• She was influenced by Berlin's Cold War and Alabama's racial history as well as the quite culture shock between the two eras that further contributed to the novel.

• She was also influenced by the thousands of years of history that encouraged her to tell the story of women's past voices that may have not been heard.

2. How can an author's personal experiences and the political climate of their time shape the setting and themes of their work? Consider her living environment.

3. Why might an author frame a novel as an oral narrative or folktale?

• She framed it as a folktale as she did not want the novel to be perceived as an interesting, but completely fictional, story and instead as a cautionary tale.

4. Where was Atwood living when she wrote the novel and why might this be important?

• She was influenced by Berlin's Cold War and Alabama's racial history as well as the quite culture shock between the two eras that further contributed to the novel.

Biblical Context

The Bible

• Old Testament (book of genesis: Rachel, Leah, Jacob) -- pg 61

• New Testament

I notice a woman standing amid a chaotic landscape, her red coat illuminated in the middle. Behind her is a large Eye, representative of the constant surveillance around her, and a flower and a moon behind her, which might be an allusion to the biblical usage in the novel.

2. How might the image relate to themes of control, resistance, oppression, and hope?

The image relates to those themes as different objects within the landscape are representative of a different theme. The large eye represents the control and oppression that is exerted upon the women. The watch tower stifles resistance and the prison camp diminishes hope.

3. Consider your own perspective and experiences. How do these themes resonate with you?

These themes resonate with me on very minute scales. For instance, Dwight now taking away our ability to use our own belongings.

4. How do these themes apply to our collective experiences and the world at large?

These themes apply to our collective experiences and the world at large as they represent actual events that have taken place in history and serve as a cautionary tale for a future that may come.

Topics:

• Gender roles

• Gender

• Oppression

• Dystopia 

• Resistance

• Societal divide in structure

• Duty 

• Totalitarian 

• Violence and trauma

• Hope and despair

• Religious 

Totalitarian:

Constricting societies that induce metaphorical asphyxiation through embedded trauma stifle individuals' desire to resist.

Trauma:

The trauma induced by constricting societies stifles individuals' willingness or ability to resist.

Motif: Palimpsest

• Dances held there, music lingered, a palimpsest of unheard sound

• Definition --> something resued/altered but still bearing visible traces of its earlier form

Imagery is used in the scene through the description of the clothing and Offred's surroundings. For instance, this can be explicitly seen through the description of their skirts

Irony is used as the Japanese are wearing whatever they'd like and are depicted to be free-willed, even though current society knows them be more reserved and conservative.

1. What makes someone a Commander?

2. Would you want to know what is going on? Do you think that would make things worse knowing you still cannot do anything? Is ignorance bliss in this case?

3. If the Commander, someone at the top of the society, seems to dislike the Gilead structure, and disobeys laws by holding these secret meetings, then who decided to put this in place?

What is the context?

• Offred is handing her body and her will over to God for her to be saved and not killed.

• The context is Serena Joy caught her with the Commander and a black van came to pick up Offred (which was separate from Serena's punishment)

What is the significance of Offred's thought process here? Explain the evolution of Offred's character, especially when it comes to resistance.

• The significance of this thought process shows that when the moment came down to it, Offred did not resist. She gave herself in willingly because she was overwhelmed by fear.

• It shows all this resistance she built up in her head was never going to be practiced in reality.

Would you feel/act the same if you were in her shoes at this point?

• Yes, most likely. I'd pray to god but also try to escape.

In the Handmaid's Tale, Atwood demonstrates that morality can differ based on the reality presented to each individual.

1. Teen Titans Go

• Usually a form of satire (using humor for political or social commentary)

• Comments on corporate or governmental policy

• Dealing with current events

• 
  

C - Coral ---> Composition (how the cartoon is framed, background, foreground, angle shot, camera distance)

N - Needs ---> Narrative (cartoon is telling a story, characters, context, conflict)

O - Our ---> Objects/Symbols (Larger abstract ideas represented through symbols--concrete objects)

C - Care ---> Color (how colors create mood, interpret colors, shading/light/dark)

L - Love ---> Language (connotations of words, different types of verbal irony, satire embedded through language)

• Focuses on politics, current events, global issues

• He is critiquing people and their actions

A work that reveals flaws, absurdities, and/or vices of a person, policy, or another work, often used as social, moral, or political commentary.

4 Types of Satire

1. Exaggeration

2. Incongruity - something that is absurd, out of place

3. Parody

4. Reversal

Hyperbole: extreme exaggeration

Inversion: taking something we normally think is bad and making it good

Irony: what is stated is often the opposite of what is meant

understatement: speech that minimizes a situation for comic effect

• Typically rate of information is determined by the creator

• Comics allow rate of information firmly in control of student

Why have comics been stigmatized over the years?

What is the relationship between pictures and words in modern comics?

Can comics make you smarter?

• Existentialism = philosophical view that humans define their own meaning in life

• No purpose or explanation at the core of existence

• 
  

  
  

  
  

  Freedom + responsibility leads to anguish and bad faith(lying to ourselves to spare us the angsst that come from existence)

  bad faith = religion