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Lesson 20 : Some things are better left unsaid

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Lesson 20 : Some things are better left unsaid

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Margaret Atwood's response to banning The Handmaid's Tale from schools.

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Margaret Atwood's response to banning The Handmaid's Tale from schools.

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The Unburnable Book: Margaret Atwood’s THE HANDMAID'S TALE

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Task number 2 : the final dialogue from chapter 29

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Task number 2 : the final dialogue from chapter 29

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Lots of things in this dialogues are left unsaid or just implied. For every part that is highlighted, rephrase the sentence to reveal what the characters really mean :

“What happened to her?” I say.

He hardly misses a beat. “Did you know her somehow?”

“Somehow,” I say.

“She hanged herself,” he says; thoughtfully, not sadly. “That’s why we had the light

fixture removed. In your room.” He pauses. “Serena found out,” he says, as if this

explains it. And it does.

If your dog dies, get another.

“What with?” I say.

He doesn’t want to give me any ideas. “Does it matter?” he says. Torn bedsheet, I

figure. I’ve considered the possibilities.

“I suppose it was Cora who found her,” I say. That’s why she screamed.

“Yes,” he says. “Poor girl.” He means Cora.

“Maybe I shouldn’t come here any more,” I say.

“I thought you were enjoying it,” he says lightly, watching me, however, with intent

bright eyes. If I didn’t know better I would think it was fear. “I wish you would.”

“You want my life to be bearable to me,” I say. It comes out not as a question but as a

flat statement; flat and without dimension. If my life is bearable, maybe what they’re

doing is all right after all.

“Yes,” he says. “I do. I would prefer it.”

“Well then,” I say. Things have changed. I have something on him, now. What I have

on him is the possibility of my own death. What I have on him is his guilt. At last.

“What would you like?” he says, still with that lightness, as if it’s a money transaction

merely, and a minor one at that: candy, cigarettes.

“Besides hand lotion, you mean,” I say.

“Besides hand lotion,” he agrees.

“I would like …” I say. “I would like to know.” It sounds indecisive, stupid even, I say

it without thinking.

“Know what?” he says.

“Whatever there is to know,” I say; but that’s too flippant. “What’s going on.”

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The Handmaid’s Tale has a problem with racial erasure

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And both use the history of black people to provoke empathy for the suffering of white people.

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Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to experience the light within or "answering that of God in every one". Some profess a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity. There are also Nontheist Quakers, whose spiritual practice does not rely on the existence of God. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa.

Some 89% of Quakers worldwide belong to evangelical and programmed branches that hold services with singing and a prepared Bible message coordinated by a pastor. Some 11% practice waiting worship or unprogrammed worship (commonly Meeting for Worship), where the unplanned order of service is mainly silent and may include unprepared vocal ministry from those present. Some meetings of both types have Recorded Ministers present, Friends recognised for their gift of vocal ministry.

The proto-evangelical Christian movement dubbed Quakerism arose in mid-17th-century England from the Legatine-Arians and other dissenting Protestant groups breaking with the established Church of England. The Quakers, especially the Valiant Sixty, sought to convert others by travelling through Britain and overseas preaching the Gospel. Some early Quaker ministers were women. They based their message on a belief that "Christ has come to teach his people himself", stressing direct relations with God through Jesus Christ and belief in the universal priesthood of all believers. This personal religious experience of Christ was acquired by direct experience and by reading and studying the Bible. Quakers focused their private lives on behaviour and speech reflecting emotional purity and the light of God, with a goal of Christian perfection.

Past Quakers were known to use thee as an ordinary pronoun, refuse to participate in war, wear plain dress, refuse to swear oaths, oppose slavery, and practice teetotalism. Some Quakers founded banks and financial institutions, including Barclays, Lloyds, and Friends Provident; manufacturers including the footwear firm of C. & J. Clark and the big three British confectionery makers Cadbury, Rowntree and Fry; and philanthropic efforts, including abolition of slavery, prison reform, and social justice. In 1947, in recognition of their dedication to peace and the common good, Quakers represented by the British Friends Service Council and the American Friends Service Committee were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

During and after the English Civil War (1642-1651) many dissenting Christian groups emerged, including the Seekers and others. A young man, George Fox, was dissatisfied with the teachings of the Church of England and nonconformists. He claimed to have received a revelation that "there is one, even Christ Jesus, who can speak to thy condition", and became convinced that it was possible to have a direct experience of Christ without the aid of ordained clergy. In 1652 he had a vision on Pendle Hill in Lancashire, England, in which he believed that "the Lord let me see in what places he had a great people to be gathered". Following this he travelled around England, the Netherlands, and Barbados preaching and teaching with the aim of converting new adherents to his faith. The central theme of his Gospel message was that Christ has come to teach his people himself. Fox considered himself to be restoring a true, "pure" Christian church.

In 1650, Fox was brought before the magistrates Gervase Bennet and Nathaniel Barton, on a charge of religious blasphemy. According to Fox's autobiography, Bennet "was the first that called us Quakers, because I bade them tremble at the word of the Lord". It is thought that Fox was referring to Isaiah 66:2 or Ezra 9:4. Thus the name Quaker began as a way of ridiculing Fox's admonition, but became widely accepted and used by some Quakers. Quakers also described themselves using terms such as true Christianity, Saints, Children of the Light, and Friends of the Truth, reflecting terms used in the New Testament by members of the early Christian church.

James Nayler, a prominent Quaker leader, being pilloried and whipped

Quakerism gained a considerable following in England and Wales, not least among women. An address "To the Reader" by Mary Forster accompanied a Petition to the Parliament of England presented on 20 May 1659, expressing the opposition of over 7000 women to "the oppression of Tithes". The overall number of Quakers increased to a peak of 60,000 in England and Wales by 1680 (1.15% of the population of England and Wales). But the dominant discourse of Protestantism viewed the Quakers as a blasphemous challenge to social and political order, leading to official persecution in England and Wales under the Quaker Act 1662 and the Conventicle Act 1664. This persecution of Dissenters was relaxed after the Declaration of Indulgence (1687-1688) and stopped under the Act of Toleration 1689.

One modern view of Quakerism at this time was that the direct relationship with Christ was encouraged through spiritualisation of human relations, and "the redefinition of the Quakers as a holy tribe, 'the family and household of God'". Together with Margaret Fell, the wife of Thomas Fell, who was the vice-chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster and an eminent judge, Fox developed new conceptions of family and community that emphasised "holy conversation": speech and behaviour that reflected piety, faith, and love. With the restructuring of the family and household came new roles for women; Fox and Fell viewed the Quaker mother as essential to developing "holy conversation" in her children and husband. Quaker women were also responsible for the spirituality of the larger community, coming together in "meetings" that regulated marriage and domestic behaviour.

The persecution of Quakers in North America began in July 1656 when English Quaker missionaries Mary Fisher and Ann Austin began preaching in Boston. They were considered heretics because of their insistence on individual obedience to the Inner light. They were imprisoned for five weeks and banished by the Massachusetts Bay Colony. Their books were burned, and most of their property confiscated. They were imprisoned in terrible conditions, then deported.

In 1660, English Quaker Mary Dyer was hanged near Boston Common for repeatedly defying a Puritan law banning Quakers from the colony. She was one of the four executed Quakers known as the Boston martyrs. In 1661, King Charles II forbade Massachusetts from executing anyone for professing Quakerism. In 1684, England revoked the Massachusetts charter, sent over a royal governor to enforce English laws in 1686 and, in 1689, passed a broad Toleration Act.

Some Friends migrated to what is now the north-eastern region of the United States in the 1660s in search of economic opportunities and a more tolerant environment in which to build communities of "holy conversation". In 1665 Quakers established a meeting in Shrewsbury, New Jersey (now Monmouth County), and built a meeting house in 1672 that was visited by George Fox in the same year. They were able to establish thriving communities in the Delaware Valley, although they continued to experience persecution in some areas, such as New England. The three colonies that tolerated Quakers at this time were West Jersey, Rhode Island, and Pennsylvania, where Quakers established themselves politically. In Rhode Island, 36 governors in the first 100 years were Quakers. West Jersey and Pennsylvania were established by affluent Quaker William Penn in 1676 and 1682 respectively, with Pennsylvania as an American commonwealth run under Quaker principles. William Penn signed a peace treaty with Tammany, leader of the Delaware tribe, and other treaties followed between Quakers and Native Americans. This peace endured almost a century, until the Penn's Creek Massacre of 1755. Early colonial Quakers also established communities and meeting houses in North Carolina and Maryland, after fleeing persecution by the Anglican Church in Virginia.

In a 2007 interview, author David Yount ( How the Quakers Invented America) said that Quakers first introduced many ideas that later became mainstream, such as democracy in the Pennsylvania legislature, the Bill of Rights to the U.S. Constitution from Rhode Island Quakers, trial by jury, equal rights for men and women, and public education. The Liberty Bell was cast by Quakers in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.

Early Quakerism tolerated boisterous behaviour that challenged conventional etiquette, but by 1700, its adherents no longer supported disruptive and unruly behaviour. During the 18th century, Quakers entered the Quietist period in the history of their church, becoming more inward-looking spiritually and less active in converting others. Marrying outside the Society was cause for having one's membership revoked. Numbers dwindled, dropping to 19,800 in England and Wales by 1800 (0.21% of the population), and 13,859 by 1860 (0.07% of population). The formal name "Religious Society of Friends" dates from this period and was probably derived from the appellations "Friends of the Light" and "Friends of the Truth".

Divisions of the Religious Society of Friends

Showing the divisions of Quakers occurring in the 19th and 20th centuries

Hicksite-Orthodox split

The Hicksite-Orthodox split arose out of both ideological and socioeconomic tensions. Philadelphia Yearly Meeting Hicksites tended to be agrarian and poorer than the more urban, wealthier, Orthodox Quakers. With increasing financial success, Orthodox Quakers wanted to "make the Society a more respectable body - to transform their sect into a church - by adopting mainstream Protestant orthodoxy". Hicksites, though they held a variety of views, generally saw the market economy as corrupting, and believed Orthodox Quakers had sacrificed their orthodox Christian spirituality for material success. Hicksites viewed the Bible as secondary to the individual cultivation of God's light within.

With Gurneyite Quakers' shift toward Protestant principles and away from the spiritualisation of human relations, women's role as promoters of "holy conversation" started to decrease. Conversely, within the Hicksite movement the rejection of the market economy and the continuing focus on community and family bonds tended to encourage women to retain their role as powerful arbiters.

Elias Hicks's religious views were claimed to be universalist and to contradict Quakers' historical orthodox Christian beliefs and practices. Hicks' Gospel preaching and teaching precipitated the Great Separation of 1827, which resulted in a parallel system of Yearly Meetings in America, joined by Friends from Philadelphia, New York, Ohio, Indiana, and Baltimore. They were referred to by opponents as Hicksites and by others and sometimes themselves as Orthodox. Quakers in Britain recognised only the Orthodox Quakers and refused to correspond with the Hicksites.

Isaac Crewdson was a Recorded Minister in Manchester. His 1835 book A Beacon to the Society of Friends insisted that the inner light was at odds with a religious belief in salvation by the atonement of Christ. This Christian controversy led to Crewdson's resignation from the Religious Society of Friends, along with 48 fellow members of Manchester Meeting and about 250 other British Quakers in 1836-1837. Some of these joined the Plymouth Brethren.

Rise of Gurneyite Quakerism, and the Gurneyite-Conservative split

Orthodox Friends became more evangelical during the 19th century and were influenced by the Second Great Awakening. This movement was led by British Quaker Joseph John Gurney. Christian Friends held Revival meetings in America and became involved in the Holiness movement of churches. Quakers such as Hannah Whitall Smith and Robert Pearsall Smith became speakers in the religious movement and introduced Quaker phrases and practices to it. British Friends became involved with the Higher Life movement, with Robert Wilson from Cockermouth meeting founding the Keswick Convention. From the 1870s it became common in Britain to have "home mission meetings" on Sunday evening with Christian hymns and a Bible-based sermon, alongside the silent meetings for worship on Sunday morning.

The Quaker Yearly Meetings supporting the religious beliefs of Joseph John Gurney were known as Gurneyite yearly meetings. Many eventually collectively became the Five Years Meeting and then the Friends United Meeting, although London Yearly Meeting, which had been strongly Gurneyite in the 19th century, did not join either of these. Such Quaker yearly meetings make up the largest proportion of Quakers in the world today.

Some Orthodox Quakers in America disliked the move towards evangelical Christianity and saw it as a dilution of Friends' traditional orthodox Christian belief in being inwardly led by the Holy Spirit. These Friends were headed by John Wilbur, who was expelled from his yearly meeting in 1842. He and his supporters formed their own Conservative Friends Yearly Meeting. Some UK Friends broke away from the London Yearly Meeting for the same reason in 1865. They formed a separate body of Friends called Fritchley General Meeting, which remained distinct and separate from London Yearly Meeting until 1968. Similar splits took place in Canada. The Yearly Meetings that supported John Wilbur's religious beliefs were known there as Conservative Friends.

In 1887, a Gurneyite Quaker of British descent, Joseph Bevan Braithwaite, proposed to Friends a statement of faith known as the Richmond Declaration. This statement of faith was agreed to by 95 of the representatives at a meeting of Five Years Meeting Friends, but unexpectedly the Richmond Declaration was not adopted by London Yearly Meeting because a vocal minority, including Edward Grubb, opposed it.

Friends' Syrian Mission, 1874, built this mission house in Ramallah.

Following the Christian revivals in the mid-19th century, Friends in Great Britain sought also to start missionary activity overseas. The first missionaries were sent to Benares ( Varanasi), in India, in 1866. The Friends Foreign Mission Association was formed in 1868 and sent missionaries to Madhya Pradesh, India, forming what is now the Mid-India Yearly Meeting. Later it spread to Madagascar from 1867, China from 1896, Sri Lanka from 1896, and Pemba Island from 1897.

The Friends Syrian Mission was established in 1874, which among other institutions ran the Ramallah Friends Schools, which still exist today. The Swiss missionary Theophilus Waldmeier founded Brummana High School in Lebanon in 1873, Evangelical Friends Churches from Ohio Yearly Meeting sent missionaries to India in 1896, forming what is now Bundelkhand Yearly Meeting. Cleveland Friends went to Mombasa, Kenya, and started what became the most successful Friends' mission. Their Quakerism spread within Kenya and to Uganda, Tanzania, Burundi, and Rwanda.

The theory of evolution as described in Charles Darwin's On the Origin of Species (1859) was opposed by many Quakers in the 19th century, particularly by older evangelical Quakers who dominated the Religious Society of Friends in Great Britain. These older Quakers were suspicious of Darwin's theory and believed that natural selection could not explain life on its own. The influential Quaker scientist Edward Newman said that the theory was "not compatible with our notions of creation as delivered from the hands of a Creator".

However, some young Friends such as John Wilhelm Rowntree and Edward Grubb supported Darwin's theories, using the doctrine of progressive revelation. In the United States, Joseph Moore taught the theory of evolution at the Quaker Earlham College as early as 1861. This made him one of the first teachers to do so in the Midwest. Acceptance of the theory of evolution became more widespread in Yearly Meetings who moved toward liberal Christianity in the 19th and 20th centuries. However, creationism predominates within evangelical Friends Churches, particularly in East Africa and parts of the United States.

In the late 19th century and early 20th century, the so-called Quaker Renaissance movement began within London Yearly Meeting. Young Friends in London Yearly Meeting at this time moved away from evangelicalism and towards liberal Christianity. This movement was particularly influenced by Rowntree, Grubb, and Rufus Jones. Such Liberal Friends promoted the theory of evolution, modern biblical criticism, and the social meaning of Christ's teaching - encouraging Friends to follow the New Testament example of Christ by performing good works. These men downplayed the evangelical Quaker belief in the atonement of Christ on the Cross at Calvary. After the Manchester Conference in England in 1895, one thousand British Friends met to consider the future of British Quakerism, and as a result, Liberal Quaker thought gradually increased within the London Yearly Meeting.

During World War I and World War II, Friends' opposition to war was put to the test. Many Friends became conscientious objectors and some formed the Friends Ambulance Unit, aiming at "co-operating with others to build up a new world rather than fighting to destroy the old", as did the American Friends Service Committee. Birmingham in England had a strong Quaker community during the war. Many British Quakers were conscripted into the Non-Combatant Corps during both world wars.

After the two world wars had brought the different Quaker strands closer together, Friends from different yearly meetings - many having served together in the Friends Ambulance Unit or the American Friends Service Committee, or in other relief work - later held several Quaker World Conferences. This brought about a standing body of Friends: the Friends World Committee for Consultation.

A growing desire for a more fundamentalist approach among some Friends after the First World War began a split among Five Years Meetings. In 1926, Oregon Yearly Meeting seceded from the Five Years Meeting, bringing together several other yearly meetings and scattered monthly meetings.

In 1947, the Association of Evangelical Friends was formed, with triennial meetings until 1970. In 1965, this was replaced by the Evangelical Friends Alliance, which in 1989 became Evangelical Friends Church International.

In the 1650s, individual Quaker women prophesied and preached publicly, developing charismatic personae and spreading the sect. This practice was bolstered by the movement's firm concept of spiritual equality for men and women. Moreover, Quakerism initially was propelled by the nonconformist behaviours of its followers, especially women who broke from social norms. By the 1660s, the movement had gained a more structured organisation, which led to separate women's meetings. Through the women's meetings, women oversaw domestic and community life, including marriage. From the beginning, Quaker women, notably Margaret Fell, played an important role in defining Quakerism. Others active in proselytising included Mary Penington, Mary Mollineux and Barbara Blaugdone. Quaker women published at least 220 texts during the 17th century. However, some Quakers resented the power of women in the community. In the early years of Quakerism, George Fox faced resistance in developing and establishing women's meetings. As controversy increased, Fox did not fully adhere to his agenda. For example, he established the London Six Weeks Meeting in 1671 as a regulatory body, led by 35 women and 49 men. Even so, conflict culminated in the Wilkinson-Story split, in which a portion of the Quaker community left to worship independently in protest at women's meetings. After several years, this schism became largely resolved, testifying to the resistance of some within the Quaker community and to the spiritual role of women that Fox and Margaret Fell had encouraged. Particularly within the relatively prosperous Quaker communities of the eastern United States, the focus on the child and "holy conversation" gave women unusual community power, although they were largely excluded from the market economy. With the Hicksite-Orthodox split of 1827-1828, Orthodox women found their spiritual role decreased, while Hicksite women retained greater influence.

Described as "natural capitalists" by the BBC, many Quakers were successful in a variety of industries. Two notable examples were Abraham Darby I and Edward Pease. Darby and his family played an important role in the British Industrial Revolution with their innovations in ironmaking. Pease, a Darlington manufacturer, was the main promoter of the Stockton and Darlington Railway, which was the world's first public railway to use steam locomotives. Other industries with prominent Quaker businesses included banking ( Lloyds Banking Group and Barclays PLC), pharmaceuticals ( Allen & Hanburys), chocolate ( Cadbury and Fry's), confectionery (Rowntree), shoe manufacturing ( Clarks), and biscuit manufacturing ( Huntley & Palmers).

Quakers have a long history of establishing educational institutions. Initially, Quakers had no ordained clergy, and therefore needed no seminaries for theological training. In England, Quaker schools sprang up soon after the movement emerged, with Friends School Saffron Walden being the most prominent. Quaker schools in the UK and Ireland are supported by The Friends' Schools' Council. In Australia, Friends' School, Hobart, founded in 1887, has grown into the largest Quaker school in the world. In Britain and the United States, friends have established a variety of institutions at a variety of educational levels. In Kenya, Quakers founded several primary and secondary schools in the first half of the 20th century before the country's independence in 1963.

International volunteering organisations such as Service Civil International and International Voluntary Service were founded by leading Quakers. Eric Baker, a prominent Quaker, was one of the founders of Amnesty International and of the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament.

The Quaker Edith Pye established a national Famine Relief Committee in May 1942, encouraging a network of local famine relief committees, among the most energetic of which was the Oxford Committee for Famine Relief, Oxfam. Irving and Dorothy Stowe co-founded Greenpeace with many other environmental activists in 1971, shortly after becoming Quakers.

Some Quakers in America and Britain became known for their involvement in the abolitionist movement. In the early history of Colonial America, it was fairly common for Friends to own slaves, e.g. in Pennsylvania. During the early to mid-1700s, disquiet about this practice arose among Friends, best exemplified by the testimonies of Benjamin Lay, Anthony Benezet and John Woolman, and this resulted in an abolition movement among Friends.

Nine of the twelve founding members of the Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, or The Society for the Abolition of the Slave Trade, were Quakers: John Barton (1755-1789); William Dillwyn (1743-1824); George Harrison (1747-1827); Samuel Hoare Jr (1751-1825); Joseph Hooper (1732-1789); John Lloyd; Joseph Woods Sr (1738-1812); James Phillips (1745-1799); and Richard Phillips. Five of the Quakers had been amongst the informal group of six Quakers who had pioneered the movement in 1783, when the first petition against the slave trade was presented to Parliament. As Quakers could not serve as Members of Parliament, they relied on the help of Anglican men who could, such as William Wilberforce and his brother-in-law James Stephen.

By the beginning of the American Revolutionary War, few Friends owned slaves. At the war's end in 1783, Yarnall family members along with fellow Meeting House Friends made a failed petition to the Continental Congress to abolish slavery in the United States. In 1790, the Society of Friends petitioned the United States Congress to abolish slavery.

One example of a reversal in sentiment about slavery took place in the life of Moses Brown, one of four Rhode Island brothers who, in 1764, organized and funded the tragic and fateful voyage of the slave ship Sally. Brown broke away from his three brothers, became an abolitionist, and converted to Christian Quakerism. During the 19th century, Quakers such as Levi Coffin and Isaac Hopper played a major role in helping enslaved people escape through the Underground Railroad. Black Quaker Paul Cuffe, a sea captain and businessman, was active in the abolitionist and resettlement movement in the early part of that century. Quaker Laura Smith Haviland, with her husband, established the first station on the Underground Railroad in Michigan. Later, Haviland befriended Sojourner Truth, who called her the Superintendent of the Underground Railroad.

However, in the 1830s, the abolitionist Grimké sisters dissociated themselves from the Quakers "when they saw that Negro Quakers were segregated in separate pews in the Philadelphia meeting house".

Quakers' theological beliefs vary considerably. Tolerance of dissent widely varies among yearly meetings. Most Friends believe in continuing revelation: that God continuously reveals truth directly to individuals. George Fox, an " early Friend", said, "Christ has come to teach His people Himself". Friends often focus on trying to feel the presence of God. As Isaac Penington wrote in 1670, "It is not enough to hear of Christ, or read of Christ, but this is the thing - to feel him to be my root, my life, and my foundation..." Quakers reject the idea of priests, believing in the priesthood of all believers. Some express their concept of God using phrases such as "the inner light", "inward light of Christ", or "Holy Spirit".

Diverse theological beliefs, understandings of the "leading of the Holy Spirit" and statements of "faith and practice" have always existed among Friends. Due in part to the emphasis on immediate guidance of the Holy Spirit, Quaker doctrines have only at times been codified as statements of faith, confessions or theological texts. Those that exist include the Letter to the Governor of Barbados ( Fox, 1671), An Apology for the True Christian Divinity ( Barclay, 1678), A Catechism and Confession of Faith ( Barclay, 1690), The Testimony of the Society of Friends on the Continent of America (adopted jointly by all Orthodox yearly meetings in the United States, 1830), the Richmond Declaration of Faith (adopted by Five Years Meeting, 1887), and Essential Truths ( Jones and Wood, adopted by Five Years Meeting, 1922). Most yearly meetings make a public statement of faith in their own Book of Discipline, expressing Christian discipleship within the experience of Friends in that yearly meeting.

Conservative Friends worshipping in London in 1809. Friends are in traditional plain dress. At the front of the meeting house, the Recorded Ministers sit on a raised ministers' gallery facing the rest of the meeting, with the elders sitting on the bench in front of them, also facing the meeting. Men and women are segregated, but both are able to minister.

Conservative Friends (also known as "Wilburites" after their founder, John Wilbur), share some of the beliefs of Fox and the Early Friends. Many Wilburites see themselves as the Quakers whose beliefs are truest to original Quaker doctrine, arguing that the majority of Friends "broke away" from the Wilburites in the 19th and 20th centuries (rather than vice versa). Conservative Friends place their trust in the immediate guidance of God. They reject all forms of religious symbolism and outward sacraments, such as the Eucharist and water baptism. Conservative Friends do not believe in relying upon the practice of outward rites and sacraments in their living relationship with God through Christ, believing that holiness can exist in all of the activities of one's daily life - and that all of life is sacred in God. Many believe that a meal held with others can become a form of communion with God and with one another.

Conservative Friends in the United States are part of three small Quaker Yearly Meetings in Ohio, North Carolina and Iowa. Ohio Yearly Meeting (Conservative) is generally considered the most Bible-centred of the three, retaining Christian Quakers who use plain language, wear plain dress, and are more likely to live in villages or rural areas than the Conservative Friends from their other two Yearly Meetings.

In 2007, total membership of such Yearly Meetings was around 1642, making them around 0.4% of the world family of Quakers.

Sign at entrance of Phoenix Friends Church

Evangelical Friends regard Jesus Christ as their personal Lord and Saviour, and have similar religious beliefs to other evangelical Christians. They believe in and hold a high regard for penal substitution of the atonement of Christ on the Cross at Calvary, biblical infallibility, and the need for all to experience a relationship with God personally. They believe that the Evangelical Friends Church is intended to evangelise the unsaved of the world, to transform them spiritually through God's love and through social service to others. They regard the Bible as the infallible, self-authenticating Word of God. The statement of faith of Evangelical Friends International is comparable to that of other Evangelical churches. Those who are members of Evangelical Friends International are mainly located in the United States, Central America and Asia.

Beginning in the 1880s, some Friends began using outward sacraments in their Sunday services, first in Evangelical Friends Church-Eastern Region (then known as Ohio Yearly Meeting [Damascus]). Friends Church-Southwest Region also approved such a practice. In places where Evangelical Friends engage in missionary work, such as Africa, Latin America and Asia, adult baptism by immersion in water occurs. In this they differ from most other branches of the Religious Society of Friends. EFCI in 2014 was claiming to represent more than 140,000 Friends, some 39% of the total number of Friends worldwide.

Gurneyite Friends (also known as Friends United Meeting Friends) are modern followers of the Evangelical Quaker theology specified by Joseph John Gurney, a 19th-century British Friend. They make up 49% of the total number of Quakers worldwide. They see Jesus Christ as their Teacher and Lord and favour close work with other Protestant Christian churches. Gurneyite Friends balance the Bible's authority as inspired words of God with personal, direct experience of God in their lives. Both children and adults take part in religious education, which emphasises orthodox Christian teaching from the Bible, in relation to both orthodox Christian Quaker history and Quaker testimonies. Gurneyite Friends subscribe to a set of orthodox Christian doctrines, such as those found in the Richmond Declaration of faith. In later years conflict arose among Gurneyite Friends over the Richmond Declaration of faith, but after a while, it was adopted by nearly all of Gurneyite yearly meetings. The Five Years Meeting of Friends reaffirmed its loyalty to the Richmond Declaration of faith in 1912, but specified that it was not to constitute a Christian creed. Although Gurneyism was the main form of Quakerism in 19th-century Britain, Gurneyite Friends today are found also in America, Ireland, Africa and India. Many Gurneyite Friends combine "waiting" (unprogrammed) worship with practices commonly found in other Protestant Christian churches, such as readings from the Bible and singing hymns. A small minority of Gurneyite Friends practice wholly unprogrammed worship.

Holiness Friends are heavily influenced by the Holiness movement, in particular John Wesley's doctrine of Christian perfection, also called "entire sanctification". This states that loving God and humanity totally, as exemplified by Christ, enables believers to rid themselves of voluntary sin. This was a dominant view within Quakerism in the United Kingdom and United States in the 19th century, and influenced other branches of Quakerism. Holiness Friends argue (leaning on writings that include George Fox's message of perfection) that early Friends had this understanding of holiness.

Today, some Friends hold holiness beliefs within most yearly meetings, but it is the predominant theological view of Central Yearly Meeting of Friends, (founded in 1926 specifically to promote holiness theology) and the Holiness Mission of the Bolivian Evangelical Friends Church (founded by missionaries from that meeting in 1919, the largest group of Friends in Bolivia).

Liberal Quakerism generally refers to Friends who take ideas from liberal Christianity, often sharing a similar mix of ideas, such as more critical Biblical hermeneutics, often with a focus on the social gospel. The ideas of that of God in everyone and the inner light were popularised by the American Friend Rufus Jones in the early 20th century, he and John Wilhelm Rowntree originating the movement. Liberal Friends predominated in Britain in the 20th century, among US meetings affiliated to Friends General Conference, and some meetings in Canada, Europe, Australia, New Zealand and Southern Africa.

These ideas remain important in Liberal Friends' understanding of God. They highlight the importance of good works, particularly living a life that upholds the virtues preached by Jesus. They often emphasise pacifism, treating others equally, living simply, and telling the truth.

Like Conservative Friends, Liberal Friends reject religious symbolism and sacraments such as water baptism and the Eucharist. While Liberal Friends recognise the potential of these outward forms for awakening experiences of the Inward Light of Christ, they are not part of their worship and are thought unnecessary to authentic Christian spirituality.

The Bible remains central to most Liberal Friends' worship. Almost all meetings make it available in the meeting house, often on a table in the centre of the room, which attendees may read privately or publicly during worship. But Liberal Friends decided that the Scriptures should give way to God's lead, if God leads them in a way contrary to the Bible. Many Friends are also influenced by liberal Christian theologians and modern Biblical criticism. They often adopt non-propositional Biblical hermeneutics, such as believing that the Bible is an anthology of human authors' beliefs and feelings about God, rather than Holy Writ, and that multiple interpretations of the Scriptures are acceptable.

Liberal Friends believe that a corporate confession of faith would be an obstacle - both to authentic listening and to new insight. As a non-creed form of Christianity, Liberal Quakerism is receptive to a wide range of understandings of religion. Most Liberal Quaker Yearly Meetings publish a Faith and Practice containing a range of religious experiences of what it means to be a Friend in that Yearly Meeting.

Universalist Friends affirm religious pluralism: there are many different paths to God and understandings of the divine reached through non-Christian religious experiences, which are as valid as Christian understandings. The group was founded in the late 1970s by John Linton, who had worshipped with the Delhi Worship Group in India (an independent meeting unaffiliated to any yearly meeting or wider Quaker group) with Christians, Muslims and Hindus worshipping together.

After moving to Britain, Linton founded the Quaker Universalist Fellowship in 1978. Later his views spread to the United States, where the Quaker Universalist Fellowship was founded in 1983. Most of the Friends who joined these two fellowships were Liberal Friends from the Britain Yearly Meeting in the United Kingdom and from Friends General Conference in the United States. Interest in Quaker Universalism is low among Friends from other Yearly meetings. The views of the Universalists provoked controversy in the 1980s[citation needed ] among themselves and Christian Quakers within the Britain Yearly Meeting, and within Friends General Conference. Despite the label, Quaker Universalists are not necessarily Christian Universalists, embracing the doctrine of universal reconciliation.

A minority of Friends have views similar to post-Christian non-theists in other churches such as the Sea of Faith, which emerged from the Anglican church. They are predominantly atheists, agnostics and humanists who still value membership in a religious organization. The first organisation for non-theist Friends was the Humanistic Society of Friends, founded in Los Angeles in 1939. This remained small and was absorbed into the American Humanist Association. More recently, interest in non-theism resurfaced, particularly under the British Friend David Boulton, who founded the 40-member Nontheist Friends Network in 2011. Non-theism is controversial, leading some Christian Quakers from within Britain Yearly Meeting to call for non-theists to be denied membership. In one study of Friends in the Britain Yearly Meeting, some 30% of Quakers had views described as non-theistic, agnostic, or atheist. Another study found that 75.1% of the 727 members of the Religious Society of Friends who completed the survey said that they consider themselves to be Christian and 17.6% that they did not, while 7.3% either did not answer or circled both answers. A further 22% of Quakers did not consider themselves Christian, but fulfilled a definition of being a Christian in that they said that they devoutly followed the teachings and example of Jesus Christ. In the same survey, 86.9% said they believed in God.

Quakers bear witness or to their religious beliefs in their spiritual lives, drawing on the Epistle of James exhortation that "faith by itself, if it is not accompanied by action, is dead". This religious witness is rooted in their immediate experience of God and verified by the Bible, especially in Jesus Christ's life and teachings. They may bear witness in many ways, according to how they believe God is leading them. Although Quakers share how they relate to God and the world, mirroring Christian ethical codes, for example the Sermon on the Mount or the Sermon on the Plain, Friends argue that they feel personally moved by God rather than following an ethical code.

Some theologians classify Friends' religious witness into categories, known by some Friends as Testimonies. These Friends believe these principles and practices testify to, witness to, or provide evidence for God's truth. No categorisation is universally accepted.

In the United Kingdom, the acronym STEPS is sometimes used (Simplicity, Truth, Equality, Peace, and Sustainability) to help remember the Testimonies, although most Quakers just use the full words. In his book Quaker Speak, British Friend Alastair Heron, lists the following ways in which British Friends have historically applied the Testimonies to their lives: Opposition to betting and gambling, capital punishment, conscription, hat honour (the largely historical practice of dipping one's hat toward social superiors), oaths, slavery, times and seasons, and tithing. Promotion of integrity (or truth), peace, penal reform, plain language, relief of suffering, simplicity, social order, Sunday observance, sustainability, temperance and moderation.

In East Africa, Friends teach peace and non-violence, simplicity, honesty, equality, humility, marriage and sexual ethics (defining marriage as lifelong between one man and one woman), sanctity of life (opposition to abortion), cultural conflicts and Christian life.

In the United States, the acronym SPICES is often used by many Yearly Meetings (Simplicity, Peace, Integrity, Community, Equality and Stewardship). Stewardship is not recognised as a Testimony by all Yearly Meetings. Rocky Mountain Yearly Meeting Friends put their faith in action through living their lives by the following principles: prayer, personal integrity, stewardship (which includes giving away minimum of 10% income and refraining from lotteries), marriage and family (lifelong commitment), regard for mind and body (refraining from certain amusements, propriety and modesty of dress, abstinence from alcohol, tobacco and drugs), peace and non-violence (including refusing to participate in war), abortion (opposition to abortion, practical ministry to women with unwanted pregnancy and promotion of adoption), human sexuality, the Christian and state (look to God for authority, not the government), capital punishment (find alternatives), human equality, women in ministry (recognising women and men have an equal part to play in ministry). The Southern Appalachian Yearly Meeting and Association lists as testimonies: Integrity, Peace, Simplicity, Equality and Community; areas of witness lists Children, Education, Government, Sexuality and Harmony with Nature.

Quakers traditionally use numbers for referencing the months and days of the week, something they call the plain calendar. This does not use names of calendar units derived from the names of pagan deities. The week begins with First Day (Sunday) and ends with Seventh Day (Saturday). Months run from First (January) to Twelfth (December). This rests on the terms used in the Bible, e.g. that Jesus Christ's followers went to the tomb early on the First Day. The plain calendar emerged in the 17th century in England in the Puritan movement, but became closely identified with Friends by the end of the 1650s, and was commonly employed into the 20th century. It is less commonly found today. The term First Day School is commonly used for what is referred to by other churches as Sunday School.

From 1155 to 1751, the English calendar (and that of Wales, Ireland and the British colonies overseas) marked March 25 as the first day of the year. For this reason, Quaker records of the 17th and early 18th centuries usually referred to March as First Month and February as Twelfth Month.

Like other Christian denominations derived from 16th-century Puritanism, many Friends eschew religious festivals (e.g. Christmas, Lent, or Easter), and believe that Christ's birth, crucifixion and resurrection, should be marked every day of the year. For example, many Quakers feel that fasting in Lent, but then eating in excess at other times of the year is hypocrisy. Many Quakers, rather than observing Lent, live a simple lifestyle all the year round (see Testimony of simplicity). Such practices are called the testimony against times and seasons.[citation needed ]

Some Friends are non-Sabbatarians, holding that "every day is the Lord's day", and that what should be done on a First Day should be done every day of the week, although Meeting for Worship is usually held on a First Day, after the advice first issued by the elders of Balby in 1656.

Most groups of Quakers meet for regular worship. There are two main types of worship worldwide: programmed worship and waiting worship.

West Mansfield Friends Church, Ohio, affiliated with the Evangelical Friends Church International

In programmed worship there is often a prepared Biblical message, which may be delivered by an individual with theological training from a Bible College. There may be hymns, a sermon, Bible readings, joint prayers and a period of silent worship. The worship resembles the church services of other Protestant denominations, although in most cases does not include the Eucharist. A paid pastor may be responsible for pastoral care. Worship of this kind is celebrated by about 89% of Friends worldwide. It is found in many Yearly Meetings in Africa, Asia and parts of the US (central and southern), and is common in programmed meetings affiliated to Friends United Meeting, (who make up around 49% of worldwide membership), and evangelical meetings, including those affiliated to Evangelical Friends International, (who make up at least 40% of Friends worldwide.) The religious event is sometimes called a Quaker meeting for worship or sometimes a Friends church service. This tradition arose among Friends in the United States in the 19th century, and in response to many converts to Christian Quakerism during the national spiritual revival of the time. Friends meetings in Africa and Latin America were generally started by Orthodox Friends from programmed elements of the Society, so that most African and Latin American Friends worship in a programmed style.

Some Friends hold Semi-Programmed Worship, which brings programmed elements such as hymns and readings into an otherwise unprogrammed service of worship.

Unprogrammed worship (also known as waiting worship, silent worship, or holy communion in the manner of Friends) rests on the practices of George Fox and early Friends, who based their beliefs and practices on their interpretation of how early Christians worshipped God their Heavenly Father. Friends gather together in "expectant waiting upon God" to experience his still small voice leading them from within. There is no plan on how the meeting will proceed, and practice varies widely between Meetings and individual worship services. Friends believe that God plans what will happen, with his spirit leading people to speak. A participant who feels led to speak will stand and share a spoken ministry in front of others. When this happens, Quakers believe that the spirit of God is speaking through the speaker. After someone has spoken, it is customary to allow a few minutes to pass in silence for reflection on what was said, before further vocal ministry is given. Sometimes a meeting is quite silent, sometimes many speak. These meetings lasted for several hours in George Fox's day. Modern meetings are often limited to an hour, ending when two people (usually the elders) exchange the sign of peace by a handshake. This handshake is often shared by the others. This style of worship is the norm in Britain, Ireland, the continent of Europe, Australia, New Zealand, Southern Africa, Canada, and parts of the United States (particularly yearly meetings associated with Friends General Conference and Beanite Quakerism)-constituting about 11% of Quakers. Those who worship in this way hold each person to be equal before God and capable of knowing the light of God directly. Anyone present may speak if feeling led to do so. Traditionally, Recorded Ministers were recognised for their particular gift in vocal ministry. This practice continues among Conservative Friends and Liberal Friends (e.g. New York Yearly Meeting,), but many meetings where Liberal Friends predominate abolished this practice. London Yearly Meeting of Friends abolished the acknowledging and recording of Recorded Ministers in 1924.

Quaker business meeting in York

Governance and decision-making are conducted at a special meeting for worship - often called a meeting for worship with a concern for business or meeting for worship for church affairs, where all members can attend, as in a Congregational church. Quakers consider this a form of worship, conducted in the manner of meeting for worship. They believe it is a gathering of believers who wait upon the Lord to discover God's will, believing they are not making their own decisions. They seek to understand God's will for the religious community, via the actions of the Holy Spirit within the meeting.

As in a meeting for worship, each member is expected to listen to God, and if led by Him, stand up and contribute. In some business meetings, Friends wait for the clerk to acknowledge them before speaking. Direct replies to someone's contribution are not permitted, with an aim of seeking truth rather than debate. A decision is reached when the meeting as a whole feels that the "way forward" has been discerned (also called "coming to unity"). There is no voting. On some occasions Friends may delay a decision because they feel the meeting is not following God's will. Others (especially non-Friends) may describe this as consensus decision-making; however, Friends in general continue to seek God's will. It is assumed that if everyone is attuned to God's spirit, the way forward becomes clear.

Friends World Committee for Consultation (FWCC) is the international Quaker organization that loosely unifies the different religious traditions of Quakers; FWCC brings together the largest variety of Friends in the world. Friends World Committee for Consultation is divided into four sections to represent different regions of the world: Africa, Asia West Pacific, Europe and Middle East, and the Americas.

Various organizations associated with Friends include a United States' lobbying organization based in Washington, D.C. called the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL); service organizations such as the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), the Quaker United Nations Offices, Quaker Peace and Social Witness, Friends Committee on Scouting, the Quaker Peace Centre in Cape Town, South Africa, and the Alternatives to Violence Project.

Quakers today are organised into independent and regional, national bodies called Yearly Meetings, which have often split from one another over doctrinal differences. Several of such unite Quakers who share similar religious beliefs - for example Evangelical Friends Church International unites evangelical Christian Friends; Friends United Meeting unites Friends into "fellowships where Jesus Christ is known, loved and obeyed as Teacher and Lord;" and Friends General Conference links Quakers with non-creed, liberal religious beliefs. Many Quaker Yearly Meetings also belong to the Friends World Committee for Consultation, an international fellowship of Yearly Meetings from different Quaker traditions.

A Friend is a member of a Yearly Meeting, usually beginning with membership in a local monthly meeting. Means of acquiring membership vary. For example, in most Kenyan yearly meetings, attenders who wish to become members must take part in some two years' adult education, memorising key Bible passages, and learning about the history of orthodox Christianity and of Christian Quakerism. Within the Britain Yearly Meeting, membership is acquired through a process of peer review, where a potential member is visited by several members, who report to the other members before a decision is reached.

Within some Friends Churches in the Evangelical Friends Church - in particular in Rwanda, Burundi, and parts of the United States - an adult believer's baptism by immersion in water is optional. Within Liberal Friends, Conservative Friends, and Pastoral Friends Churches, Friends do not practise water baptism, Christening, or other initiation ceremonies to admit a new member or a newborn baby. Children are often welcomed into the meeting at their first attendance. Formerly, children born to Quaker parents automatically became members (sometimes called birthright membership), but this no longer applies in many areas. Some parents apply for membership on behalf of their children, while others allow children to decide whether to be a member when they are ready and older in age. Some meetings adopt a policy that children, some time after becoming young adults, must apply independently for membership.

Traditional Quaker memorial services are held as a form of worship and known as memorial meetings. Friends gather for worship and offer remembrances of the deceased. In some Quaker traditions, the coffin or ashes are not present. Memorial meetings may be held many weeks after the death, which can enable wider attendance, replacement of grief with spiritual reflection, and celebration of life to dominate. Memorial meetings can last over an hour, particularly if many people attend. Memorial services give all a chance to remember the lost individual in their own way, comforting those present and re-affirming the love of the people in the wider community.[citation needed ]

A meeting for worship for the solemnisation of marriage in an unprogrammed Friends meeting is similar to any other unprogrammed meeting for worship. The pair exchange promises before God and gathered witnesses, and the meeting returns to open worship. At the rise of meeting, the witnesses, including the youngest children, are asked to sign the wedding certificate as a record. In Britain, Quakers keep a separate record of the union and notify the General Register Office.

In the early days of the United States, there was doubt whether a marriage solemnised in that way was entitled to legal recognition. Over the years, each state has set rules for the procedure. Most states expect the marriage document to be signed by a single officiant (a priest, rabbi, minister, Justice of the Peace, etc.) Quakers routinely modify the document to allow three or four Friends to sign as officiant. Often these are the members of a committee of ministry and oversight, who have helped the couple to plan their marriage. Usually, a separate document containing the vows and signatures of all present is kept by the couple and often displayed prominently in their home.

In many Friends meetings, the couple meet with a clearness committee before the wedding. Its purpose is to discuss with the couple the many aspects of marriage and life as a couple. If the couple seem ready, the marriage is recommended to the meeting.

As in wider society, there is a diversity of views among Friends on the issue of same-sex marriage. Various Friends meetings around the world have voiced support for and recognised same-sex marriages. In 1986, Hartford Friends Meeting in Connecticut reached a decision that "the Meeting recognised a committed union in a celebration of marriage, under the care of the Meeting. The same loving care and consideration should be given to both homosexual and heterosexual applicants as outlined in Faith and Practice." Since then, other meetings of liberal and progressive Friends from Australia, Britain, New Zealand, parts of North America, and other countries have recognised marriage between partners of the same sex. In jurisdictions where same-sex marriage is not recognised by civil authorities, some meetings follow the practice of early Quakers in overseeing the union without reference to the state. There are also Friends who do not support same-sex marriage. Some Evangelical and Pastoral yearly meetings in the United States have issued public statements stating that homosexuality is a sin.

Worldwide distribution of Quakers by country in 2017 according to the Friends World Committee for Consultation:

Like many religious movements, the Religious Society of Friends has evolved, changed, and split into sub-groups.

Quakerism started in England and Wales, and quickly spread to Ireland, the Netherlands, Barbados and North America. In 2012, there were 146,300 Quakers in Kenya, 76,360 in the United States, 35,000 in Burundi and 22,300 in Bolivia. Other countries with over 5,000 Quakers were Guatemala, the United Kingdom, Nepal, Taiwan and Uganda. Although the total number of Quakers is around 377,000 worldwide, Quaker influence is concentrated in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania; Kaimosi, Kenya; Newberg, Oregon; Greenleaf, Idaho; Whittier, California; Richmond, Indiana; Friendswood, Texas; Birmingham, England; Ramallah, Palestine, and Greensboro, North Carolina.

The highest concentration of Quakers is in Africa. The Friends of East Africa were at one time part of a single East Africa Yearly Meeting, then the world's largest. Today, the region is served by several distinct yearly meetings. Most are affiliated with the Friends United Meeting, practise programmed worship and employ pastors. Friends meet in Rwanda and Burundi; new work is beginning in North Africa. Small unprogrammed meetings exist also in Botswana, Ghana, Lesotho, Namibia, Nigeria, South Africa and Zimbabwe.

In 2012, there were 196,800 adult Quakers in Africa.

Friends in Australia and New Zealand follow the unprogrammed tradition, similar to that of the Britain Yearly Meeting. Considerable distances between the colonies and small numbers of Quakers meant that Australia Friends were dependent on London until the 20th century. The Society remained unprogrammed and is named Australia Yearly Meeting, with local organizations around seven Regional Meetings: Canberra (which extends into southern New South Wales), New South Wales, Queensland, South Australia (which extends into Northern Territory), Tasmania, Victoria, and Western Australia. The Friends' School is found in Hobart. An annual meeting each January, is hosted by a different Regional Meeting over a seven-year cycle, with a Standing Committee each July or August. The Australia Yearly Meeting published This We Can Say: Australian Quaker Life, Faith and Thought in 2003.

Meetings for worship in New Zealand started in Nelson in 1842 and in Auckland in 1885. In 1889 it was estimated that there were about 30 Quakers in Auckland. The New Zealand Yearly Meeting, today consists of nine monthly meetings. The Yearly Meeting published Quaker Faith and Practice in Aotearoa New Zealand, in 2003.

Quaker meetings occur in India, Hong Kong, Korea, Philippines, Japan and Nepal.

India has four yearly meetings - the unprogrammed Mid-India Yearly Meeting, programmed Bhopal Yearly Meeting, and the Mahoba Yearly Meeting. Bundelkhand Yearly Meeting is an evangelical Friends Church affiliated to Evangelical Friends International. Other programmed and unprogrammed worship groups are not affiliated to any yearly meeting.

Evangelical Friends Churches exist in the Philippines and Nepal and are affiliated to Evangelical Friends International.

In the United Kingdom, the predominantly liberal and unprogrammed Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain, has 478 local meetings, and 14,260 adult members, with an additional 8,560 non-member adults who attend worship and 2,251 children. The number has declined steadily since the mid-20th century. Programmed meetings occur, including in Wem and London. Small groups of Conservative Friends meet in Ripley and Greenwich in England, and Arbroath in Scotland, who follow Ohio Yearly Meeting's Book of Discipline.

Evangelical Friends Central Europe Yearly Meeting has 4,306 members across six nations, including Albania, Hungary and Romania.

Ireland Yearly Meeting is unprogrammed and more conservative than Britain Yearly Meeting. It has 1,591 members in 28 meetings across the Republic of Ireland, and in Northern Ireland.

German Yearly Meeting is unprogrammed and liberal and has 340 members, worshipping in 31 meetings in Germany and Austria.

Small groups of Friends in Czech Republic, Estonia, Greece, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, and Ukraine attend meetings for worship there.

Middle East Yearly Meeting has meetings in Lebanon and Palestine.

There has been an active and vibrant Palestinian Quaker community in Ramallah since the late 1800s. In 1910 this community built the Ramallah Friends Meetinghouse and later added another building that was used for community outreach. The Ramallah Friends Meeting has always played a vital role in the community. In 1948 the buildings and grounds became home to many Palestinian refugees. Throughout the years, the members of the Ramallah Friends Meeting organised numerous community programmes such as the Children's Play Centre, the First Day School, and women's activities.

By the early 1990s the Meetinghouse and Annex, which housed meeting rooms and bathroom facilities, fell into disrepair as a result of damage inflicted by time and the impact of conflict. So serious was the deterioration of the meetinghouse that by the middle 1990s it was impossible to use the building at all. A further blow to the Friends and the wider Palestinian community was the high level of emigration brought on by the economic situation and the hardships arising from continuing Israeli military occupation. The Meetinghouse, which had served as a place of worship for the Friends in Ramallah could no longer be used as such and the Annex could no longer be used for community outreach.

In 2002 a committee consisting of members of the Religious Society of Friends in the US and the Clerk of the Ramallah Meeting began to raise funds for the renovations of the buildings and grounds of the Meetinghouse. By November 2004 the renovations were complete, and on 6 March 2005, exactly 95 years to the day after the dedication, the Meetinghouse and Annex were rededicated as a Quaker and community resource. Friends meet every Sunday morning at 10:30 for unprogrammed Meeting for Worship. Everyone is welcome to attend.

Quakers can be found throughout the Americas. Friends in the United States in particular have diverse worship styles and differences of theology, vocabulary, and practice.

A local congregation in the unprogrammed tradition is called a meeting, or a monthly meeting (e.g., Smalltown Meeting or Smalltown Monthly Meeting). The reference to "monthly" is because the meeting meets monthly to conduct the group's business. Most "monthly meetings" meet for worship at least once a week; some meetings have several worship meetings during the week. In programmed traditions, local congregations are often referred to as "Friends Churches" or "Meetings".

Monthly meetings are often part of a regional group called a quarterly meeting, which is usually part of an even larger group called a yearly meeting; with the adjectives "quarterly" and "yearly" referring specifically to the frequency of meetings for worship with a concern for business.

Some yearly meetings, like Philadelphia Yearly Meeting, belong to larger organisations to help maintain order and communication within the Society. The three chief ones are Friends General Conference (FGC), Friends United Meeting (FUM), and Evangelical Friends Church International (EFCI). In all three groups, most member organisations, though not necessarily members, are from the United States. FGC is theologically the most liberal of the three groups, while EFCI is the most evangelical. FUM is the largest. Friends United Meeting was originally known as "Five Years Meeting". Some monthly meetings belong to more than one larger organisation, while others are fully independent.

The Quaker star is used by many Quaker service organizations, such as The American Friends Service Committee, Canadian Friends Service Committee and Quaker Peace and Social Witness (previously Friends Service Council). It was originally used by British Quakers performing war relief efforts during the Franco-Prussian War to distinguish themselves from the Red Cross. Today the star is used by multiple Quaker organizations as their symbol to represent "a common commitment to service and the spirit in which it is provided."

Many Friends in Liberal Friends' meetings are actively involved in the ecumenical movement, often working closely with other Mainline Protestant and liberal Christian churches, with whom they share common religious ground. A concern for peace and social justice often brings Friends together with other Christian churches and other Christian groups. Some Liberal Quaker yearly meetings are members of ecumenical pan-Christian organisations, which include Protestant and Orthodox churches-for example Philadelphia Yearly Meeting is a member of the National Council of Churches. The Britain Yearly Meeting is a member of Churches Together in Britain and Ireland, and Friends General Conference is a member of the World Council of Churches.

Guerneyite Friends would typically see themselves as part of an orthodox Christian movement and work closely with other Christian denominations. Friends United Meeting (the international organisation of Gurneyite yearly meetings) is a member of the National Council of Churches and the World Council of Churches, which are pan-Christian organisations that include Lutheran, Orthodox, Reformed, Anglican and Baptist Churches, among others.

Evangelical Friends work closely with other evangelical churches from other Christian traditions. The North American branch of Evangelical Friends Church International is a member church of the National Association of Evangelicals. Evangelical Friends tend to be less involved with non-evangelical churches and are not members of the World Council of Churches or National Council of Churches.

The majority of other Christian groups recognise Friends among their fellow-Christians. Some people who attend Quaker Meetings assume that Quakers are not Christians, when they do not hear overtly Christian language during the meeting for worship.

Relationships between Quakers and non-Christians vary considerably, according to sect, geography, and history.

Early Quakers distanced themselves from practices that they saw as pagan. For instance, they refused to use the usual names of the days of the week, since they were derived from the names of pagan deities. They refused to celebrate Christmas because they believed it was based on pagan festivities.

Early Friends called on adherents of other world religions to turn to the 'Light of Christ within' that they believed was present in all people born into the world. For example, George Fox wrote a number of open letters to Jews and Muslims, in which he encouraged them to turn to Jesus Christ as the only path to salvation (e.g. A Visitation to the Jews, To the Great Turk and King of Algiers in Algeria, and all that are under his authority, to read this over, which concerns their salvation and To the Great Turk and King of Algiers in Algeria). In the letters to Muslim readers, Fox is exceptional for his time in his sympathetic and wide-ranging use of the Qur'an, and his belief that its contents were consistent with Christian scripture.

In 1870, Richard Price Hallowell argued that the logical extension of Christian Quakerism is a universal Church, which "demands a religion which embraces Jew, Pagan and Christian, and which cannot be limited by the dogmas of one or the other".

Since the late 20th century, some attenders at Liberal Quaker Meetings have actively identified with world faiths other than Christianity, such as Judaism, Islam, Buddhism and Paganism.

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5. ^ Christian Scholar's Review, Volume 27. Hope College. 1997. p. 205. This was especially true of proto-evangelical movements like the Quakers, organized as the Religious Society of Friends by George Fox in 1668 as a group of Christians who rejected clerical authority and taught that the Holy Spirit guided

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7. ^ Stewart, Kathleen Anne (1992). The York Retreat in the Light of the Quaker Way: Moral Treatment Theory : Humane Therapy Or Mind Control?. William Sessions. ISBN 9781850720898. On the other hand, Fox believed that perfectionism and freedom from sin were possible in this world.

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22. T. Buchanan, (2002) ^ The Truth Will Set You Free': The Making of Amnesty International. Journal of Contemporary History 37(4) pp. 575-597

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29. Yearly Meeting of the Religious Society of Friends (Quakers) in Britain. "Tabular Statement as at 31 xii 2010" (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on 15 January 2016.

30. ^ Gill, Rebecca (2009). "The Rational Administration of Compassion?: The Origins of British Relief in War". Le Mouvement Social (in French). 227 (2): 9. doi:10.3917/lms.227.0009. ISSN 0027-2671. S2CID 144568446.

31. ^ Harmon, Steven R. (15 March 2010). Ecumenism Means You, Too: Ordinary Christians and the Quest for Christian Unity. Wipf and Stock Publishers. p. 97. ISBN 978-1-62189-277-9. Since its creation, it has also established a cordial cooperation with the World Council of Churches and regularly names Catholic observers at various ecumenical gatherings and invites observers of "fraternal delegates" of other churches or ecclesial communities to major events of the Catholic Church. The PCPCU publishes a journal called Information Service four times a year, in English and French. The WCC is the broadest and most inclusive among the many organized expressions of the modern ecumenical movement. It brings together 349 churches, denominations and church fellowships in more than 100 countries and territories throughout the world, representing over 560 million Christians and including most of the world's Orthodox churches, scores of Anglican, Baptist, Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed churches, as well as many United and Independent churches. ... It describes itself as a fellowship of churches which confess the Lord Jesus Christ as God and Savior according to the Scriptures and therefore seek to fulfill together their common calling to the glory of the one God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit, with the goal of visible unity in one faith and one Eucharistic fellowship, expressed in worship and in common life in Christ.

32. ^ Roberson, Ronald G. (1995). Oriental Orthodox-Roman Catholic Interchurch Marriages: And Other Pastoral Relationships. USCCB Publishing. p. 81. ISBN 978-1-55586-097-4. These Churches are the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Coptic Orthodox Church, the Ethiopian Orthodox Church, the Syrian Orthodox Church, and the Malankara Orthodox Syrian Church in India. In addition, an independent Orthodox Church of Eritrea was established following that country's independence from Ethiopia in 1993. All are members of the World Council of Churches and have committed themselves to the contemporary ecumenical movement. In total, there are probably about thirty million Oriental Orthodox faithful in the world today.

33. ^ Miller-White, Brett (2004). "The Journeyman - The Making of a Muslim Quaker". Quaker Theology. Vol. 10. Archived from the original on 18 July 2007.

Abbott, Margery; Chijioke, Mary Ellen; Dandelion, Pink; Oliver, John William, eds. (June 2003). Historical Dictionary of The Friends (Quakers). Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0-8108-4483-4.

Anderson, Verily. Friends and Relations: Three Centuries of Quaker Families. Hodder & Stoughton. (1980)

Bacon, Margaret Hope (April 2000). The Quiet Rebels: The Story of the Quakers in America. Pendle Hill Publications. p. 249. ISBN 978-0-87574-935-8.

Margaret Hope Bacon, "Quakers and Colonization" Quaker History. 95 (Spring 2006), 26-43

Barbour, Hugh (October 1985). The Quakers in Puritan England. Friends United Press. p. 272. ISBN 978-0-913408-87-2.

Philip Benjamin, Philadelphia Quakers in an Age of Industrialism, 1870-1920 (1976)

William C. Braithwaite, Second Period of Quakerism. (1919); revised by Henry Cadbury (1961), covers 1660 to 1720s in Britain

Peter Brock, Pioneers of the Peaceable Kingdom. (1968) on Peace Testimony from the 1650s to 1900

Edwin B. Bronner, William Penn's Holy Experiment (1962)

Jennifer Connerley, Friendly Americans: Representing Quakers in the United States, 1850-1920 PhD dissertation U. of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 2006. 277 pp. Citation: DAI 2006 67(2): 600-A. DA3207363 online at ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

A. Glenn Crothers, Quakers Living in the Lion's Mouth: The Society of Friends in Northern Virginia, 1730-1865. Gainesville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2012

Adrian Davies, The Quakers in English Society, 1655-1725 (2000) 261 pp.

Robert Doherty, The Hicksite Separation. (1967), uses the new social history to inquire who joined which side

Mary Maples Dunn, William Penn: Politics and Conscience (1967)

J. William Frost, The Quaker Family in Colonial America: A Portrait of the Society of Friends. (1973), emphasis on social structure and family life

Thomas Hamm, The Quakers in America. (2003). 293 pp., strong analysis of current situation, with brief history

Thomas Hamm, The Transformation of American Quakerism: Orthodox Friends, 1800-1907. (1988), looks at the impact of the Holiness movement on the Orthodox faction

Thomas D. Hamm, Earlham College: A History, 1847-1997. (1997) 448 pp.

Sydney James, A People among Peoples: Quaker Benevolence in Eighteenth-Century America. (1963), broad-ranging study that remains the best history in America before 1800

Rufus M. Jones, Later Periods of Quakerism. 2 vols. (1921), covers England and America until World War I.

Rufus M. Jones, The Story of George Fox. (1919) 169 pp. online edition

Rufus M. Jones, A Service of Love in War Time: American Friends Relief Work in Europe, 1917-1919 (1922) online edition

Ryan Jordan, Slavery and the Meetinghouse: The Quakers and the Abolitionist Dilemma, 1820-1865. (2007) 191 pp.

Thomas C. Kennedy, British Quakerism, 1860-1920: The Transformation of a Religious Community. (2001). 477 pp.

Rebecca Larson, Daughters of Light: Quaker Women Preaching and Prophesying in the Colonies and Abroad, 1700-1775 (1999) 399 pp.

James David LeShana, "'Heavenly Plantations': Quakers in Colonial North Carolina." PhD dissertation: U. of California, Riverside 1998. 362 pp. DAI 2000 61(5): 2005-A. DA9974014 Fulltext: ProQuest Dissertations & Theses

Gary Nash, Quakers and Politis: Pennsylvania, 1680-1726 (1968)

Ane Marie Bak Rasmussen, A History of the Quaker Movement in Africa (1994) 168 pp.

Harold Smuck, Friends in East Africa (Richmond, Indiana: 1987)

Douglas Steere, 1967 On Being Present Where You Are Archived 14 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine Wallingford, Pa: Pendle Hill Pamphlet No. 151

Frederick B. Tolles, Meeting House and Counting House (1948), on Quaker businessmen in colonial Philadelphia

Frederick B. Tolles, Quakers and the Atlantic Culture (1960)

D. Elton Trueblood The People Called Quakers (1966)

Karen Anna Vogel, Christmas Union: Quaker Abolitionists of Chester County, PA. Murray Pura's Cry of Freedom Series, Volume 5

James Walvin, The Quakers: Money and Morals (1997) 243 pp.

Clarence H. Yarrow, The Quaker Experience in International Conciliation (1979) for post-1945

Amelia Gummere, ed. The Journal and Essays of John Woolman (1922) online edition

Rufus M. Jones, ed. The Journal of George Fox: An Autobiography online edition

Lucretia Coffin Mott, ed. Beverly Wilson Palmer, Selected Letters of Lucretia Coffin Mott, U. of Illinois Press, 2002, 580 pp.

Jessamyn West, ed. The Quaker Reader (1962) ISBN 0-87574-916-X collection of essays by Fox, Penn and other notable Quakers

Children's books

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Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members of these movements ("theFriends") are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to experience the light within or "answering that of God in every one".

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Excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, 1845

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Excerpt from Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass, an American Slave, Written by Himself, 1845

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CHAPTER XI

I now come to that part of my life during which I planned, and finally succeeded in making, my escape from slavery. But before narrating any of the peculiar circumstances, I deem it proper to make known my intention not to state all the facts connected with the transaction. My reasons for pursuing this course may be understood from the following: First, were I to give a minute statement of all the facts, it is not only possible, but quite probable, that others would thereby be involved in the most embarrassing difficulties. Secondly, such a statement would most undoubtedly induce greater vigilance on the part of slaveholders than has existed heretofore among them; which would, of course, be the means of guarding a door whereby some dear brother bondman might escape his galling chains. I deeply regret the necessity that impels me to suppress anything of importance connected with my experience in slavery. It would afford me great pleasure indeed, as well as materially add to the interest of my narrative, were I at liberty to gratify a curiosity, which I know exists in the minds of many, by an accurate statement of all the facts pertaining to my most fortunate escape. But I must deprive myself of this pleasure, and the curious of the gratification which such a statement would afford. I would allow myself to suffer under the greatest imputations which evil-minded men might suggest, rather than exculpate myself, and thereby run the hazard of closing the slightest avenue by which a brother slave might clear himself of the chains and fetters of slavery.

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The Narrative of William Wells Brown, An American Slave, written by himself, 1849

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The Narrative of William Wells Brown, An American Slave, written by himself, 1849

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The first person that passed was a man in a buggy-wagon. He looked too genteel for me to hail him. Very soon another passed by on horseback. I attempted to speak to him, but fear made my voice fail me. As he passed, I left my hiding- place, and was approaching the road, when I observed an old man walking towards me, leading a white horse. He had on a broad-brimmed hat and a very long coat, and was evidently walking for exercise. As soon as I saw him, and observed his dress, I thought to myself, "You are the man that I have been looking for!" Nor was I mistaken. He was the very man!

On approaching me, he asked me, "if I was not a slave." I looked at him some time, and then asked him "if he knew of any one who would

help me as I was sick." He answered that he would; but again asked, if I was not a slave. I told him I was. He then said that I was in a very pro-slavery neighborhood, and if I would wait until he went home, he would get a covered wagon for me. I promised to remain. He mounted his horse, and was soon out of sight.

After he was gone, I meditated whether to wait or not; being apprehensive that he had gone for some one to arrest me. But I finally concluded to remain until he should return; removing some few rods to watch his movements. After a suspense of an hour and a half or more, he returned with a two-horse covered wagon, such as are usually seen under the shed of a Quaker meeting-house on Sundays and Thursdays; for the old man proved to be a Quaker of the George Fox stamp.

He took me to his house, but it was some time before I could be induced to enter it; not until the old lady came out, did I venture into the house. I thought I saw something in the old lady's cap that told me I was not only safe, but welcome, in her house. I was not, however, prepared to receive their hospitalities. The only fault I found with them was their being too kind. I had never had a white man to treat me as an equal, and the idea of a white lady waiting on me at the table was still worse! Though the table was loaded with the good things of this life, I could not eat. I thought if I could only be allowed the privilege of eating in the kitchen I should be more than satisfied!

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(The following extract was written by slave Kunta Kinte's descendant, Alex Haley. Having very little information about his ancestors, Haley has fictionalized Kunta Kinte's escape.)

But soon--exhausted not only by having to race so far and so fast, but also by fear itself--he had to rest again. He would close his eyes for just a moment, and then get going again. He awoke in a sweat, sitting "bolt upright. It was pitch dark! He had slept the day away! Shaking his head, he was trying to figure out what had wakened him when suddenly he heard it again: the baying of dogs, this time much closer than before. He sprang up and away so frantically that it was several moments before it flashed upon his mind that he had forgotten his long knife. He dashed back to where he had lain, but the springy vines were a maze, and though he knew--maddeningly--that he had to be within arm's length of it, no amount of groping and scrabbling enabled him to lay his hand on it. As the baying grew steadily louder, his stomach began to churn. If he didn't find it, he knew he would get captured again--or worse. With his hands jerking around everywhere underfoot, he finally grabbed hold of a rock about the size of his fist. With a desperate cry, he snatched it up and bolted into the deep brush., All that night, like one possessed, he ran deeper and deeper into the forest--tripping, falling, tangling his feet in: vines, stopping only for moments to catch his breath: But | the hounds kept gaining on him, closer and closer, and; finally, soon after dawn, he could see them over his shoulder. It was like a nightmare repeating itself. He couldn't, run any farther. Turning and crouching in a little clearing I with his back against a tree, he was ready for them--right; hand clutching a stout limb he had snapped off another tree \ while he was running at top speed, left hand holding the rock in a grip of death. The dogs began to lunge toward

Kunta, but with a hideous cry he lashed the club at them so ferociously that they retreated and cowered just beyond its range, barking and slavering, until the two toubob appeared on their horses. Kunta had never seen these men before. The younger one drew a gun, but the older one waved him back as he got down off his horse and walked toward Kunta. He was calmly uncoiling a long black whip. Kunta stood there wild-eyed, his body shaking, his brain flashing a memory of toubob faces in the wood grove, on the big canoe, in the prison, in the place where he had been sold, on the heathen farm, in the woods where he had been caught, beaten, lashed, and shot three times before. As the toubob's arm reared backward with the lash, Kunta's arm whipped forward with a viciousness that sent him falling sideways as his fingers released the rock. He heard the toubob shout; then a bullet cracked past his ear, and the dogs were upon him. As he rolled over and over on the ground ripping at the dogs, Kunta glimpsed one toubob's face with blood running down it. Kunta was snarling like a wild animal when they called off the dogs and approached him with their guns drawn. He knew from their faces that he would die now, and he didn't care. One lunged forward and grabbed him while the other clubbed with the gun, but it still took all of their strength to hold him, for he was writhing, fighting, moaning, shrieking in both Arabic and Mandinka--until they clubbed him again. Wrestling him violently toward a tree, they tore the clothes off him and tied him tightly to it around the middle of his body. He steeled himself to be beaten to death. But then the bleeding toubob halted abruptly, and a strange look came onto his face, almost a smile, and he spoke briefly, hoarsely to the younger one. The younger one grinned and nodded, then went back to his horse and unlashed a short-handled hunting ax that had been stowed against the saddle. He chopped a rotting tree trunk away from its roots and pulled it over next to Kunta. Standing before him, the bleeding one began making gestures. He pointed to Kunta's genitals, then to the hunting knife in his belt. Then he pointed to Kunta's foot, and then to the ax in his hand. When Kunta understood, he howled and kicked--and was clubbed again. Deep in his marrow, a voice shouted that a man, to be a man, must have sons. And Kunta's hands flew down to cover his foot. The two toubob were wickedly grinning. One pushed the trunk under Kunta's right foot as the other tied the foot to the trunk so tightly that all of Kunta's raging couldn't free it. The bleeding toubob picked up the ax. Kunta was screaming and thrashing as the ax flashed up, then down so fast--severing skin, tendons, muscles, bone--that Kunta heard the ax thud into the trunk as the shock of it sent the agony deep into his brain. As the explosion of pain bolted through him, Kunta's upper body spasmed forward and his hands went flailing downward as if to save the front half of his foot, which was falling forward, as bright red blood jetted from the stump as he plunged into blackness.

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Excerpt from chapter 15 (The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, 1985)

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Excerpt from chapter 15 (The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, 1985)

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I was having dinner, that evening, hamburger balls and hashed browns. My table was
near the window, I could see out, as far as the front gates. I saw the ambulance come
back, no siren this time. One of the Angels jumped out, talked with the guard. The guard
went into the building; the ambulance stayed parked; the Angel stood with his back
towards us, as they had been taught to do. Two of the Aunts came out of the building,
with the guard. They went around to the back. They hauled Moira out, dragged her in
through the gate and up the front steps, holding her under the armpits, one on each
side. She was having trouble walking. I stopped eating, I couldn’t eat; by this time all of
us on my side of the table were staring out the window. The window was greenish, with
that chicken-wire mesh they used to put inside glass. Aunt Lydia said, Eat your dinner.
She went over and pulled down the blind.
They took her into a room that used to be the Science Lab. It was a room where none
of us ever went willingly. Afterwards she could not walk for a week, her feet would not
fit into her shoes, they were too swollen. It was the feet they’d do, for a first offence.
They used steel cables, frayed at the ends. After that the hands. They didn’t care what
they did to your feet and hands, even if it was permanent. Remember, said Aunt Lydia.
For our purposes your feet and your hands are not essential.
Moira lay on her bed, an example. She shouldn’t have tried it, not with the Angels,
Alma said, from the next bed over. We had to carry her to classes. We stole extra paper
packets of sugar for her, from the cafeteria at mealtimes, smuggled them to her, at
night, handing them from bed to bed. Probably she didn’t need the sugar but it was the
only thing we could find to steal. To give.

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Excerpt from chapter 38 (The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, 1985)

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Excerpt from chapter 38 (The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, 1985)

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I left that old hag Aunt Elizabeth tied up like a Christmas turkey behind the furnace. I wanted to kill her, I really felt like it, but now I’m just as glad I didn’t or things would be a lot worse for me. I couldn’t believe how easy it was to get out of the Centre. In that brown outfit I just walked right through. I kept on going as if I knew where I was heading, till I was out of sight. I didn’t have any great plan; it wasn’t an organized thing, like they thought, though when they were trying to get it out of me I made up a lot of stuff. You do that, when they use the electrodes and the other things. You don’t care what you say.
“I kept my shoulders back and chin up and marched along, trying to think of what to do next. When they busted the press they’d picked up a lot of the women I knew, and I thought they’d most likely have the rest by now. I was sure they had a list. We were dumb to think we could keep it going the way we did, even underground, even when we’d moved everything out of the office and into people’s cellars and back rooms. So I knew better than to try any of those houses.
“I had some sort of an idea of where I was in relation to the city, though I was
walking along a street I couldn’t remember having seen before. But I figured out from the sun where north was. Girl Scouts was some use after all. I thought I might as well head that way, see if I could find the Yard or the Square or anything around it. Then I would know for sure where I was. Also I thought it would look better for me to be going in towards the centre of things, rather than away. It would look more plausible.
“They’d set up more checkpoints while we were inside the Centre, they were all over the place. The first one scared the shit out of me. I came on it suddenly around the corner. I knew it wouldn’t look right if I turned around in full view and went back, so I bluffed it through, the same as I had at the gate, putting on that frown and keeping myself stiff and pursing my lips and looking right through them, as if they were festering sores. You know the way the Aunts look when they say the word man. It worked like a charm, and it did at the other checkpoints, too.
“But the insides of my head were going around like crazy. I only had so much time, before they found the old bat and sent out the alarm. Soon enough they’d be looking for me: one fake Aunt, on foot. I tried to think of someone, I ran over and over the people I knew. At last I tried to remember what I could about our mailing list. We’d destroyed it, of course, early on; or we didn’t destroy it, we divided it up among us and each one of us memorized a section, and then we destroyed it. We were still using the mails then, but we didn’t put our logo on the envelopes any more. It was getting far too risky.
“So I tried to recall my section of the list. I won’t tell you the name I chose, because I don’t want them to get in trouble, if they haven’t already. It could be I’ve spilled all this stuff, it’s hard to remember what you say when they’re doing it. You’ll say anything.
“I chose them because they were a married couple, and those were safer than anyone single and especially anyone gay. Also I remembered the designation beside their name. Q, it said, which meant Quaker. We had the religious denominations marked where there were any, for marches. That way you could tell who might turn out to what. It was no good calling on the C’s to do abortion stuff, for instance; not that we’d done much of that lately. I remembered their address, too. We’d grilled each other on those addresses, it was important to remember them exactly, zip code and all.
“By this time I’d hit Mass Ave. and I knew where I was. And I knew where they were too. Now I was worrying about something else: when these people saw an Aunt coming up the walk, wouldn’t they just lock the door and pretend not to be home? But I had to try it anyway, it was my only chance. I figured they weren’t likely to shoot me. It was about five o’clock by this time. I was tired of walking, especially that Aunt’s way like a goddamn soldier, poker up the ass, and I hadn’t had anything to eat since breakfast.
“What I didn’t know of course was that in those early days the Aunts and even the Centre were hardly common knowledge. It was all secret at first, behind barbed wire. There might have been objections to what they were doing, even then. So although people had seen the odd Aunt around, they weren’t really aware of what they were for. They must have thought they were some kind of army nurse. Already they’d stopped asking questions, unless they had to.
“So these people let me in right away. It was the woman who came to the door. I told her I was doing a questionnaire. I did that so she wouldn’t look surprised, in case anyone was watching. But as soon as I was inside the door, I took off the headgear and told them who I was. They could have phoned the police or whatever, I know I was taking a chance, but like I say there wasn’t any choice. Anyway they didn’t. They gave me some clothes, a dress of hers, and burned the Aunt’s outfit and the pass in their furnace; they knew that had to be done right away. They didn’t like having me there, that much was clear, it made them very nervous. They had two little kids, both under seven. I could see their point.
“I went to the can, what a relief that was. Bathtub full of plastic fish and so on. Then I sat upstairs in the kids’ room and played with them and their plastic blocks while their parents stayed downstairs and decided what to do about me. I didn’t feel scared by then, in fact I felt quite good. Fatalistic, you could say. Then the woman made me a sandwich and a cup of coffee and the man said he’d take me to another house. They hadn’t risked phoning.
“The other house was Quakers too, and they were paydirt, because they were a station on the Underground Femaleroad. After the first couple left, they said they’d try to get me out of the country. I won’t tell you how, because some of the stations may still be operating. Each one of them was in contact with only one other one, always the next one along. There were advantages to that – it was better if you were caught – but disadvantages too, because if one station got busted the entire chain backed up until they could make contact with one of their couriers, who could set up an alternate route. They were better organized than you’d think, though. They’d infiltrated a couple of useful places; one of them was the post office. They had a driver there with one of those handy little trucks. I made it over the bridge and into the city proper in a mail sack. I can tell you that now because they got him, soon after that. He ended up on the Wall.
You hear about these things; you hear a lot in here, you’d be surprised. The Commanders tell us themselves, I guess they figure why not, there’s no one we can pass it on to, except each other, and that doesn’t count.
“I’m making this sound easy but it wasn’t. I nearly shat bricks the whole time. One of the hardest things was knowing that these other people were risking their lives for you when they didn’t have to. But they said they were doing it for religious reasons and I shouldn’t take it personally. That helped some. They had silent prayers every evening. I found that hard to get used to at first, because it reminded me too much of that shit at the Centre. It made me feel sick to my stomach, to tell you the truth. I had to make an effort, tell myself that this was a whole other thing. I hated it at first. But I figure it was what kept them going. They knew more or less what would happen to them if they got caught. Not in detail, but they knew. By that time they’d started putting some of it on the TV, the trials and so forth.
“It was before the sectarian roundups began in earnest. As long as you said you were some sort of a Christian and you were married, for the first time that is, they were still leaving you pretty much alone. They were concentrating first on the others. They got them more or less under control before they started in on everybody else. “I was underground it must have been eight or nine months. I was taken from one safe house to another, there were more of those then. They weren’t all Quakers, some of them weren’t even religious. They were just people who didn’t like the way things were going.
“I almost made it out. They got me up as far as Salem, then in a truck full of chickens into Maine. I almost puked from the smell; you ever thought what it would be like to be shat on by a truckload of chickens, all of them carsick? They were planning to get me across the border there; not by car or truck, that was already too difficult, but by boat, up the coast. I didn’t know that until the actual night, they never told you the next step until right before it was happening. They were careful that way.
“So I don’t know what happened. Maybe somebody got cold feet about it, or somebody outside got suspicious. Or maybe it was the boat, maybe they thought the guy was out in his boat at night too much. By that time it must have been crawling with Eyes up there, and everywhere else close to the border. Whatever it was, they picked us up just as we were coming out the back door to go down to the dock. Me and the guy, and his wife too. They were an older couple, in their fifties. He’d been in the lobster business, back before all that happened to the shore fishing there. I don’t know what
became of them after that, because they took me in a separate van.

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The slave narrative is a type of literary genre involving the (written) autobiographical accounts of enslaved Africans, particularly in the Americas. Over six thousand such narratives are estimated to exist; about 150 narratives were published as separate books or pamphlets. In the United States during the Great Depression (1930s), more than 2,300 additional oral histories on life during slavery were collected by writers sponsored and published by the Works Progress Administration (WPA) of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's administration. Most of the 26 audio-recorded interviews are held by the Library of Congress.

source : wikipedia

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Today we're going to focus on chapters 15 and 38, regarding Moira's escape. Margaret Atwood obviously drew inspiration from the slave narratives to tell her story.

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Today we're going to focus on chapters 15 and 38, regarding Moira's escape. Margaret Atwood obviously drew inspiration from the slave narratives to tell her story.

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Lesson 17 : I beg to differ (= I disagree)

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Lesson 17 : I beg to differ (= I disagree)

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2nd extract : Debate about The Destructors at the PTA (Parent-Teacher Association)

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2nd extract : Debate about The Destructors at the PTA (Parent-Teacher Association)

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Listen to the extract and focus on the school scene (if you can get your eyes off the giant rabbit)

- Why is the teacher so outraged at Graham Greene's The Destructors ?
- She calls it "pornography". Is it pornography ?
- At the end, the teacher mentions Bonanza, a Tv show starring Lorne Greene, whom she confuses with author Graham Greene. what does it reveal about her knowledge of the short story ?

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Donnie Darko - Rabbit in the Bathroom Mirror Scene

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Listen to the extract (I've left my favorite scene of the movie just before the one you'll have to focus on)

-The literature teacher is studying The Destructors, a short story written by Graham Greene. What do the children do in the short story ?

- How does Donnie Darko see what they do ? What is destruction the synonym of for him ?

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Donnie Darko ( Tears for fears - Head over heels)

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The theme of sex in literature has always been a debatable issue, especially when literature is studied at school. Here's an example with one of my favorite movies, Donnie Darko.

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The theme of sex in literature has always been a debatable issue, especially when literature is studied at school. Here's an example with one of my favorite movies, Donnie Darko.

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“The thing women have yet to learn is nobody gives you power. You just take it. ”
― Roseanne Barr

“Everything in the world is about sex except sex. Sex is about power.”
― Oscar Wilde

“I wonder if fears ever really go away, or if they just lose their power over us.”
― Veronica Roth, Allegiant

“Power resides only where men believe it resides.

― George R.R. Martin, A Clash of Kings

“Recognizing power in another does not diminish your own.”
― Joss Whedon

“Being powerful is like being a lady. If you have to tell people you are, you aren't.”
― Margaret Thatcher

“What a curious power words have.”
― Tadeusz Borowski, This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen

“You gain power by pretending to be weak.”
― Chuck Palahniuk, Choke

“Names have power.”
― Rick Riordan, The Lightning Thief

“But remember that forgiveness too is a power. To beg for it is a power, and to withhold or bestow it is a power, perhaps the greatest.

― Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid's Tale

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The study of The Handmaid's Tale at school was also considered controversial and questionable by some parents.

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The study of The Handmaid's Tale at school was also considered controversial and questionable by some parents.

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Read this article about a father who thought The Handmaid's Tale was inappropriate for school.

- What does he blame the novel for ?

- What responses were given to his criticism ?

Take some notes about your answers. You will report in class.

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Robert Edwards says if students repeated some of the words from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in the school halls, they'd be suspended, so he questions why it is okay in the classroom.

And what about the foul language, the anti-Christian overtones, the violence and sexual degradation, asks the parent who launched a formal complaint about the Canadian novel. Don't they violate the Toronto board's policies of respect and tolerance?

"If you look at the board's policies, it goes to these great lengths to talk about respect and not using profane language, and in fact so do the policies at Lawrence Park Collegiate," where Edwards' 17-year-old son was studying the book in his Grade 12 English class.

"The board is adamant about those policies, but then puts books like this in place."

Edwards, the father of three sons, said he hasn't complained to the school about a book before. He only read The Handmaid's Tale after seeing his middle son with it.

He considers himself religious, and believes religion should be discussed, but if one faith is going to be "cast in a critical light, then the board ought to open it up" to others.

"I'm not looking to ban books," he said. "I'm just looking for justification as to why this is an appropriate book ... if the board can declare to me that in their view it fits within their policy, I'd like them to explain how."

A spokesperson for Atwood said the author has already said a lot on the topic and her opinions are widely available on the Internet.

Edwards filed a formal compliant with the Toronto District School Board before the Christmas holidays, arguing that while the futuristic theme of the book is acceptable, its focus on "sex, brutal situations, murder, prostitution" is not.

The book "is rife with brutality towards and mistreatment of women (and men at times), sexual scenes, and bleak depression," Edwards said in a letter to the school's principal. "I can't really understand what it is my son is supposed to be learning from this fictional drivel.

"I have a major problem with a curriculum book that cannot be fully read out loud in class, in front of an assembly, directly to a teacher, a parent, or, for that matter, contains attitudes and words that cannot be used by students in class discussion or hallway conversation. Let alone a description of situations that must be embarrassing and uncomfortable to any young woman in that class - and probably the young men, too."

He said if the book was anti-Islam, it wouldn't be allowed.

According to board policy, any complaint that can't be solved at the school level goes to a review committee.

Such a committee is now reviewing The Handmaid's Tale, which was first published in 1985. It met yesterday at Lawrence Park and will eventually make a recommendation to the director of education.

If Edwards still isn't satisfied, he can appeal to trustees.

The novel centres on a futuristic, theocratic world where women are used as breeders.

After Edwards complained, his son was assigned another book, Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, and will step out of class during any discussions on The Handmaid's Tale.

Russell Morton Brown, a retired University of Toronto English professor, said The Handmaid's Tale wasn't likely written for 17-year-olds, "but neither are a lot of things we teach in high school, like Shakespeare.

"And they are all the better for reading it. They are on the edge of adulthood already, and there's no point in coddling them," he said, adding, "they aren't coddled in terms of mass media today anyway."

He said the book has been accused of being anti-Christian and, more recently, anti-Islamic because the women are veiled and polygamy is allowed.

But that "misses the point," said Brown. "It's really antifundamentalism."

At one time, Brown taught a graduate course to high school teachers on Canadian fiction, which included The Handmaid's Tale.

"It's the most taught Canadian novel at the high school level," he said. "I think it provides a lot to talk about, and generally speaking it does engage students."

Join the conversation on the parentcentral.ca editor's blog.

Complaint spurs review of Atwood novel.

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Atwood novel too brutal, sexist for school: Parent

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Robert Edwards says if students repeated some of the words from Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale in the school halls, they'd be suspended, so he questions why it is okay in the classroom. And what about the foul language, the anti-Christian overtones, the violence and sexual degradation, asks the parent who launched a formal complaint about the Canadian novel.

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Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) Responds to Rep. Ted Yoho (R-FL)

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Today you will focus on this extract from chapter 25

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Today you will focus on this extract from chapter 25

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That was in May. Spring has now been undergone. The tulips have had their moment and are done, shedding their petals one by one, like teeth. One day I came upon Serena Joy, kneeling on a cushion in the garden, her cane beside her on the grass. She was snipping off the seed pods with a pair of shears. I watched her sideways as I went past, with my basket of oranges and lamb chops. She was aiming, positioning the blades of the shears, then cutting with a convulsive jerk of the hands. Was it the arthritis, creeping up? Or some blitzkrieg, some kamikaze, committed on the swelling genitalia of the flowers? The fruiting body. To cut off the seed pods is supposed to make the bulb store energy.
Saint Serena, on her knees, doing penance.
I often amused myself this way, with small mean-minded bitter jokes about her; but not for long. It doesn’t do to linger, watching Serena Joy, from behind.
What I coveted was the shears.

Well. Then we had the irises, rising beautiful and cool on their tall stalks, like blown glass, like pastel water momentarily frozen in a splash, light blue, light mauve, and the darker ones, velvet and purple, black cat’s-ears in the sun, indigo shadow, and the bleeding hearts, so female in shape it was a surprise they’d not long since been rooted out. There is something subversive about this garden of Serena’s, a sense of buried things bursting upwards, wordlessly, into the light, as if to point, to say: Whatever is silenced will clamour to be heard, though silently. A Tennyson garden, heavy with scent, languid; the return of the word swoon. Light pours down upon it from the sun, true, but also heat rises, from the flowers themselves, you can feel it: like holding your hand an inch above an arm, a shoulder. It breathes, in the warmth, breathing itself in. To walk through it in these days, of peonies, of pinks and carnations, makes my head swim.
The willow is in full plumage and is no help, with its insinuating whispers. Rendezvous, it says, terraces; the sibilants run up my spine, a shiver as if in fever. The summer dress rustles against the flesh of my thighs, the grass grows underfoot, at the edges of my eyes there are movements, in the branches; feathers, flittings, grace notes, tree into bird, metamorphosis run wild. Goddesses are possible now and the air suffuses with desire. Even the bricks of the house are softening, becoming tactile; if I leaned against them they’d be warm and yielding. It’s amazing what denial can do. Did the sight of my ankle make him lighthearted, faint, at the checkpoint yesterday, when I dropped my pass and let him pick it up for me? No handkerchief, no fan, I use what’s handy.
Winter is not so dangerous. I need hardness, cold, rigidity; not this heaviness, as if I’m a melon on a stem, this liquid ripeness.

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Lesson 16 : Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you (famous poem used for Valentine cards and many jokes or memes)

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Lesson 16 : Roses are red, violets are blue, sugar is sweet and so are you (famous poem used for Valentine cards and many jokes or memes)

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Grey Blue and Black-Pink Circle, Georgia O'Keefe, 1929

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Grey Blue and Black-Pink Circle, Georgia O'Keefe, 1929

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Read this article about painter Georgia O'Keefe, whose paintings (especially the flowers) were considered iconic by the feminists in the 70s. 

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Read this article about painter Georgia O'Keefe, whose paintings (especially the flowers) were considered iconic by the feminists in the 70s. 

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The current narrative of O’Keeffe casts her in the light of a major feminist role model. Her flower paintings have now prevailed to be her best-known works. “She became labelled as a flower painter when her lifetime was devoted to the very modern idea of abstraction and the very modern idea of creating an identifiable American art,” says Kastner of her legacy now. These flower paintings, to some, have taken on a sexualised element. It had to do in part with her husband Stieglitz’s photography of her in the 20s, some erotically tinged, casting her as the ingénue under the male gaze. Critics at the time wrote about O’Keeffe’s shameless “nakedness” in her paintings, which caused her personal pain. Eventually as she grew older, she learnt to ignore what was said about her. “I have already settled it for myself so flattery and criticism go down the same drain and I am quite free,” as she once said. “Someone else’s vision will never be as good as your own vision of your self.” Later, feminist readings revelled in these insinuations of an implied sexuality within O’Keeffe’s work, adding even more to the lore of O’Keeffe as mysterious, erotic and sensual. She was the tempting Eve, comfortable within world of nature and harnessing its dangerous powers, to Stieglitz’s Adam (the older and powerful Stieglitz had left his first wife for the young O’Keeffe). “I made you take time to look at what I saw and when you took time to really notice my flower, you hung all your associations with flowers on my flower and you write about my flower as if I think and see what you think and see – and I don’t,” O’Keeffe once said.

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Why Georgia O'Keeffe has remained a feminist icon (and, that it wasn't always about the flowers)

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As powerful and captivating as the New Mexico landscape that inspired her, Georgia O'Keeffe's legacy of fierce individualism and devotion to American art still endures today

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Read the following article, written by Margaret Atwood in 2018. It's not as easy to understand as it seems.

Words that can help you :

grievance = complaint     ancillary = supplemental           pledge = promise        to usher = to lead to

To make things easier, you have to follow a certain pattern. Answer the following questions and be ready to explain what you understood in class (you can take a few notes if necessary).

What scandal involved the University of British Columbia (UBC)?

What outcome (consequences) did it lead to ?

Margaret Atwood signed  The UBC Accountable Letter : What was the message conveyed by the letter ?

Why did it outrage some of the feminists, leading Atwood to present herself as Bad Feminist ?

Why does Atwood refer to "witches" ?

Why does she refer to historical revolutions ?

Why does she refer to censorship ?

Combine the answers to the last three answers and determine Margaret's point about the UBC affair.

How does Margaret Atwood feel about the #METOO movement ?

How the conclusion to this article show some similarities with Gloria Steinem's point in the first article ?

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Margaret Atwood is the author of more than 40 books of poetry, fiction and essays, including The Handmaid's Tale.

It seems that I am a "Bad Feminist." I can add that to the other things I've been accused of since 1972, such as climbing to fame up a pyramid of decapitated men's heads (a leftie journal), of being a dominatrix bent on the subjugation of men (a rightie one, complete with an illustration of me in leather boots and a whip) and of being an awful person who can annihilate - with her magic White Witch powers - anyone critical of her at Toronto dinner tables. I'm so scary! And now, it seems, I am conducting a War on Women, like the misogynistic, rape-enabling Bad Feminist that I am.

What would a Good Feminist look like, in the eyes of my accusers?

My fundamental position is that women are human beings, with the full range of saintly and demonic behaviours this entails, including criminal ones. They're not angels, incapable of wrongdoing. If they were, we wouldn't need a legal system.
From 2018: More than 10 writers remove their names from controversial letter in Steven Galloway case
Nor do I believe that women are children, incapable of agency or of making moral decisions. If they were, we're back to the 19th century, and women should not own property, have credit cards, have access to higher education, control their own reproduction or vote. There are powerful groups in North America pushing this agenda, but they are not usually considered feminists.

Furthermore, I believe that in order to have civil and human rights for women there have to be civil and human rights, period, including the right to fundamental justice, just as for women to have the vote, there has to be a vote. Do Good Feminists believe that only women should have such rights? Surely not. That would be to flip the coin on the old state of affairs in which only men had such rights.

So let us suppose that my Good Feminist accusers, and the Bad Feminist that is me, agree on the above points. Where do we diverge? And how did I get into such hot water with the Good Feminists?

In November of 2016, I signed - as a matter of principle, as I have signed many petitions - an Open Letter called UBC Accountable, which calls for holding the University of British Columbia accountable for its failed process in its treatment of one of its former employees, Steven Galloway, the former chair of the department of creative writing, as well as its treatment of those who became ancillary complainants in the case. Specifically, several years ago, the university went public in national media before there was an inquiry, and even before the accused was allowed to know the details of the accusation. Before he could find them out, he had to sign a confidentiality agreement. The public - including me - was left with the impression that this man was a violent serial rapist, and everyone was free to attack him publicly, since under the agreement he had signed, he couldn't say anything to defend himself. A barrage of invective followed.

But then, after an inquiry by a judge that went on for months, with multiple witnesses and interviews, the judge said there had been no sexual assault, according to a statement released by Mr. Galloway through his lawyer. The employee got fired anyway. Everyone was surprised, including me. His faculty association launched a grievance, which is continuing, and until it is over, the public still cannot have access to the judge's report or her reasoning from the evidence presented. The not-guilty verdict displeased some people. They continued to attack. It was at this point that details of UBC's flawed process began to circulate, and the UBC Accountable letter came into being.

A fair-minded person would now withhold judgment as to guilt until the report and the evidence are available for us to see. We are grownups: We can make up our own minds, one way or the other. The signatories of the UBC Accountable letter have always taken this position. My critics have not, because they have already made up their minds. Are these Good Feminists fair-minded people? If not, they are just feeding into the very old narrative that holds women to be incapable of fairness or of considered judgment, and they are giving the opponents of women yet another reason to deny them positions of decision-making in the world.

A digression: Witch talk. Another point against me is that I compared the UBC proceedings to the Salem witchcraft trials, in which a person was guilty because accused, since the rules of evidence were such that you could not be found innocent. My Good Feminist accusers take exception to this comparison. They think I was comparing them to the teenaged Salem witchfinders and calling them hysterical little girls. I was alluding instead to the structure in place at the trials themselves.

There are, at present, three kinds of "witch" language. 1) Calling someone a witch, as applied lavishly to Hillary Clinton during the recent election. 2) "Witchhunt," used to imply that someone is looking for something that doesn't exist. 3) The structure of the Salem witchcraft trials, in which you were guilty because accused. I was talking about the third use.

This structure - guilty because accused - has applied in many more episodes in human history than Salem. It tends to kick in during the "Terror and Virtue" phase of revolutions - something has gone wrong, and there must be a purge, as in the French Revolution, Stalin's purges in the USSR, the Red Guard period in China, the reign of the Generals in Argentina and the early days of the Iranian Revolution. The list is long and Left and Right have both indulged. Before "Terror and Virtue" is over, a great many have fallen by the wayside. Note that I am not saying that there are no traitors or whatever the target group may be; simply that in such times, the usual rules of evidence are bypassed.

Such things are always done in the name of ushering in a better world. Sometimes they do usher one in, for a time anyway. Sometimes they are used as an excuse for new forms of oppression. As for vigilante justice - condemnation without a trial - it begins as a response to a lack of justice - either the system is corrupt, as in prerevolutionary France, or there isn't one, as in the Wild West - so people take things into their own hands. But understandable and temporary vigilante justice can morph into a culturally solidified lynch-mob habit, in which the available mode of justice is thrown out the window, and extralegal power structures are put into place and maintained. The Cosa Nostra, for instance, began as a resistance to political tyranny.

The #MeToo moment is a symptom of a broken legal system. All too frequently, women and other sexual-abuse complainants couldn't get a fair hearing through institutions - including corporate structures - so they used a new tool: the internet. Stars fell from the skies. This has been very effective, and has been seen as a massive wake-up call. But what next? The legal system can be fixed, or our society could dispose of it. Institutions, corporations and workplaces can houseclean, or they can expect more stars to fall, and also a lot of asteroids.

If the legal system is bypassed because it is seen as ineffectual, what will take its place? Who will be the new power brokers? It won't be the Bad Feminists like me. We are acceptable neither to Right nor to Left. In times of extremes, extremists win. Their ideology becomes a religion, anyone who doesn't puppet their views is seen as an apostate, a heretic or a traitor, and moderates in the middle are annihilated. Fiction writers are particularly suspect because they write about human beings, and people are morally ambiguous. The aim of ideology is to eliminate ambiguity.

The UBC Accountable letter is also a symptom - a symptom of the failure of the University of British Columbia and its flawed process. This should have been a matter addressed by Canadian Civil Liberties or B.C. Civil Liberties. Maybe these organizations will now put up their hands. Since the letter has now become a censorship issue - with calls being made to erase the site and the many thoughtful words of its writers - perhaps PEN Canada, PEN International, CJFE and Index on Censorship may also have a view.

The letter said from the beginning that UBC failed accused and complainants both. I would add that it failed the taxpaying public, who fund UBC to the tune of $600-million a year. We would like to know how our money was spent in this instance. Donors to UBC - and it receives billions of dollars in private donations - also have a right to know.

In this whole affair, writers have been set against one another, especially since the letter was distorted by its attackers and vilified as a War on Women. But at this time, I call upon all - both the Good Feminists and the Bad Feminists like me - to drop their unproductive squabbling, join forces and direct the spotlight where it should have been all along - at UBC. Two of the ancillary complainants have now spoken out against UBC's process in this affair. For that, they should be thanked.

Once UBC has begun an independent inquiry into its own actions - such as the one conducted recently at Wilfrid Laurier University - and has pledged to make that inquiry public, the UBC Accountable site will have served its purpose. That purpose was never to squash women. Why have accountability and transparency been framed as antithetical to women's rights?

A war among women, as opposed to a war on women, is always pleasing to those who do not wish women well. This is a very important moment. I hope it will not be squandered.

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Margaret Atwood is the author of more than 40 books of poetry, fiction and essays, including The Handmaid's Tale. It seems that I am a "Bad Feminist."

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Read the article. What is Gloria Steinem’s opinion about the show :

How does she justify her opinion ?

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It stars Cate Blanchett and Rose Byrne in a glossy, big-budget TV account of 1970s feminist history but one key player who was there, Gloria Steinem, is withering: it is ridiculous, undermining and just not very good, she said on Friday.

Steinem, arguably the world's most famous feminist, has revealed she is not a fan of the new Hulu TV show Mrs America, which premiered in the US last month and is coming to BBC2 in the UK later in the year.

The show stars Byrne as Steinem and Blanchett as her right wing nemesis, Phyllis Schlafly, who is seen leading the fight against the equal rights amendment.

Steinem was due to make her first appearance at the Hay festival this year. Now cancelled, she is one of the first interviewees for a reconvened online version, speaking to the writer Laura Bates on Friday about her new book, The Truth Will Set You Free, But First It Will Piss You Off!

Steinem was asked for advice on how to deal with women who were not feminists and perpetuated sexism.

They existed, Steinem said. "But what is important to remember is, though women may be a problem for other women, they don't have the power to be the big problem. Women may be adversaries, but we don't have the power to be our worst adversaries.

"For instance, there's now a not very good series here called Mrs America and it gives you the impression that ... Schlafly, who was a very religious and rightwing woman who opposed the equal rights amendment ... it gives you the impression that she was the reason it was defeated.

"In actuality, I don't believe she changed one vote. Nobody could ever discover that she changed even one vote. The insurance industry here opposed the equal rights amendment because if they stopped segregating their actuarial tables it would cost them millions upon millions of dollars."

Schlafly was someone "brought in at the last minute" to make it seem that women opposed equal rights when the truth was "the vast majority" always supported it, Steinem said.

"The series makes it seem as if women are our own worst enemies, which keeps us from recognising who our worst enemies are. Not that we aren't in conflict, yes we are in conflict, but by and large we don't have the power to be our own worst enemies."

Bates, the founder of the Everyday Sexism Project, said the media often set up debates with token women, seeking to create a "cat fight as a means of undermining feminist argument".

Steinem agreed. "That's the problem with this ridiculous television show. I'm sure the actors in it are fine, it's just the thrust of the story is the problem."

Mrs America was created by the former Mad Men writer and producer Dahvi Waller, who has stressed it is not a biopic of Schlafly or Steinem. It also stars Uzo Aduba as Shirley Chisholm, the first black woman elected to Congress; and Tracey Ullman as Betty Friedan, the author of The Feminine Mystique.

Steinem, 86, talked about the importance of feminists of all ages working together. "Segregating by age is as ridiculous and destructive as segregating by race or class or gender or anything else. We learn from each other. We need each other."

Bates said she still found girls in schools who felt they were a lone feminist voice. "There are these girls everywhere who think that they are the only one and who are on the verge of giving up and who feel completely defeated and are lambasted by their peers ... they are called feminazis, they are made fun of, they are ridiculed."

What would Steinem's message be to those girls?

"I would say to her ... trust that voice inside you and find a listener and a friendly voice somewhere. Maybe you're not finding it in your classroom but maybe there is somebody in your neighbourhood, just somebody you feel drawn to. Talk to that person ... Trust your own wisdom."
Topics

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Gloria Steinem says TV drama of 1970s feminist history 'ridiculous'

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It stars Cate Blanchett and Rose Byrne in a glossy, big-budget TV account of 1970s feminist history but one key player who was there, Gloria Steinem, is withering: it is ridiculous, undermining and just not very good, she said on Friday.

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Aunt Lydia didn’t show these kinds of movies.

Sometimes the movie she showed would be an old porno film from the seventies or

eighties. Women kneeling, sucking penises or guns, women tied up or chained or with

dog collars around their necks, women hanging from trees, or upside-down, naked, with

their legs held apart, women being raped, beaten up, killed. Once we had to watch a

woman being slowly cut into pieces, her fingers and breasts snipped off with garden

shears, her stomach slit open and her intestines pulled out.

Consider the alternatives, said Aunt Lydia. You see what things used to be like? That

was what they thought of women, then. Her voice trembled with indignation.

Moira said later that it wasn’t real, it was done with models; but it was hard to tell.

Sometimes, though, the movie would be what Aunt Lydia called an Unwoman

documentary. Imagine, said Aunt Lydia, wasting their time like that, when they should

have been doing something useful. Back then, the Unwomen were always wasting time.

They were encouraged to do it. The government gave them money to do that very thing.

Mind you, some of their ideas were sound enough, she went on, with the smug authority

in her voice of one who is in a position to judge. We would have to condone some of

their ideas, even today. Only some, mind you, she said coyly, raising her index finger,

waggling it at us. But they were Godless, and that can make all the difference, don’t you

agree?

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In the garden behind the house the Commander’s Wife is sitting, in the chair she’s had brought out. Serena Joy, what a stupid name. It’s like something you’d put on your hair, in the other time, the time before, to straighten it. Serena Joy, it would say on the bottle, with a woman’s head in cut-paper silhouette on a pink oval background with scalloped gold edges. With everything to choose from in the way of names, why did she pick that one? Serena Joy was never her real name, not even then. Her real name was Pam. I read that in a profile on her, in a news magazine, long after I’d first watched her singing while my mother slept in on Sunday mornings. By that time she was worthy of a profile: Time or Newsweek it was, it must have been. She wasn’t singing any more by then, she was making speeches. She was good at it. Her speeches were about the sanctity of the home, about how women should stay home. Serena Joy didn’t do this herself, she made speeches instead, but she presented this failure of hers as a sacrifice she was making for the good of all.

Around that time, someone tried to shoot her and missed; her secretary, who was standing right behind her, was killed instead. Someone else planted a bomb in her car but it went off too early. Though some people said she’d put the bomb in her own car, for sympathy. That’s how hot things were getting.

Luke and I would watch her sometimes on the late-night news. Bathrobes, nightcaps. We’d watch her sprayed hair and her hysteria, and the tears she could still produce at will, and the mascara blackening her cheeks. By that time she was wearing more makeup. We thought she was funny. Or Luke thought she was funny. I only pretended to think so. Really she was a little frightening. She was in earnest.

She doesn’t make speeches any more. She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn’t seem to agree with her. How furious she must be, now that she’s been taken at her word.

Can you find the four common points between Serena Joy and Phyllis Schlafly ? (you get help from the first video and the video posted on the right)

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Cate Blanchett | Mrs America | Reagan call Phyllis Schlafly

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-          Asking for a person’s approval.

-          Agreeing with the opposite side.

-          Demeaning the other side using pejorative words.

-          Use of evidence / quotes (even without context).

-          Mimicking the opposite side to make fun of them.

-          Pushing the argument to the extreme.

-          Presenting something in a negative light before even naming it.

-          Showing oneself in the role of the victim.

-          Matching your argument with a symbol you’re wearing.

-          Blaming the opposite side for what they reproach you for.

-          Using a higher authority to make your point undisputed.

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Lesson 13 : He/She's got a point (= I admit he/she's right)

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Lesson 13 : He/She's got a point (= I admit he/she's right)

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What happened to the ERA ? Why is it still an issue in 2020 ?

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What happened to the ERA ? Why is it still an issue in 2020 ?

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Mississipi reforms its abortion law and becomes the first US state to allow abortion in cases of rape

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The Handmaid's Tale was written in 1985, after a decade of a long feminist battle in the USA. This period was the peak of the movement known as Women's Liberation Movement or Women's Lib, during what is called Second Wave Feminism (60s-80s). The focus of the battle in the 70s was the ERA (The Equal Rights Amendment) and its ratification by a majority of states (38 ratifications were required). Here is what it said : 

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The Handmaid's Tale was written in 1985, after a decade of a long feminist battle in the USA. This period was the peak of the movement known as Women's Liberation Movement or Women's Lib, during what is called Second Wave Feminism (60s-80s). The focus of the battle in the 70s was the ERA (The Equal Rights Amendment) and its ratification by a majority of states (38 ratifications were required). Here is what it said : 

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"ARTICLE —

"Section 1. Equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex.

"Sec. 2. The Congress shall have the power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

"Sec. 3. This amendment shall take effect two years after the date of ratification."

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The mini series entitled Mrs America (9 episodes, 2020) is about this fight. Watch the title sequence

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The mini series entitled Mrs America (9 episodes, 2020) is about this fight. Watch the title sequence

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Your task : You will have to analyze this title sequence. You're free to go on the internet to find the answers to the following questions. Be ready to report to the class on Tuesday.

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Your task : You will have to analyze this title sequence. You're free to go on the internet to find the answers to the following questions. Be ready to report to the class on Tuesday.

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Who is the woman whose face you can see at 0.08 ?

In which document studied in class was she mentioned ? On which occasion ?

Why is the woman with the loud hailer dragging a pie ?

Who is the woman holding the loud hailer ?

How would you define the women opposed to ERA at 0.18 ?

Who was Shirley Chilsholm whose name is written on a bus at 0.22 ? Why can she be seen as an important figure in the feminist fight ?

What was the point of the Torch relay shown at 0.34 ?

You can get help from the following links below :

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SwKhwThlO4Y

https://www.docsteach.org/documents/document/era-posters-station-wagon

Bonus questions :

Why do you think Walter Murphy’s “A Fifth of Beethoven” music was chosen (consider the style of music)

What was this symphony the symbol of and why is it so ?

http://holocaustmusic.ort.org/resistance-and-exile/french-resistance/beethovens-5th-symphony/

The title of this mini series, namely Mrs America, actually comes from Miss America.

What is it and what does it refer to ?

Why was it changed to Mrs America (2 reasons) . This one is tough

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““Some days, my grandmother would say we were related to her and on other days, she would deny the whole thing because it wasn't very respectable,” Atwood says. “I was actually trying to write a novel about her, but, unfortunately, I didn't know enough about the late 17th century to be able to do it. But I did write a long, narrative poem called 'Half-Hanged Mary,' because she only got half hanged.”Source : https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-05-13/17th-century-alleged-witch-inspired-margaret-atwoods-handmaids-tale

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““Some days, my grandmother would say we were related to her and on other days, she would deny the whole thing because it wasn't very respectable,” Atwood says. “I was actually trying to write a novel about her, but, unfortunately, I didn't know enough about the late 17th century to be able to do it. But I did write a long, narrative poem called 'Half-Hanged Mary,' because she only got half hanged.”Source : https://www.pri.org/stories/2017-05-13/17th-century-alleged-witch-inspired-margaret-atwoods-handmaids-tale

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The US Supreme Court overturns Roe v wade, making abortion no longer a federal right.

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The administration of the United States issues a ruling letting insurers and employers refuse to provide birth control if doing so went against their "religious beliefs" or "moral convictions"

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Hilary Clinton is the first woman to receive electoral college votes as a presidential candidate.

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Minor girls no longer need mandatory parental consent for abortion in France

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Kim Campbell is the first woman to become the Prime Minister of Canada.

(for less than 5 months).

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Julia Gillard is the first woman to become the  Prime Minister of Australia (for 3 years).

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Margaret Thatcher is the first woman to become the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom (for 11 years and 6 months)

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The US Federal Pregnancy Discrimination Act is passed, prohibiting employment discrimination on the basis of pregnancy, childbirth, or related medical conditions

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| New Zealand legalizes abortion in limited circumstances.

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The Equal Rights Amendment, supposed to be the 27th Amendment and though passed by the Senate fails to achieve ratification by the a requisite 38, or three-fourths, of the states.

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The Supreme Court of The United States decisions of Roe v Wade and Doe v Bolton decriminilizes abortion nationwide.

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The U.S. Congress removes references to contraception from federal anti-obscenity laws.

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Canada passes the Criminal Law Amendment Act, which began to allow abortion for selective reasons.

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The Abortion Act legalizes abortion in the United Kingdom under certain grounds (except in Northern Ireland).

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Women are allowed to vote in France .

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Quebec is the last Canadian province to allow women to vote.

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The Equal Franchise Act permits all British women aged 21 and over to vote.

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Women are allowed to vote in all the States of the USA (after the 19th amendment was issued).

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Women are allowed to vote in the United Kindgom (as long as they are 30 years old

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Elizabeth becomes the first Queen of England. She will rule for 44 years.

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Time to bring the theme of religion to a conclusion. Read Chapter 6 again and focus on this passage :

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Time to bring the theme of religion to a conclusion. Read Chapter 6 again and focus on this passage :

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Now we turn our backs on the church and there is the thing we’ve in truth come to see: the Wall.

The Wall is hundreds of years old too; or over a hundred, at least. Like the sidewalks, it’s red brick, and must once have been plain but handsome. Now the gates have sentries and there are ugly new floodlights mounted on metal posts above it, and barbed wire along the bottom and broken glass set in concrete along the top.

No one goes through those gates willingly. The precautions are for those trying to get out, though to make it even as far as the Wall, from the inside, past the electronic alarm system, would be next to impossible.

Beside the main gateway there are six more bodies hanging, by the necks, their hands tied in front of them, their heads in white bags tipped sideways onto their shoulders. There must have been a Men’s Salvaging early this morning. I didn’t hear the bells. Perhaps I’ve become used to them.

We stop, together as if on signal, and stand and look at the bodies. It doesn’t matter if we look. We’re supposed to look: this is what they are there for, hanging on the Wall. Sometimes they’ll be there for days, until there’s a new batch, so as many people as possible will have the chance to see them.

What they are hanging from is hooks. The hooks have been set into the brickwork of the Wall, for this purpose. Not all of them are occupied. The hooks look like appliances for the armless. Or steel question marks, upside-down and sideways.

It’s the bags over the heads that are the worst, worse than the faces themselves would be. It makes the men look like dolls on which faces have not yet been painted; like scarecrows, which in a way is what they are, since they are meant to scare. Or as if their heads are sacks, stuffed with some undifferentiated material, like flour or dough. It’s the obvious heaviness of the heads, their vacancy, the way gravity pulls them down and there’s no life any more to hold them up. The heads are zeros.

Though if you look and look, as we are doing, you can see the outlines of the features under the white cloth, like grey shadows. The heads are the heads of snowmen, with the coal eyes and the carrot noses fallen out. The heads are melting.

But on one bag there’s blood, which has seeped through the white cloth, where the mouth must have been. It makes another mouth, a small red one, like the mouths painted with thick brushes by kindergarten children. A child’s idea of a smile. This smile of blood is what fixes the attention, finally. These are not snowmen after all.

The men wear white coats, like those worn by doctors or scientists. Doctors and scientists aren’t the only ones, there are others, but they must have had a run on them this morning. Each has a placard hung around his neck to show why he has been executed: a drawing of a human foetus. They were doctors, then, in the time before, when such things were legal. Angel makers, they used to call them: or was that something else? They’ve been turned up now by the searches through hospital records, or – more likely, since most hospitals destroyed such records once it became clear what was going to happen – by informants: ex-nurses perhaps, or a pair of them, since evidence from a single woman is no longer admissible; or another doctor, hoping to save his own skin; or someone already accused, lashing out at an enemy, or at random, in some desperate bid for safety. Though informants are not always pardoned.

These men, we’ve been told, are like war criminals. It’s no excuse that what they did was legal at the time: their crimes are retroactive. They have committed atrocities, and must be made into examples, for the rest. Though this is hardly needed. No woman in her right mind, these days, would seek to prevent a birth, should she be so lucky as to conceive.

What we are supposed to feel towards these bodies is hatred and scorn. This isn’t what I feel. These bodies banging on the Wall are time travellers, anachronisms. They’ve come here from the past.

What I feel towards them is blankness. What I feel is that I must not feel. What I feel is partly relief, because none of these men is Luke. Luke wasn’t a doctor. Isn’t

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Excerpts from Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller, 1956 : Willy Loman

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Excerpts from Death of a Salesman, Arthur Miller, 1956 : Willy Loman

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1st extract :
Willy: Bernard is not well liked, is he?
Biff: He’s liked, but he’s not well liked.
Happy: That’s right, Pop.
Willy: That’s just what I mean, Bernard can get the best marks in school, y’understand, but when he gets out in the business world, y’understand, you are going to be five times ahead of him. That’s why I thank Almighty God you’re both built like Adonises. Because the man who makes an appearance in the business world, the man who creates personal interest, is the man who gets ahead. Be liked and you will never want. You take me, for instance. I never have to wait in line to see a buyer. ‘‘Willy Loman is here!’’ That’s all they have to know, and I go right through.

2nd extract
Willy [continuing over Happy’s line]: They laugh at me, heh? Go to Filene’s, go to the Hub, go to Slattery’s, Boston. Call out the name Willy Loman and see what happens! Big shot!

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The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, 1985 : Offred

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The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood, 1985 : Offred

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Excerpt from Chapter 14

My name isn’t Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it’s forbidden. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter. I keep the knowledge of this name like something hidden, some treasure I’ll come back to dig up, one day. I think of this name as buried. This name has an aura around it, like an amulet, some charm that’s survived from an unimaginably distant past. I lie in my single bed at night, with my eyes closed, and the name floats there behind my eyes, not quite within reach, shining in the dark.

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Excerpt from The Crucible, directed by Nicholas Hytner, 1996 : John Proctor

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Excerpt from The Crucible, directed by Nicholas Hytner, 1996 : John Proctor

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The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850 : Hester Prynne

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The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850 : Hester Prynne

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Excerpt from The Custom House

In the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter, I had hitherto neglected to examine a small roll of dingy paper, around which it had been twisted. This I now opened, and had the satisfaction to find, recorded by the old Surveyor's pen, a reasonably complete explanation of the whole affair. There were several foolscap sheets containing many particulars respecting the life and conversation of one Hester Prynne, who appeared to have been rather a noteworthy personage in the view of our ancestors. She had flourished during the period between the early days of Massachusetts and the close of the seventeenth century.

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The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850 : The narrator

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The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne, 1850 : The narrator

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Excerpt from The Custom House

No longer seeking nor caring that my name should be blazoned abroad on title-pages, I smiled to think that it had now another kind of vogue. The Custom-House marker imprinted it, with a stencil and black paint, on pepper-bags, and baskets of anatto, and cigar-boxes, and bales of all kinds of dutiable merchandise, in testimony that these commodities had paid the impost, and gone regularly through the office. Borne on such queer vehicle of fame, a knowledge of my existence, so far as a name conveys it, was carried where it had never been before, and, I hope, will never go again.

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 Read and watch the different extracts, and for each of them, complete the following sentence. "In this extract the name of the character is a proof of...................."

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 Read and watch the different extracts, and for each of them, complete the following sentence. "In this extract the name of the character is a proof of...................."

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Lesson 10 : My name is mud (=I am regarded defavourably, because my reputation has been tarnished)

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Lesson 10 : My name is mud (=I am regarded defavourably, because my reputation has been tarnished)

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What really happened during the Salem Witch Trials - Brian A. Pavlac

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Just for fun (from TV show Horrible Histories) 

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Just for fun (from TV show Horrible Histories) 

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Read the sketch Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote as an introduction to his novel. Though this passage is a first-person narrative, the narrator seems to be Nathaniel Hawthorne himself, addressing the readers.

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Read the sketch Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote as an introduction to his novel. Though this passage is a first-person narrative, the narrator seems to be Nathaniel Hawthorne himself, addressing the readers.

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But the sentiment has likewise its moral quality. The figure of that first ancestor, invested by family tradition with a dim and dusky grandeur, was present to my boyish imagination, as far back as I can remember. It still haunts me, and induces a sort of home-feeling with the past, which I scarcely claim in reference to the present phase of the town. I seem to have a stronger claim to a residence here on account of this grave, bearded, sable-cloaked and steeple-crowned progenitor,—who came so early, with his Bible and his sword, and trode the unworn street with such a stately port, and made so large a figure, as a man of war and peace,—a stronger claim than for myself, whose name is seldom heard and my face hardly known. He was a soldier, legislator, judge; he was a ruler in the Church; he had all the Puritanic traits, both good and evil. He was likewise a bitter persecutor, as witness the Quakers, who have remembered him in their histories, and relate an incident of his hard severity towards a woman of their sect, which will last longer, it is to be feared, than any record of his better deeds, although these were many. His son, too, inherited the persecuting spirit, and made himself so conspicuous in the martyrdom of the witches, that their blood may fairly be said to have left a stain upon him. So deep a stain, indeed, that his old dry bones, in the Charter Street burial-ground, must still retain it, if they have not crumbled utterly to dust! I know not whether these ancestors of mine bethought themselves to repent, and ask pardon of Heaven for their cruelties; or whether they are now groaning under the heavy consequences of them, in another state of being. At all events, I, the present writer, as their representative, hereby take shame upon myself for their sakes, and pray that any curse incurred by them—as I have heard, and as the dreary and unprosperous condition of the race, for many a long year back, would argue to exist—may be now and henceforth removed.

Doubtless, however, either of these stern and black-browed Puritans would have thought it quite a sufficient retribution for his sins, that, after so long a lapse of years, the old trunk of the family tree, with so much venerable moss upon it, should have borne, as its topmost bough, an idler like myself. No aim, that I have ever cherished, would they recognize as laudable; no success of mine—if my life, beyond its domestic scope, had ever been brightened by success—would they deem otherwise than worthless, if not positively disgraceful. “What is he?” murmurs one gray shadow of my forefathers to the other. “A writer of story-books! What kind of a business in life—what mode of glorifying God, or being serviceable to mankind in his day and generation—may that be? Why, the degenerate fellow might as well have been a fiddler!” Such are the compliments bandied between my great-grandsires and myself, across the gulf of time! And yet, let them scorn me as they will, strong traits of their nature have intertwined themselves with mine

[…]

But, one idle and rainy day, it was my fortune to make a discovery of some little interest.

[…]

But the object that most drew my attention, in the mysterious package, was a certain affair of fine red cloth, much worn and faded. There were traces about it of gold embroidery, which, however, was greatly frayed and defaced; so that none, or very little, of the glitter was left. It had been wrought, as was easy to perceive, with wonderful skill of needlework; and the stitch (as I am assured by ladies conversant with such mysteries) gives evidence of a now forgotten art, not to be recovered even by the process of picking out the threads. This rag of scarlet cloth,—for time and wear and a sacrilegious moth had reduced it to little other than a rag,—on careful examination, assumed the shape of a letter. It was the capital letter A. By an accurate measurement, each limb proved to be precisely three inches and a quarter in length. It had been intended, there could be no doubt, as an ornamental article of dress; but how it was to be worn, or what rank, honor, and dignity, in by-past times, were signified by it, was a riddle which (so evanescent are the fashions of the world in these particulars) I saw little hope of solving. And yet it strangely interested me. My eyes fastened themselves upon the old scarlet letter, and would not be turned aside. Certainly, there was some deep meaning in it, most worthy of interpretation, and which, as it were, streamed forth from the mystic symbol, subtly communicating itself to my sensibilities, but evading the analysis of my mind.

While thus perplexed,—and cogitating, among other hypotheses, whether the letter might not have been one of those decorations which the white men used to contrive, in order to take the eyes of Indians,—I happened to place it on my breast. It seemed to me,—the reader may smile, but must not doubt my word,—it seemed to me, then, that I experienced a sensation not altogether physical, yet almost so, of burning heat; and as if the letter were not of red cloth, but red-hot iron. I shuddered, and involuntarily let it fall upon the floor.

In the absorbing contemplation of the scarlet letter, I had hitherto neglected to examine a small roll of dingy paper, around which it had been twisted. This I now opened, and had the satisfaction to find, recorded by the old Surveyor's pen, a reasonably complete explanation of the whole affair. There were several foolscap sheets containing many particulars respecting the life and conversation of one Hester Prynne, who appeared to have been rather a noteworthy personage in the view of our ancestors. She had flourished during the period between the early days of Massachusetts and the close of the seventeenth century. Aged persons, alive in the time of Mr. Surveyor Pue, and from whose oral testimony he had made up his narrative, remembered her, in their youth, as a very old, but not decrepit woman, of a stately and solemn aspect. It had been her habit, from an almost immemorial date, to go about the country as a kind of voluntary nurse, and doing whatever miscellaneous good she might; taking upon herself, likewise, to give advice in all matters, especially those of the heart; by which means, as a person of such propensities inevitably must, she gained from many people the reverence due to an angel, but, I should imagine, was looked upon by others as an intruder and a nuisance. Prying further into the manuscript, I found the record of other doings and sufferings of this singular woman, for most of which the reader is referred to the story entitled “The Scarlet Letter”; and it should be borne carefully in mind, that the main facts of that story are authorized and authenticated by the document of Mr. Surveyor Pue. The original papers, together with the scarlet letter itself,—a most curious relic,—are still in my possession, and shall be freely exhibited to whomsoever, induced by the great interest of the narrative, may desire a sight of them. I must not be understood as affirming, that, in the dressing up of the tale, and imagining the motives and modes of passion that influenced the characters who figure in it, I have invariably confined myself within the limits of the old Surveyor's half a dozen sheets of foolscap. On the contrary, I have allowed myself, as to such points, nearly or altogether as much license as if the facts had been entirely of my own invention. What I contend for is the authenticity of the outline.

This incident recalled my mind, in some degree, to its old track. There seemed to be here the groundwork of a tale. […]

On Hester Prynne's story, therefore, I bestowed much thought. It was the subject of my meditations for many an hour, while pacing to and fro across my room, or traversing, with a hundred-fold repetition, the long extent from the front-door of the Custom-House to the side-entrance, and back again. Great were the weariness and annoyance of the old Inspector and the Weighers and Gaugers, whose slumbers were disturbed by the unmercifully lengthened tramp of my passing and returning footsteps. Remembering their own former habits, they used to say that the Surveyor was walking the quarter-deck. They probably fancied that my sole object—and, indeed, the sole object for which a sane man could ever put himself into voluntary motion—was, to get an appetite for dinner. And to say the truth, an appetite, sharpened by the east wind that generally blew along the passage, was the only valuable result of so much indefatigable exercise. So little adapted is the atmosphere of a custom-house to the delicate harvest of fancy and sensibility, that, had I remained there through ten Presidencies yet to come, I doubt whether the tale of “The Scarlet Letter” would ever have been brought before the public eye.

Nathaniel Hawthorne, The Scarlet Letter, 1850

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From the Puritans to the Scarlet Letter.

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From the Puritans to the Scarlet Letter.

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Other quizzes that might prove useful to revise

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Other quizzes that might prove useful to revise

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To access the quiz, click on "continue", then on "end" on the next page. You might to register with a google account to have access to the answers.

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The New England Colonists  The Pilgrims and Puritans