Provides a summary of the key themes in both Margret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaids Tale’ and George Orwell’s ‘1984’, including key quotations, critical perspectives and contextual points for each theme which can be used in exam questions.
Similarities:
- Depiction of totalitarianism
- Singular perspective
- Desire of both main characters to preserve their experiences
- Government which controls communication between its citizens
- Classification of different types or classes of people
- A form of rebellion which the character finds temporary comfort and hope within
- Lack of bodily autonomy and freedom
- Both protagonists have moments of mental exhaustion in which they submit to the
state
- Commodities restricted to the upper class (makeup, coffee, cigarettes)
- Uniforms used to remove individuality and determine status
- Government restrictions on sexuality
- Surveillance
- Limitation/corruption of language to alter thought and behaviour
- Mass hysteria which is manipulated for the benefit of the state
Differences:
- Gilead is theocratic while The Party is concerned purely with control and is secular in
its totalitarianism
- Representations of womanhood- female writer and protagonist in HT, male writer and
protagonist in 1984
- More defined classes in the Handmaids Tale whereas citizens in 1984 are either
members of the Party or the Proles
- Ambiguity to the ending in the Handmaid's Tale
- Offered rebels against the party throughout whereas Winston acquiesces to Big
Brother
- Winston given more relative freedom than Offred and the Handmaids, there are
citizens below Winston (the proles) whereas the Handmaid’s Tale depicts the lives of
those lowest in society
Comparative area 1: The rule of the regimes (Oceania vs. Gilead)
Use of mass hysteria in both 1984 and the Handmaid’s Tale utilised in group events for the
benefit of the state- 2 minutes hate and the murder of the supposed rapist (particicution)
Both regimes enforce a rigid structure for citizens to follow to insure conformity- 2 minutes
hate, hate week and morning routines in 1984 and the ceremonies and daily walks in the
Handmaid’s Tale
While Gilead is theocratic and Oceania is not both regimes force citizens to beliefs un one
common agenda
Both regimes create a false sense of freedom and escapism in society so as to enforce and
stronger sense of compliance- birthdays in the Handmaid’s Tale
Whilst both protagonists have knowledge of the past, Oceania aims to irradiate all proof of
life before it Gilead manipulates and then directly acknowledges past artefacts to suit their
own agenda
Comparative area 2: Indoctrination techniques
Encouraging children to spy on parents in 1984 and making Handmaids walk in pairs in THT
creating suspicion and distrust amongst citizens (link to Nazi Germany/Hitler Youth)
, Both regimes use shame and gaslighting to break them down mentally- Jeanine in the Red
Center and Winston in the Ministry of Love (both characters are fully broken by the end of
the novel)
In the Handmaid’s Tale physical violence is performed as a deterrent of further crimes and
for the aesthetic pleasure of those in power whereas in 1984 physical violence is used in
private giving the state an appearance of cohesion
A class system is in place in which you can progress, encouraging the lower classes so
conform and oppress others in order to escape punishment or access commodities which
have been withheld (link to Marxist theory)
Both regimes embed beliefs and values through the guise of education- the ministry of love
and the Handmaids being ‘schooled’ in the Red Center and referred to as ‘girls’
QUOTES: 1984
- “Until they become conscious they will never rebel and until after they have rebelled
they cannot become conscious”
- “We do not merely destroy our enemies; we change them”
- “Cut their throats in front of my eyes and I’ll stand by and watch it. But not Room 101”
- “Ignorance is strength, Freedom is Slavery, War is Peace”
- “2 + 2 = 5”
- “He loved Big Brother”
- “Who controls the past controls the future. Who controls the present controls the
past”
- “It spoils it when they tie their feet together. I like to see them kicking”
- “All history scraped clean and reinscribed”
- “Emmanuel Goldstein, the enemy of the people”
- “Reality exists in the human mind and nowhere else”
QUOTES: THT
- “I ought to feel hatred for this man... I don't know what to call it. It isn't love.”
- “Each month I watch for blood, fearfully, for when it comes it means failure. I have
failed once again to fulfil the expectations of others, which have become my own.”
- “Which is it worse for? Her or me?”
- “She's a magic presence to us, an object of envy and desire, we covet her.”
- “I enjoy the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there.”
CRITICS: 1984
Natalie Frank: “Julia is a pragmatist, knowing how to operate within her societies limitations”
Jeffrey Meyers: “Orwell is concerned with the inner psychic frontier at which man can be
broken and made to betray”
Shiver: “Patriotism is maintained with an endless phoney war”
Kristofer Rissanen: “The Party uses hate to keep itself in power”
Issac Asimov: “Orwell presents three ways of maintaining an eternal tyranny: the immortality
of Big Brother, the presence of someone or something to hate, and rewriting history”
CRITICS: THT
Amin Malak: “[Gilead is] a state that in theory claims to be founded on Christian principles.
Yet in practice miserably lacks spirituality and benevolence”
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