The Handmaid's Tale Blog#7

I thought The Handmaid’s Tale was a very interesting book to read. Margaret Atwood described the scenes in her book very well, so well that I could imagine a scent. Atwood also had some words that she made up to describe events unique and special to Gilead. Those were hard to understand at first, but after we did the first PBWiki activity, I could understand what kind of language mechanisms Atwood was using. She had a lot of neologisms like Particicution and Handmaid. We also studied the different kinds of propaganda that were used to influence one’s mind. Atwood’s major type of propaganda was fear because a lot of things like the Wall was used to threaten the Handmaids and any other potential rebels in Gilead. The activity of looking at political ads was helpful to understand the types of propaganda better. I think if we looked at other ads for products, we would understand how companies use propaganda to sell their products. We see ads from companies everyday. With the knowledge of propaganda types, we can see that companies’ ads are not telling the truth most of the time, they are mostly giving an opinion.
I thought the story would end a different way. I was hoping for Offred to reunite with her daughter, Luke or her mother. Now we are not sure if she died or survived and got saved. I think Offred did survive because Nick probably had some love for Offred, just like Offred was feeling love for Nick. I guess Atwood let us use our imaginations to think of our own ending and judge Offred’s fate.
The historical connections we’ve been doing for the wiki are useful to relate our world and Gilead with similarities from past history.
I would of liked to read a happy ending with love in it, which did not exist in Gilead. Offred would have been really happy to see her daughter again. Very happy.

The Handmaid's Tale Blog#6

Why did the book end like that!? I thought Offred was going to escape and be happy forever. Now I don’t know if she died or not. My prediction is that the supposed “Eyes” were actually conductors of the underground “femaleroad”. So I think she probably escaped because of what Nick said and what Serena said. Serena didn’t seem like she knew why the “Eyes” were taking away Offred and Nick said they were there for the Mayday.
I thought Offred was a strong woman like her mom, but once she got together with Nick, everything went down for her. She said it herself, that Moira must of thought of her as a wimp. She had a serious breakdown when she was thinking of ways to get away from the pain of the Eyes’ torture. She thought so much that the “Eyes” came and she just turned herself in. I guess Ofglen was Offred’s last hope of escaping. If Ofglen hadn’t died, Offred would have escaped eventually. She wasted that match for her escape. I wonder how Serena found that nightgown or veil or whatever. It was probably in the Commander’s office or something like that. Offred just didn’t care anymore. What a pity, I thought she was stronger than that.

The Handmaid's Tale Blog#5

I cannot believe Offred gets so use to the society of Gilead that she feels that she doesn’t care about what Ofglen has to whisper. It’s all because of Nick. She seems to be falling in love or something like that. She even starts to forget how Luke looked like. Ofglen sounded like she had something very important to tell Offred. Since Ofglen knew Offred was seeing her Commander, she wanted Offred to search through the Commander’s desk to see what the Commander really does and who he is.
I think the whole salvaging thing is just horrific because it kills the handmaids’ hopes of escaping, or anyone else’s hopes of escaping. It’s also done in front of wives’ daughters, which may be scarred for life, watching someone getting hanged. They even killed a wife, probably because she tried to kill a handmaid. Then there’s a Particicution, which is like an execution but with more than one killer. In the Particicution, a Guardian that smells like excrement is beaten to death. I didn’t expect Ofglen to be the first one to bash the rapist Guardian in the head. She then claims that she wanted to put him out of his misery. That Guardian was part of the Underground path but he raped a handmade while she was pregnant. The baby was killed. Since babies are so important to Gilead, he disgusted the Handmaids. The weird part was that although the man was probably drunk, he tried to say that he didn’t do it. He probably didn’t and was possibly used as a scapegoat to reinforce the Handmaids’ obedience of not escaping and not letting themselves get raped.
Offred was so indifferent towards Ofglen that Ofglen hanged herself. She probably felt guilt of kicking the Guardian. She killed herself before a van came and got her. The new Ofglen doe not seem rebellious enough to be the original Ofglen. Now what will Offred do after she has lost her rebellious friend? Will she ever want to escape? I think she will because she will feel so guilty of “cheating” on Luke that she will go out and try to find her daughter or Luke. I will post what I find out on the next post. Until then!

The Handmaid's Tale Blog#4

It seems like Offred is taking control of the Commander by asking him questions about the truth behind Gilead. Offred gains respect from Rita because Serena gives her a cigarette and tells her to go find a match. Rita offers Offred an icecube while she’s cutting the vegetables. She almost never nibbles anything while she’s working in the kitchen, and it’s even weirder that she offers Offred something. Offred decides not to smoke the cigarette because she wants to keep the match so she can burn the house and escape. She feels more comfortable with the Commander even when he drinks alcohol. The Commander reveals that men had the inability to feel. Offred asks if they feel now and the Commander says that yes they do. Maybe the Commander really wants to have a real intimate relationship with Offred, and probably wants to experience love. I was wondering what the asterisks were for in page 212. Maybe it’s to quickly jump to a certain time or scene. Offred describes Gilead as a fairy tale because probably she’s getting more comfortable with the society. I thought it was weird how Janine was acting like she was still in the past working in a restaurant. It’s probably a foreshadowing to how close Offred is to escaping. It’s amazing how Ofglen knows that Offred is seeing the Commander. She might be one of the Eyes or she has spy equipment underground or something like that. How else would she know? Maybe Nick told someone. The Prayvaganza ceremony is where Offred can speak with Ofglen a little better to be in the know. It’s sad how future generations of the girls with arranged marriages won’t know what the past behind Gilead was like. Offred sounds more confident in herself to be able to escape by telling the Commander in the ceremony that falling in love was overlooked in the past.
I wonder why Ofglen wants to know everything Offred can tell her. She might be a spy or she might just be trying to help Offred to rebel and escape.

The Handmaid's Tale Blog#3

It’s interesting to see how Offred has adapted to the society because she says she’s comfortable with Offlen now. I thought it was weird that the ice cream scoops she described had the names of men. Maybe it was a foreshadowing of what would happen to the women. I didn’t expect Ofglen to reveal herself as a spy, because she seemed very shy and quiet by the way Atwood described her. With Ofglen as her friend, Offred felt hope to find her old friends and relatives. It was an even riskier friendship now because she felt the Eyes were watching her. The Eyes remind me of some secret agents like from the CIA or the FBI. Luckily, they were after a man on the street, not her. It really looks like an oppressive government like a communist government now. The explanation of how the society came to be was interesting because it showed how men were acting as if they were the owners of women. It seemed like there was no love anymore, because power was about property in the beginning of their current society. That’s why she didn’t feel the same way about Luke anymore, after he said everything would be alright.

The Handmaid's Tale Blog#2

I like the way Atwood is so descriptive that she describes the scent of the room when Janine is having a baby. I don’t get the part when Offred says that she feels so tired that she seems to feel the same pain Janine is going through. Offred isn’t giving birth to a child at that moment. She’s just chanting and not doing too much physical work. I was wondering why Offred emphasizes the unity of the Handmaids two times like this in pgs125 and 126:

Pg 125: “We grip each other’s hands, we are no longer single.”

Pg 126: “We smile too, we are one smile, tears run down our cheeks, we are so happy.”

I think the story of Moira gives Offred hope to someday try to escape Gilead like Moira did. It really shows how important rank is in the society when Moira simply puts on Aunt Elizabeth’s clothes to appear as an aunt. That way she can easily escape Gilead. Offred mentioned that Moira was a loose woman after that which probably meant that she could bend the rules of Gilead without getting caught and feel like a woman from the past. Where would Moira go?
I thought it was really weird for the commander to ask Offred to give him a kiss just for the game, after he had seemed indifferent in the Ceremony with Offred and the Wife. I think the Commander offered to play scrabble to show how much he liked Offred because reading is illegal in Gilead. I think she liked kissing the Commander because she mentioned that it was a reconstruction. The Commander didn’t like it though, he wanted her to mean it. She seems to be getting more comfortable in Gilead with the birth and the kiss.

The Handmaid's Tale blog#1

I like “The Handmaid’s Tale” so far. It has a setting of a story I have never read before. It’s interesting to read every page I’ve read so far. Although it’s so very interesting, it’s confusing at the same time. The way the Margaret Atwood writes some sentences is weird. I don’t really like how she doesn’t put quotation marks for most of the dialogue she puts in. I’m not even sure what the narrator’s name is. I found it scary that an eye is the symbol of the society, it’s like you always have to fear for someone watching you at all times. I would like to know what’s the purpose of keeping the society separated from the rest of the world. Why does the narrator only remember her aunt’s words rather than her mother’s most of the time?It’s also scary how the society puts dead people on a wall to scare the handmaid’s into not doing the things the hanged people did. I think probably blood is a symbol of the story up until now. The wing veils they wear remind me of dragonfly wings.

"When It Changed"

I thought it was very interesting how Joanna Russ put the story together, by separating a population of women on a distant planet from men on Earth. It was very similar to the Left Hand of Darkness by having to do with gender differences and relations. Both stories experimented with the idea of what a society would be like if one and only one gender lived in a planet and had a different gender visit their planet. Instead of an androgynous society, like in the Left Hand of Darkness, Russ showed how a society with only women would work like after 6 centuries with the absence of men. I think Russ was expressing how she felt about the male role in our society by criticizing its dominance in our society. It seemed like the female society adapted well with the absence of males, but when men from Earth came, the men pointed out that men were needed to return to the female society. They claimed that sexual equality had been established on Earth. If that was true, I think radiation or drugs, like “the real one” said wouldn’t have genetically damaged the people in Earth. Genders would have to be the same for every single person on Earth to achieve sexual equality.
The men that come to Whileaway seem monstrous in the women’s point of view. With the teasing of women to women marriage and asking who plays the role of the man in the female relationships, “the real one” makes the narrator and her friends feel like they’re weak, mocked, and unimportant or silly. Although “the real one” teases the women, the narrator feels that she will not throw away all the achievements women have made in the 6 centuries and will not change. She doesn’t really care if her life is taken, but she will not permit that men take the meaning of her life. I think the meaning of her life is what she represents for the female society, which is the 6 centuries of achievements.
I don’t really understand why Katy said that humanity is unnatural. “The real one” said it was unnatural because of what men have created in Earth, like how there are celibate and homosexual men in Earth. I’m not sure if Russ revealed why Katy said it, she only revealed what “the real one” had to say about it. I was also wondering why the shaking of hands was a custom of the past in Whileaway. I don’t think the shaking of hands is only for males. So why would women drop the custom of shaking hands? Maybe it’s a sign of no wars, while duels are still present.
Overall, I thought the story was interesting because it showed that with the absence of men in a female society, skills are more important than strength.

End of Story Reflections Blog #5

I didn’t expect The Left Hand of Darkness to end with the death of Estarven, Genly’s best and trusted friend from Gethen. I was waiting to read about a war between Karhide and Orgoreyn, since Genly had said that the Gethenians had never fought a war with each other or anywhere else. If war had broken out, I’m pretty sure that Karhide and Orgoreyn would have declared peace between each other. Declaring war to make peace, however, would go against what Gethenians follow, which is to not progress. I liked the story overall because it helped imagine how a world with no sexes would work like, by bringing in a “human from Earth” to an androgynous society to unite the Ekumen and Gethen. Aside from Estraven’s death, Genly actually brought his ship down to Gethen, which I thought would never happen after Estraven’s death. I thought it was weird when Genly encountered one of his people, like for example Lang Heo Hew, because he found it strange to hear a woman’s voice after only three years away from his ship. It seemed like he was a native of planet Gethen when he felt uncomfortable to the touch and sound of Lang Heo Hew. I think that Genly actually did accomplish his mission after all, because his crewmembers were dispersed throughout the planet, which most likely made the Gethenians believe that the Ekumen did want an alliance with Gethen. Near the end of the story, where Sorve demanded to hear the story of how Genly and Estraven crossed the Ice, I thought it was too sudden to end the story. I don’t really understand why Therem’s son wanted to know how Therem died. Maybe it was because he thought Therem was a Traitor for leaving his family behind or something like that. Estraven’s father, Lord of Estre, said it mattered if Estraven was called a Traitor or not probably because he loved him so much that he wanted his son to be recognized as a hero instead of a Traitor.
The use of the pronoun “he” for every Gethenian really did make me imagine that every Gethenian was a male and not adrogynous. LeGuin didn’t only use the pronoun “he” throughout the whole story though. She used “her” for the sledge like for example in pg244-245:

“We had to haul the sledge up and over each knife-edged or fantastically corniced top, then slide her down, and up over the next one: for they never seemed to run parallel to our course.”

She also used “she” when she described Genly’s ship coming down to Gethen on pg295:

“She came down in a roar and glory, and steam went roaring up white as her stabilizers went down in the great lake of water and mud created by the retro; down underneath the bog there was permafrost like granite, and she came to rest balanced neatly, and sat cooling over the quickly refreezing lake, a great, delicate fish balanced on its tail, dark silver in the twilight of Winter.”

I think she just used “she” because we use “she” in our society sometimes to refer to something like she referred to. Genly is a “human from Earth” after all like from our society. Another reason I think she would use “she” might be to show how “she” is important to use after the pronoun “he” is used, just like she unites darkness and brightness in her story.

Ch 16 &17 Reflections Blog #4

As I read through chapter 16, I discovered that Estraven was attracted to Genly all along. Although Estraven was in kemmer, he resisted the temptation to engage in sexual activity with Genly. I found it really interesting when Estraven asked Genly what a woman was after reciting a poem his brother had wrote to him before dying. I’m not sure why Genly couldn’t give a direct response to Estraven. Genly said in p235:

“In a sense, women are more alien to me than you are. With you I share one sex, anyhow….”

I think that Genly said this because he finally feels he can fully trust Estraven, just as Estraven feels he can fully trust Genly. Probably Genly couldn’t find a woman that was right for him back in Terran which would have helped him answer Estraven’s question. Even though Estraven is capable of becoming woman-like in kemmer, it’s surely not the same as the woman in Terran. One other thing I don’t really get is the fact that Genly “practically” forgot what a woman was like in his two years at Gethen. How could he forget the sex opposite to his in only two years? It might have been that he got so accustomed to seeing ambisexuality throughout Gethen that he wasn’t sure what the meaning of being a man with virility like himself was anymore. I think the meaning of being an opposite sex was answered in the poem Estraven recited about the left hand of darkness being light and the right hand of light being darkness. The poem reminds me of the saying that says that opposites attract. Opposites unite to become one as a whole. It also reminds me of this symbol:
http://taoism.about.com/b/2008/04/02/the-yin-yang-symbol.htm

Estraven’s question is kind of like the question the Foretellers had to find an answer to, which was impossible, “What is the meaning of life?” In chapter 17, the myth of the creation of the Orgota explains the introduction of darkness to light. It shows the idea that light can’t possibly exist without darkness because if there wasn’t darkness where light was, light wouldn’t have a reason to exist by itself. Just like a man is incomplete without a woman. The end of the myth, however, sounds confusing to me when Edondurath’s kemmering says in p239:

“In the end when we are done, the sun will devour itself and shadow will eat light, and there will be nothing left but the ice and the darkness.”

It’s like the kemmering is saying that in order for darkness to be left, light must be sacrificed. I really like the way Le Guin set up the whole story into different perspectives, including the myths and Estraven’s journal entries. I think it really helps the reader imagine how it would feel like to be in either Genly’s or Estraven’s shoes.

Chapter 14: The Escape

In Chapter 14, The Escape, Estraven seems to be a different person as he’s narrating throughout the chapter. At first, the name of the chapter made me think that Genly Ai was going to try to escape the Pulefen Farm himself. I didn’t expect Estraven to try to help Genly escape from the farm. Ever since the beginning of the story, from Genly’s perspective, Estraven seemed like an indifferent liar and traitor. After Estraven was exiled, Estraven tried to warn Genly to be more cautious and told him that the Orgoreyn people were probably going to “use” Genly. Genly was too naïve to understand what Estraven was talking about, which was probably imprisonment to interrogate Genly of his mission. After Genly was arrested, Estraven went looking for Genly to liberate him and continue with Genly’s mission. Estraven explained to Genly that he rescued him in order to break the rivalry between Karhide and Orgoreyn. I think Estraven rescued Genly because he became one of the Handdarata. He probably answered his own question of wether to really trust in Genly or not, as the solution to Karhide’s and Orgoreyn’s rivalry. The darkness of Estraven’s character is concealed with the new Handdarata personality. Genly doesn’t really believe Estraven would go through so much to save Genly. I wouldn’t believe Estraven either, but I would believe him if we communicated with mindspeech.
In page 186, Estraven says:

“What I had seen and heard lay heavy on me now.”

He probably felt that what the ex-prisoners had told him, would happen to Genly. I think he said it would lay heavy on him because probably with the Handdarata personality, he was more emotional. From Estraven’s change, I can see that he really does need Genly’s help to promote progress in the planet of Gethen.

The Left Hand of Darkness Chapter 9 & 10 Reflection

I am not sure what Le Guin is trying to say about the peace between the Domain of Stok and Domain of Estre in Chapter 9. Arek of Estre and Therem of Stok meet each other and start kemmering as if they’re going to be together forever, although they both accept that they are mortal enemies of each other. They remain together for about 2 days and suddenly one man of a group of men from Stok kills Arek of Estre with a knife while Therem of Stok watches his bloody death. Therem of Stok then simply says to the murderer to take Arek’s body back to Estre for burial. In the other half of the chapter a story similar to this one is repearted with the son of Arek of Estre.
From what I understand, Arek of Estre is called Estraven and Therem of Stok is called Stokven.
One sentence I did not understand was when Estraven asked in p.126:

“Did you warm me back to life in order to kill me, Stokven?”

Why would Estraven ask why Stokven was trying to kill Estraven if clearly, Stokven was trying to save Estraven’s life from the cold?

I think Estraven asks this because Estre and Stok are supposed to be enemies.

In Chapter 10, Genly Ai reveals a big secret to some Orgota people. That secret is that Genly has a starship orbiting Gethen’s sun in case he has to call it, if the Orgoreyn government actually accepts Ekumen relations and trade. Genly is being spied by one of Tibe’s spies while he says this. One of the spies, Gaum, tries to make Genly look like a liar or even a lunatic.

I basically think that if Genly had brought more people from his Ekumen place, Gethenians would be convinced that the Ekumen are actually real. Then Genly would have accopmplished his goal of exploring and befriending the Gethenians. The mission, however, is not easy because Erhenrang has already rejected Genly’s mission, from what I understand. Orgoreyn is almost his last hope to convincing Gehtenians, but in order to achieve the alliance between the Gethenians and the Ekumen, war will have to break out. Genly kind of doubts the Gethenians will be in a war and thinks he is surrounded by a “fake” world. That, I think is a sign of losing confidence in Genly’s mission.

The Left Hand of Darkness Chapter 5 Reflection

The most interesting part I found of this chapter was the perspective of a Foreteller of Otherhord. Genly wanted to know more about the Foretellers by asking one of them questions. He asked Faxe why he didn’t use his future predicting capabilities to help conclude decisions. Faxe’s answer was that questions have to be precise in order to mean what they really mean. For example, how to make the best out of something depends on what the person thinks is the best way to use that something. I thought Faxe’s answer was interesting when he said that he came to the Fastnesses to think of what questions not to ask. If one is thinking of what question not to ask, one has fear of asking the wrong question. Estravan had explained to Genly that patriotism was fear of the other. Probably all Karhides have that same mind set of having fear of the other as patriotism. At the end of the chapter, Faxe says that life would not be possible if it wasn’t for uncertainty, of knowing what comes next in life. That answers Genly’s question of why future prediction isn’t put to use to aid in decision making. Aside from uncertainty of the future, uncertainty of sexes is present in Karhides, from Genly’s point of view.
Genly also asks Faxe if he could communicate with Faxe with their minds. Faxe does not accept because he says that it’s a thing of business, politicians, and kings. Clearly Faxe is not interested in progress, but in presence. He says that he does not want to change the entire world. Although 5 years were predicted of Ekumen encounter, the future is not definite. It would contradict Faxe, of what he said of life not being possible if it wasn’t for uncertainty. Genly felt a bond with Faxe, probably because he thought of Faxe as a woman.