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.