Prose comparison

• The Handmaid


  • Exchanged names from bed to bed
  • My name isn't Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it's forbidden
  • This name has an aura around it, like an amulet, some charm that's survived from an unimaginably distant past
• The self-outward presentation of one's self


  Important in maintaining a sense of self
• Offred's name


  • Constructed by those around her - i.e. the gender constraints of Gilead
  • Something given to her by an oppressive regime
  • Of-man. Property/possession of Fred, the Commander
  • Outer self is transitory, name changes with household
  • Distinct from inner self. Attempts to preserve this
  • Ambiguity around if Offred's name is June, does not tell the narrative in order to conceal herself. Can have possession of herself
• The Monster


  • I am solitary and abhorred
  • Increase of knowledge only discovered to me more clearly what a wretched outcast I was
  • The wretch - the miserable monster
  • Devil, daemon, vile insect
  • Became fully convinced that I was in reality the monster
• Difference between internal and external naming and the effect it has on the individual

  • The Creature only has the identity given to him by Frankenstein and society, and that is the one that he internalises
  • The idea of Monster and Adam are both adults born into being. Contrasts the idea of the uncorrupted Romantic child
  • Monster's dialogue mirrors the way he is treated, moving to violence not benevolence
• Identity


  • Flexible: Nick, Commander, Serena - different parts of herself are given up
  • Layering of identities: 'another name'. Not a single entity
• Frame narrative


  • Both of Frankenstein's and Offred's narratives are verbal accounts
  • Censorship and deconstruction (in literal theory). Both narratives are heavily impacted by the subjective view of the individual reading them
• Censorship


  • Professor Peixoto: "Our job is not to censure but to understand"
  • The tapes were arranged in no particular order. Heavily impacts the disjointed experience of the Handmaid's Tale
• "I wish this story were different. I wish it were more civilised. I wish it showed me in a better light."
• "I'm sorry there is so much pain in this story. I'm sorry it's in fragments, like a body caught in crossfire or pulled apart by force."
• "This limping and mutilated story"
• "Because I'm telling you this story I will your existence. I tell, therefore you are."
• Censorship: Victor editing Walton's notes

  • Frankenstein discovered that I made notes concerning his history: he asked to see them, and then himself corrected and augmented them in many places; but principally in giving the life and spirit to the conversations he held with his enemy
  • Unreliable narration. Frankenstein corrects the only objective part of the narration in the dialogue. Monster's whole account of his story could be twisted to Frankenstein's benefit
• "Since you have preserved my narration', said he, 'I would not that a mutilated one should go down to posterity."
• Imposition of Male Perspective on the Narrative

  • Elizabeth, Justine and Margaret are all described by men
  • Margaret is simply used by Shelley to demonstrate the epistolary form and reveal Walton's nature. She is passive for the benefit of the male frame narrative
  • The female monster doesn't even come into being. Important representation of women in the novel
• The Canterbury Tales


  • Appears in the Historical Notes. When Professor P is talking about how they gave it the title of the Handmaid's Tale. Not the name that Offred gave to her narrative it's the name that the Professor gave it to
  • Chaucer and Canterbury Tales, took all of the professions (not Kings) and the idea was that they were going on a pilgrimage. All of these people would tell a story on the way there and on the way back. Never got finished
  • There is not a Handmaid, imaging that this is a story having been written by Chaucer
  • Tale = a rude word for a women's vagina. Because of the explicit reference again its a way they're reducing her story down to her body
• The idea of the linear, Aristotlian narrative, in Handmaid's Tale and Frankenstein is disrupted
• Em-Bodied texts


  Objects that need interpretation
• Women's representation


  • Elizabeth: domestic saint then murdered. Even more true of Caroline Frankenstein. Still emerge beneath the manifest context of the text
  • Women arrive in strange subtextual, denied representation. Not there in the consciousness of characters. Emerge at particular points
• Identity Shifts: Offred


  • This is time nor am I out of it
  • Recognition that she is trapped within the oppressive regime of Gilead
  • Acknowledgement that she cannot escape the clutches of this system
• Identity Shifts: The Creature

  • Evil thenceforth became my good
  • After being rejected from the DeLaceys and wider society, the Monster has a shift in perspective where he embraces his monstrous nature and finds solace in inflicting pain upon others
  • My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born
• Dual identity


  One social and constructed and one as the internal individual
• "I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will . . . Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I'm a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping."
• Satan's quote "evil be thou my good"


  • Represents Satan's rebellious and ambitious nature and his intentional rejection of God's authority
  • The Monster's quote is a response to his circumstances and his descent into darkness due to the lack of compassion and connection from others
• "The mildness of my nature had fled, and all within me was turned to gall and bitterness."
• Identity being very impersonal

  • Exploration of power and how it can externally create an identity
  • Victor pushes a masculine identity onto the monster, very sexualised. How the male, with the most power, enforces eroticism onto the inferior
  • Beauty of the dream vanished when the identity becomes personal, it is repulsive. Feminist critique of when a female is no longer subserviant it is abhorrent
• Confrontation between the Oppressed and the Oppressor

  • In Handmaid's Tale, the confrontation is more passive than in Frankenstein
  • Commander sees that oppression is inevitable "better never means better for everyone". Suggests the system of oppression is constant
  • For Offred to be liberated she has to become an individual, as there will always be a systematically minority oppressed group
  • Offred's criticism of the Commander occurs within her internal monologue. Passive rebellion
• Confrontation between the Oppressed and the Oppressor in Frankenstein

  • Masculine and egotistical oppression
  • French Revolution vibe
  • Expectation that the confrontation will be inherently full of bloodlust because it's coming from a place of anger and resentment
  • Contemporary fear of the collective (and the oppressed) having a voice. Mob taking back power
  • Expectation that a confrontation will lead to justice
  • The Monster confronts Frankenstein and uses the word 'listen' 15 times in that passage
  • Rejection of the Romantic ego
• The Commander


  • High ranking official, definition of power in Gilead
  • Granted power over women's bodies and reproductive capabilities
  • Complex portrayal of authority and its corrupting influence
  • Blurred lines of subjugation and agency as the Commander gets to know Offred. Idea of human connection shown through scrabble
  • "To be a man watched by a woman. It must be entirely strange"
  • Offred says "We watch him: every inch every flicker". Reaffirms the power dynamics within the household
• Victor Frankenstein


  • His pursuit of scientific knowledge and the creation of the monster grants him immense power
  • Godlike authority, but struggles to handle responsibility
  • Victor's power stems from ambition and knowledge, whilst the Commander's power derives from his position within a structured, authoritarian regime
  • Arrogant: "I possessed a coolness of judgment that fitted me for illustrious achievements. This sentiment… supported me when others would have been oppressed"
  • "But this thought, which supported me in the commencement of my career, now serves only to plunge me lower in the dust."
  • "All my speculations and hopes are as nothing; and like the archangel who aspired to omnipotence, I am chained in an eternal hell."
• Offred's Room


  • The Hovel: "This hovel, however, joined a cottage of a neat and pleasant appearance"
  • The Dress: "Tonight I have a little surprise for you… he laughs"
  • "He wishes to diminish things, myself included"
  • "It's not new, it's been worn before." Jezebels' outfit: impersonal, no relation to an individual identity
  • The collectivisation of women. Distinct from a man
  • Love (outlawed) denies impersonal identity, fetisishation and eroticism
• Appearance of the Creature

  "God, in pity, made man beautiful and alluring, after his own image; but my form is a filthy type of yours, more horrid even from the very resemblance."
• Nature


  • Serena's garden
  • Yellow moon
• Palimpsest


  • Gileadean Regime: Offred's story is recorded of music casettles, recorded above music
  • Transcribed by Proffessor P. Translated some of the archaic words. Ordered
  • The remnants of the old world, including Offred's memories, persist beneath the surface, serving as a reminder of what has been lost and potentially offering hope for change and resistance
  • The society of Gilead is build upon the remnants of the old world, with the characters and events
• The Creature as a palimpsest


  • He is constructed from various body parts, each with its own history and identity, and he is a composite of the knowledge and experiences he acquires
  • The creature's existence is a constant negotiation between his own desires and the influences of society and the people he encounters
  • Like a palimpsest, the creature carries the traces of his origins, but they are overlaid with the new experiences and knowledge that he acquires. This layered identity shapes his actions and emotions throughout the story
  • The sewn together body of the creature can be seen as a version of mob – rather than an individual, he is more a collection of the remnants of the old world
• Like a palimpsest, the creature carries the traces of his origins, but they are overlaid with the new experiences and knowledge that he acquires. This layered identity shapes his actions and emotions throughout the story.
• In 1818 it was well known that the medical profession lent silent support to the grave-robbing gangs who regularly sold the surgeons newly buried bodies for dissection - dubbed the 'resurrection trade'.
• The sewn together body of the creature can be seen as a version of mob – rather than an individual, he is more a collection of the dispossessed. He is made up of precisely those people whom the authorities of the time feared might cause a revolution.
• The remnants of the old world, including Offred's memories, persist beneath the surface, serving as a reminder of what has been lost and potentially offering hope for change and resistance.
• George Orwell (1984): '"All history was a palimpsest, scraped clean and reinscribed exactly as often as was necessary."'