Name: 婢女的故事第二部分：速成文學#404 (Handmaids Tale Part 2: Crash Course Literature #404)
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I'm John Green and this is Crash Course
Literature.

情態助動詞 B1

So some of you might be familiar with Margaret
Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale from the

Hulu series starring Elisabeth Moss, which
is a great show.

It's especially enjoyable if your favorite
emotional experiences are fear, loathing,

Now, that's not always the case--the movie
Die Hard was better than the book it was based

on; The Fault in Our Stars was a very good
film--but it is true of the Handmaid's Tale.

OK, so last time, we discussed the historical
events that influenced Atwood as well as why

she characterizes her novel as speculative
fiction.

Today, I wanna focus on the narrative's
perspective--or perspectives.

Although Atwood has said that she wanted to
write from a “female point of view,” and

she obviously literally did that, I want to
discuss today whether there is a distinctive

or inherent “female” or “male” point
of view, outside of just narration, and also

why Atwood presents her final chapter from
the perspective of a male scholar.

INTRO
The Handmaid's Tale is set in the reproductively-challenged

Republic of Gilead, where fertile women are
forced to have babies with military Commanders.

To maintain her sanity, Atwood's protagonist,
Offred, engages in personal rituals, but also

connects with other women – like her college
friend, Moira and a fellow Handmaid named

Her husband and child have been taken away.

If she fails to conceive, she will be forced
to clean up toxic sludge.

And worse, her Commander appears to be sterile.

A handsy obstetrician offers to “help”
Offred conceive.

The Commander's wife bribes Offred to mate
with the gardener/chauffeur, Nick. (which

Meanwhile, the Commander entreats Offred to
play Scrabble, to wear some (seriously) old

lingerie, and to visit a brothel called Jezebel's.

At Jezebel's, Offred discovers that Moira
is working as a prostitute.

And it's from Moira that she learns of her
mother's fate.

When Ofglen asks her to become a spy for the
“Mayday” resistance movement, Offred drops

The Commander's wife confronts Offred with
the (recently-worn) lingerie.

And right before the novel ends, Offred is
arrested.

So, let's talk about whether this narrative
is presented from a “female point of view.”

The relationship between gender and narrative
has sparked decades of academic debate about

how sex (biological designation), gender (social
identity), and/or sexuality (orientation of

And I'm not going to resolve it today I'm
just going to try to introduce it to you.

In the 1960s, the structuralist theorist,
Tzvetan Todorov coined the term “narratology”.

It's a word accustomed to analyzing the
themes, and conventions and symbols of a text.

Todorov argued that we should also be analyzing
the structure and function of narrative.

Soon, feminist theorists began to explore
the implications of gender on narrative form.

Some fought to define a distinctively “feminist”
poetics.

Others resisted the idea that there's a
fundamental “female” consciousness or

In 1975, the French theorist, Hélène Cixous,
coined the term écriture féminine (loosely

translated to mean “women's writing”)—And
yes, I know that my french pronunciation is

Cixous maintains that misogynistic culture
has “driven” women from exploring their

She encourages women to use their bodies as
a source of inspiration.

But she also recognizes that femininity is
a social construct, defined as much by cultural

convention as by biological characteristics.

Cixous associates “féminine” writing
with “openness.”

For her, women's writing isn't the exclusive
provenance of women; it's a non-exclusionary

approach to exploring that which is different,
or “other.”

It's a way of regarding the world accessible
to all genders.

So, let's explore the degree to which The
Handmaid's Tale exhibits this kind of “openness.”

We know that Offred often presents her bodily
experience by cataloging physical sensations:

Sunlight comes in through the window too,
and falls on the floor, which is made of wood,

in narrow strips, highly polished [....] [A]
chair, sunlight, flowers: these are not to

I am alive, I live, I breathe, I put my hand
out, unfolded, into the sunlight.

Now This is a tiny moment of expressing bodily
autonomy--putting her own unfolded hand into

Offred--robbed of her name and her freedom--still
finds ways to express her existence using

her body--including, by the way, in her relationship
with Nick.

And she also expresses her existence by telling
stories:

...if it's a story, even in my head, I must
be telling it to someone.

(39-40)
This is storytelling as a survival technique,

as a way of establishing one's humanity
when the broader culture is denying it.

Those needs to testify and connect are human
desires, not restricted to a particular gender.

But pay attention to the way Offred writes
about her body and her bodily experiences.

Sometimes, she describes her body from an
external perspective:

I know they are watching, these two men who
aren't yet permitted to touch women.

They touch with their eyes instead and I move
my hips a little, feeling the full red skirt

sway around me [....] I enjoy the power; power
of a dog bone, passive but there.

(22)
Offred's ability to view herself from the

outside here is manifestation among many of
her “openness” to imagining the perspectives

At other times, Offred describes her body
from a different perspective:

I sink down into my body as into a swamp,
fenland, where only I know the footing.

Treacherous ground, my own territory [....] I'm
a cloud, congealed around a central object,

the shape of a pear, which is hard and more
real than I am and glows red within its translucent

Inside it is a space, huge as the sky at night
and dark and curved like that, though black-red

Pinpoints of light swell, sparkle, burst and
shrivel within it, countless as stars.

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婢女的故事第二部分：速成文學#404 (Handmaids Tale Part 2: Crash Course Literature #404)

perspective

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engage

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