Clockwork Orange & The Handmaid’s Tale:
Both are futuristic and portray a dystopia. Women are definitely of a lower ranking than men in each and in both the women seem helpless and unable to fight back. The prospect is very frightening. I haven’t seen enough of The Clockwork Orange yet to determine how society changed to become what it has but in The Handmaid’s Tale it was clearly explained how women could quickly have their rights (and lives) swept out from under them. So far I am thoroughly creeped out by the movie but I can’t help but want to watch more in order to understand what in the world is going on and to discover the message behind it. What we were discussing at the end of class today reminded of that YouTube clip we watched, the “Lost Generation” that talked about how easily work could become more important than family etc. The movie showed just that. The main character’s mom works in a factory all day and then takes sleeping pills so she is very uninvolved in her son’s life and his goings-ons so she is thoroughly unaware of all the sick and twisted past-times he takes part in. The movie also brought my novel to mind in their treatment of the elderly. In The Handmaid’s Tale the elderly are shipped off to the colonies to work around dangerous material until they die and the opening scene of the movie showed just what the future generation felt towards old people (kicking/ beating up the old man). I find it very interesting that all of these dystopic novels/ movies portray females and the elderly as the ones being largely abused instead of exploring a future in which women rule or a society in which the oldest are the most respected. Why do you guys think this is?
Juxtaposition of Character:
As Ashley said, I think Atwood does a great job juxtaposing Serena Joy and Offred because both of their sufferings come from different perspectives stemming from the same problem (The Commander). I also think that Luke and Nick are compared in Offred’s thoughts as she remembers back to her life with Luke and finds herself desiring Nick because she knows she can’t have him. She ends up using Nick to rebel against the life she hates in an attempt to cope with something to look forward to at the end of the day. It’s interesting that Atwood chose to have Luke as a married man and had Offred sneaking away to sleep with him before he got a divorce and then her life changed and it is now her duty to allow a married man to have sex with her body. Talk about ironic!
