful and most widely widely most and powerful the most of one become has

a by overturned radically society our of vision gripping A Atwood Margaret revolution, theocratic Tale time. our of read novels : Penguin Random House website House Random Penguin :

Like Aldous Huxley Aldous Like Eighty Nineteen that is future ofpossible a warning a as but landmark asliterary a relevant. chillingly still Source may go out once a day to markets whose signs are now pictures pictures now are signs whose to markets day a go out once may the that pray must She to read. allowed not are women because declining of time a in for pregnant, her makes Commander the to exile means failure and fertility, her in lies value her birthrates when time a remember can Offred Colonies. polluted dangerously she before a job, had and daughter and her husband with lived she of secrets intimate the navigates she name. Now own her lost even the breaking in life her risking move, every her control those who rules. Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, serving in the in serving Gilead, of Republic the in a is Handmaid Offred She wife. bitter his and Commander enigmatic the of household

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”

s setting s setting is a ’ ”

she was like shean “

palimpsest “ review written in 1986, review

Nolite debastardes “ In ways large or small, everyone or large In small, ways everyone

”

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s ’ latin phrase

- Discussion Questions Discussion Questions just does not tell me what there is in our present present what our is me there in just does not tell

“

s vision? ’ The Handmaid’s Tale Handmaid’s The s Tale ’ tattooed upon themselves, as a permanent expression of of a expression permanent as themselves, upon tattooed ” The book starts with three epigrams. Discuss how you think they think you how they three epigrams. Discuss The with book starts paragraph, a used A the opening word in

1. relate the novel. to 2. and use scrape to attempted parchment clean that scribesmedieval traces original. obliteratethe of wereto all unable again, they though a resembleorder does Gilead's often of republic How new the social book Is the present? the informing past the with palimpsest, Which of us is it worse for, her for, orWhich me? worse usof is it Thirty years on, can you identify examples of present mores that might present examples moresof that on, years identify Thirty you can promote novelthe in Gilead seems to chafe at the restraints of the new system. What system. does new the of restraints the at in seemsGilead chafe to nature? about reveal thathuman resistance general do can't nature. you novelHow says cheat The Commander in the their to natural follow instincts? charactersfind ways under inWhyBible lock and Gilead? key is the McCarthy According to Mary The Handmaid of Stateswant outfor watch thatI United unless the ought mores I to Gilead of Republic the like something state a toslave become America In Gilead, women are categorized as wives, handmaids, Marthas, or or handmaids, as Marthas, categorized wives, In are Gilead, women niche. says Offred a fit tointo Aunts, but refuses Moira dizzy; fantasy. was shetheir who sides them elevator made open with shewhat symbolizes. Moira's tale, Discuss the and role throughout represent more than mother and also Offred's Aunt Janine, Lydia, Whatstyle dothe connote?What characters their each of dothemselves. of clothes symbolize? and their colour hason The the effect on Ceremony reflects Sixteen,In Offred Chapter herself She asks Joy. Serena and Offred players: main of three two its “ in Cambridge, Massachusetts (the centre of Puritan governance in thePuritan in governance centre of in (the Cambridge, Massachusetts 1600s) significant?

Justfun for people themock have Many had carborundorum What quote mostyou would literary tyranny. resistanceand rebellion against choosea likely as tattoo, and why? Most questions adapted from Penguin Random the House website, and the Amnesty International Book Club Discussion Guide, May 2015 6. 7. 8. 3. 4. 5.

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cri de coeur cri

received novels as novels received

-

, 1986 ,

] deploring is a tract political

the freedom to love, the freedom to freedomto the love, the

-- s Tale ’ (1980). Demand for her latest effort, forDemand her(1980). latest , 1986 s adept style rendersstyle grim the s adept Reviews ’ a taut thriller, a psychological study, a on play athriller, study, a psychological taut

- The New York York Times The New

is a novel that brilliantly illuminates some of the illuminatesthe ofbrilliantly a some novel that is

Atwood has taken both the socioecological Atwood taken has Reviews (continued) Reviews The Handmaid The Handmaid’s Tale Handmaid’s The Haupt, […] , 1986 , Life before Life Man - The WashingtonPost The Booklist (1973) and . The tension between these two ways of reading it makes even ways it ofmakes thesereading between two tension . The Tale The Handmaid's nobe doubt darker ofand it and sex, will interconnections politics achievement have to 1984." Yet "feministit is Atwood's labelleda of writing. thatdoctrinaire pitfall a novel the avoids produced political but no own way, her in defiant is She breathes. and Offred lives a lesson on how terribly monitored our future lives might be.This monitoredlives future terribly a our how lesson on impassioned, is certainly and Atwood wears novel the of the didacticism futureBut quite palpably. atmosphere of the Atwood fictional Still, its context. support thin;book is simply tooobvious to the of well the such authorfiction is quite anesteemed writer, disappointed ofthenumber beunfortunately, bound high; therefore, to is high. beequally may readers Brad Hooper, all, it holds out the possibility of redemption. After all, the Handmaid is also of After Handmaid a the all, redemption. all, out possibility it holds the survived. have may this book. SheShe has writer. written jeremiad, a be if to sadomasochistic happens also Finally, it ideological is an it Reage's Pauline of a version cerebrated onemight what call even fantasy, Story O of book. ais already what rich and complex more interesting ChristopherLehmann novel trying [Withher] within theexist that contemporary conservatism andexcesses the burgeoning us with furnishing extreme point, most their to them extrapolated and U.S. has underground. She is simply a warm, intelligent, ordinary had taken woman ordinary who a is simply intelligent, She warm, underground. freedoms to lose for was the she granted access thefreedom knowledge. to have work, to Johnson,Joyce [ ...Among other things, attitudes. environmental and antifeminist nuclearenergy, waste, much that moreBut than it so toward an as ambivalence as well itself, about of humour a It sense has words. end. of suchuntilBest aren't very as villains, who the its revealed even worst Superwoman. She resembles neither her mother, a militant feminist leadermother, ofmilitant her a neither Superwoman. resembles She who activist refusesto a againstfriend gay pornography,her Moira, drives nor the manages join become to aand briefly handmaid

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A

mare.The -

which, which,

- and, to some extent, of to extent, some and,

. But the scariness is visceral, a is visceral, . scariness the But , with its scary dating, not 40 years not40 dating,, years with its scary

, 1986 , , offered by theas aby of publisher ''forecast'' , offered Four - this is Atwood, never a warm writer, at her at writer, never a this warm is Atwood,

it's got none of the human credibility of work a human credibility of it's got none the -

- Brave New World New Brave

. the Russians, and our own country will be own by country ruled andthe our Russians, Love In The InLove Ruins s Choice 1986

’ The Handmaid’s Tale Handmaid’s The

vis - Nineteen Eighty Nineteen a - s cautionary tale of postfeminist future shock pictures a tale s cautionary postfeminist of ’ Editor century society. society. Her deftmuch the of makes sardoniccentury humor

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and long on cynicism cynicism and long on

- Surely the essential element of a cautionary tale is recognition. of cautionary a theelement Surely essential Weare a administer even, shock. enough to Surprised recognition, mirror, of we what indistorting seeingpresent a selves our warned, by That continue. was areto allowed trends if be into current may turning theeffect of ofalso ahead,maybe Clockwork Orange

wingers and religious fundamentalists, with males restored to the to malesfundamentalists, the and with wingers restored religious - chemical pollution, radiation poisoning, a host of our present problems run run problems present of our host a poisoning, radiation pollution, chemical for as England on her New Puritan history draws well amok. Ms. Atwood 22ndrepressive time.funny the same and at ominous thenovel action inand dialogue New Times York Atwood, to her credit, creates a chillingly specific, night a imaginable chillingly Atwood, her to creates credit, onbook characterization is short steeliest Walker such Percy's as fence. Tinny fatal electrified an that'seven grid, dangerous and aworld like steady of feminist vision rendered minutely perhaps, and impressively a but still apocalypse. Kirkus Reviews Atwood Margaret nuclearaccidents, by feminism, alsobut against aformed by backlash nation been achieved been achieved right ourfemales ''place'' us traditional and to rolewarriors of undergone have of separate into wives, sectors, subdivision however, will Ain uniform. appropriate the forth,each so breeders, clothed servants and bookthe mightYet just say. future shock, you approachfreshto postfeminist outfor ought watch mores that I to meour tell is doesin present not there what become statea to something of slave United States unlessthe America want I out. sketched here outlines are of thelike whose Gilead Republic McCarthy, Mary It is an effect, for me, almost strikingly missing from Margaret Atwood's very very missing fromAtwood's Margaret me,almost forItstrikingly effect, is an readable book have will future. nearA may have standoff in quiteforthe store uswe in what

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