Atwood - Elements of Style

Metaphor of palimpsest

• a narrative technique in which the work self-consciously calls attention to itself as a work of fiction.

• a recurring idea of language/stories being written over one another

• references to events with which the reader might share real historical knowledge.

Grotesque imagery

• Names of shops, handmaids themselves, Rachel and Leah etc. Notice the brainwashing effect of this.

• recurring idea of language/stories being written over one another

• Disgusting, or displeasing to the eye,

Metafiction

• a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society, by using humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule.

• references to events with which the reader might share real historical knowledge.

• a narrative technique in which the work self-consciously calls attention to itself as a work of fiction

Satire (definition)

• Dangers of complacency in society / Women's traditional roles and radical feminism / Fundamentalist religion / Censorship (both radical feminists and theocracies have censored) / Academic righteousness and the moral dangers of relativism

• a technique employed by writers to expose and criticize foolishness and corruption of an individual or a society, by using humor, irony, exaggeration, or ridicule.

• a defense of the desperate coping mechanisms by which endangered women survive, outwit, and undermine devaluation, coercion, enslavement and torture.

Religious allusion

• (neologisms = new words) = reflects power and control of theocratic regime

• Names of shops, handmaids themselves, Rachel and Leah etc. Notice the brainwashing effect of this.

• references to events with which the reader might share real historical knowledge.

Historical allusion

• (neologisms = new words) = reflects power and control of theocratic regime

• a vehicle of oppressed people who, through loss of personal freedoms, turn to the personal narrative as a means of preserving meaningful experience.

• references to events with which the reader might share real historical knowledge. Layering of dystopian future over experienced human history

existential apologia

• an autobiographical revelation of private life or philosophy intended as a psychological release from guilt and blame through introspection and rationalization.

• a defense of the desperate coping mechanisms by which endangered women survive, outwit, and undermine devaluation, coercion, enslavement and torture.

• a form of jeremiad — an intentionally unsettling blend of speculation and warning based on current political, social, economic, and religious trends.

oral history

• a vehicle of oppressed people who, through loss of personal freedoms, turn to the personal narrative as a means of preserving meaningful experience.

• a defense of the desperate coping mechanisms by which endangered women survive, outwit, and undermine devaluation, coercion, enslavement and torture.

• an autobiographical revelation of private life or philosophy intended as a psychological release from guilt and blame through introspection and rationalization.

confession

• a defense of the desperate coping mechanisms by which endangered women survive, outwit, and undermine devaluation, coercion, enslavement and torture.

• a form of complaint about the present — an intentionally unsettling blend of speculation and warning based on current political, social, economic, and religious trends.

• an autobiographical revelation of private life or philosophy intended as a psychological release from guilt and blame through introspection and rationalization.

speculative fiction

• a form of criticism of the present — an intentionally unsettling blend of speculation and warning based on current political, social, economic, and religious trends.

• an imaginary world gone sour through idealism that fails to correspond to the expectations, principles, and behaviors of real people.

• Diary-esque form / Stream-of-consciousness / Told in present tense (builds sense of immediacy) / Clear sense that narrator/Offred is a talented story-teller / References and comparisons to Pre-Gilead society