What, ostensibly, is the function of the Historical Notes?
- Provides context
- As Offred can only account for what her life was like as a handmaid it provides more perspective
- Adds objective data to the Offred’s account
- Highlights that what caused the rise of Gilead still exists
- Sexism
What additional information is provided?
- Gilead has ended
- How the other countries perceived Gilead
- Judging things out of context changes the meaning behind them or even history
- What contributed to the rise of Gilead
What might be problematic about this section of the novel?
- Two men are in control of Offred’s narrative
- Pieixoto seems to not understand the novel and it’s damning nature
- Would it have been better received by him if this was happening to men?
- Pieixoto seems to not understand the novel and it’s damning nature
- They are questioning the authenticity of the novel
- In which the readers believe to be true
- There is still clear sexualisation of women
- Demeaning jokes which are encouraged with laughter from the audience
- Sexism still exists
- Her horrific troubles are being made light of to further progress one person’s career
- Demeaning jokes which are encouraged with laughter from the audience
- It takes away from the ending of the novel
- The reader is being asked to not judge the Gilead regime as it is not contextualised
- Opposite to what the novel pushes
How is this section of the novel both an epilogue, a warning and a critique?
- We struggle to learn from history
- It warns us from creating that history
- Reference to global warming
- “As all historians know”
- There is a sense that there is nothing future tense or fictional about the handmaid’s tale
Herstory or History?
- Is it written to a female audience therefore when Pieixoto reads the novel he doesn’t recognise it to be true
- Pieixoto is a historian and thinks that way
- He becomes frustrated when Offred leaves out gaps
- He wants statistics, facts
- Cares about who the commander was, not about Offred’s story
- He doesn’t believe this to be history as it is Offred’s perspective rather than real facts