The Handmaid's Tale: What To Compare It To (OCR A Level English Literature)

Topic sentence

Both Atwood and Orwell depict a government in which the state holds absolute control over every aspect of its citizens’ lives

Evidence and analysis

The Handmaid’s Tale

1984

In Gilead, the regime tries to control not only the lives but also the thoughts of its subjects

The party of 1984 tries to restructure the way people are allowed to think about their world

Handmaids are indoctrinated in the Red Centre, where any form of resistance is violently repressed

The citizens of Oceania are indoctrinated into an alternative version of history which fits with the Party’s political narrative

Being watched, or the threat of being watched, is ever present via the “Eyes”, with the fear of being deported to the Colonies or hanged used as a way of suppressing any active or thought of resistance

Orwell’s protagonist, Winston Smith, lives in a world of constant surveillance, via giant television screens and Big Brother “watching you”

Offred, as the protagonist, is forced to relinquish all knowledge of her past in order to accept the new status quo

Winston, as the protagonist, not only has to relinquish the past, but is instrumental in his role at the “Ministry of Truth” in re-writing the past to suit the Party’s political agenda

However, Offred refuses to forget her past, using her memories and story-telling both as a method of survival and as a subtle form of resistance

Similarly, Winston actively tries to find out more about the real past, which ultimately leads to his downfall

The idea of active resistance is also present in the novel in the form of the Mayday group, although the reader does not experience this directly

In the same way, Winston and Julia find out about a secret revolutionary organisation, known as the Brotherhood, although it is unclear whether this is organisation is real or a means to trap the couple

Topic sentence

Both Atwood and Orwell explore the power of language as a means of control

Evidence and analysis

The Handmaid’s Tale

1984

The government of Gilead controls its citizens by denying them language

The government in 1984 controls its citizens by altering and reducing the English language to its most basic form, which it calls “Newspeak”

The Handmaids are not allowed to form friendships, and conversations are restricted to pre-prescribed greetings and sayings

The simplification of language and the destruction of words serves to eliminate concepts that might lead to resistance or disobedience

The removal of the handmaids’ names is a further reduction of their individual identities

Any form of alternative thought to the party’s ideology is classified as “thoughtcrime”

It is only through Offred’s inner dialogue that she is able to resist and survive - language represents hope

Winston outwardly conforms to the Party’s regime, but begins to keep a secret diary for his thoughts - here too language represents hope

In Gilead, words are taken from the Bible and used for oppression

In Orwell’s 1984, the fear of not just speaking out, but even thinking against the party, is a further method of control

In both novels, language is changed into an instrument not for communication, but to repress resistant voices

Topic sentence

While both Atwood and Orwell use a central character to convey their novels’ dystopian societies, The Handmaid’s Tale is narrated in the first person by a female protagonist, whereas 1984 is narrated in the third person about a male protagonist

Evidence and analysis

The Handmaid’s Tale

1984

Atwood feminised the dystopian genre by making her storyteller a woman

Orwell presents his dystopia from a masculine perspective

The reader becomes aware of how women are being oppressed and exploited from the outset of the novel

Winston Smith’s name comes from the Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and the surname Smith is the most common surname in the English language:

• This was done to represent Winston as an ordinary man who makes a courageous effort in extraordinary circumstances

The world of Gilead is presented to us via the feminine perspective of “the” handmaid

Offred is largely ignorant of the wider political situation or the world beyond Gilead, as her access to information is severely limited

Winston Smith reads and writes continually, as he is employed to destroy historical records and to re-write the “truth” in the form of Party propaganda:

• Winston therefore understands the Party’s policies and the wider effects on Oceania

She is relegated to the political and societal sidelines and confined to a narrow domestic sphere

Offred’s narrative focuses on the intricacies of her daily life as she looks for small ways in which to resist Gilead

Whereas Orwell appears preoccupied with institutional politics and military tactics, and the instruments of government and control

For Offred, the ending of the novel offers the possibility of escape, and is therefore deliberately left ambiguous

However, there is no escape for Winston Smith, who is brainwashed and broken into the system

Topic sentence

Although Gilead has a similarly oppressive structure to Oceania, the two novels draw upon different contexts and project different visions of the future

Evidence and analysis

The Handmaid’s Tale

1984

Atwood focuses on voicing the political, social and environmental anxieties of late 20th-century America

Orwell’s novel is set in London and was published in the context of the bleak, post-war period of the 1940s

While violence, or the threat of it, is ever present in the novel, Gilead is concerned with internal control, rather than external domination

The totalitarian state in Orwell’s novel is committed to terrorism and perpetual war

The first-person narrative forms greater intimacy and empathy with the protagonist, who although flawed, is believable

Through the third-person narrative, the reader has easier access to a broader perspective, but less empathy with the protagonist

Text

Summary

Key comparisons with The Handmaid’s Tale

“Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley (1931) - set text list

The novel examines a futuristic society, called the World State, which centres around science and efficiency - emotions and individuality are conditioned out of children at a young age

• The novel warns of the dangers of giving the state control over new and powerful technologies

• It features rigid control of reproduction through technological and medical intervention

• Individual identity is stripped and humans are categorised at embryo stage into one of five castes

• The State works to remove strong emotions, desires and human relationships from society

• The protagonist is male and in the end he succumbs to the World State ideology and kills himself

• It has more elements of science fiction than The Handmaid’s Tale

“The Drowned World” by J.G. Ballard (1962) - set text list

The novel explores an environmentally nightmarish future in a world overwhelmed by rising sea levels and extreme solar radiation

• Plot centres around a male protagonist - a biologist who is part of a team researching the ongoing climate changes

• Most of the world is largely uninhabitable

• The main protagonist becomes more and more inward-looking

• The focus of the story is narrow and concentrates on the protagonist and two other scientists and their increasingly dream-like existence

• They slowly lose themselves in their landscape 

• A leader of a group of survivors is introduced, who is a dominating and controlling character

• The novel explores themes of humans versus nature, and surrealism and escapism

• The story often blurs the boundaries between reality and dreams

“The Children of Men” by P.D. James (1992) - set text list

The novel imagines how the world would respond to a global fertility crisis

• The novel is set in 2021, years after the onset of a mass infertility epidemic

• Science has to discover a cure otherwise the human race will go extinct

• The novel switches between first and third person narration - some chapters written from the point of view of a male protagonist, and others from an omniscient narrator

• There is a resistance group active in trying to get the government to abolish the practice of group euthanasia, coercive semen testing and gynaecological exams

• The government is run as a dictatorship with armed forces ensuring control

“We” by Yevgeny Zamyatin (1920-1921)

The novel centres on the uniformed inhabitants of One State, who live in glass buildings and are given numbers rather than names

• This novel is set in the 26th century

• It describes life in a regimented totalitarian society

• It is considered to be a key inspiration for Orwell’s 1984

• The main protagonist is male (D-503)

• He is the lead designer of a rocket ship the State plans to use to travel to alien planets to spread the doctrine of complete subservience and absolute reliance on logic and rationality

• D-503 writes his records to be read by the conquered alien civilisations

• The dictator in charge, the Benefactor, believes that the freedom of individuals is secondary to the welfare of the State

• The citizens therefore live under the oppressive and ever-watchful eye of government-appointed police officers called Guardians

• The One State is cut off from the rest of the world

• Citizens are stripped of all individuality and have to wear identical uniforms

• Their sexual partners are state-sanctioned

• If they break any laws, they are executed

• In the end, D-503 succumbs to the state

“The Chrysalids” by John Wyndham (1955)

The novel describes a fundamentalist Puritan society that considers any form of human, plant or animal abnormality to be blasphemous and are to be eradicated

• The male narrator in the novel is part of a small group of youngsters who can communicate with each other via telepathy

• Society’s prejudice against anyone abnormal means he must keep his abilities hidden

• It is set in a post-apocalyptic society which people believe was caused by God to punish people’s sins

• Inhabitants practise a form of fundamentalist Christianity

• They believe they must preserve absolute normality among surviving humans, plants and animals

• They therefore undertake eugenics- humans with even minor mutations are considered blasphemous and are either killed, or sterilised and banished

“Future Home of the Living God” by Louise Erdrich (2017)

The novel imagines a near-future in which evolution starts to reverse, and all pregnant women are confined to birthing centres

• The novel is set after a biological apocalypse in which the borders of Mexico and Canada are sealed off

• The main protagonist is a pregnant, Native American woman

• The story consists of her reflections as she waits to give birth

• Human evolution has reversed, so the species has begun to biologically regress to an infertile state

• The US government and radical religious groups try to take control of human reproduction

• The novel highlights the fragility of human rights and political institutions

“The Core of the Sun” by Johanna Sinisalo (2013)

In this world, citizens are protected from what are considered to be the “evils” of the outside world, and women are divided into two categories: those used for sex and those used for labour

• The novel is considered to also be a piece of speculative fiction, as it is set in an alternative historical present

• It is set in an eusistocracy - an extreme welfare state that values public health and social stability above anything else

• Love, sex and free will are all controlled

• The state has bred a new human subspecies of receptive, submissive women called “eloi” for sex and procreation

• Intelligent, independent women are relegated to menial labour and sterilised

• The main protagonist is a woman, raised as an “eloi” but who is secretly intelligent