Compare And Contrast Aristotle And Platos Political Theories Philosophy Essay

Compare And Contrast Aristotle And Platos Political Theories Philosophy Essay Plato, student of Socrates, and Aristotle, student of Plato, two of the most influential philosophers to have ever walked the earth, take two completely different approaches whilst talking about the formation of city states and epistemology itself. Plato primarily defined the nature of things in theoretical terms through metaphysics, in contrast to actual terms. Thus by looking to the higher forms he aimed to explain the function of existing knowledge and understandings in the search for the absolute truth. On the other hand Aristotle was more concerned with the actual physical features of nature, for the most part the Natural Sciences. The foremost divisions can be seen in the contrasting opinions between them primarily concerning eternal ideas, forms and causes and their relation to change, and the role of observing and explaining through the utilisation of the senses. Through their different approaches regarding the nature of man, both Plato and Aristotle sought to explain the rel ationship between the individual and society and furthermore the requirement of government to uphold order and stability. Platos ideal city-state, which he refers to in his dialogue in the Republic as the kallipolis, and Aristotles concept of the ideal relationship between the social order and government in an actual city state are contrasting not with regards to the end and purpose which they sought to fulfil, the telos, but instead over the proposed way in which they sought to meet that telos. These differing objections can be explained by the abstract and theoretical ideologies of Plato contrasting and clashing with Aristotles scientific and actual ideologies. To be able to further understand and contest the parameters of Platos kallipolis, we must first seek to understand the bare foundations of Platos theoretical ideology. At the origins of mans search for knowledge is the Theory of Forms that states that every single material thing is in fact a representation of the real thing: the form. Most people are actually unable to see the forms, merely the representation of the form, the shadow. This is how Plato makes a distinction between the material world that us humans live in and the ideal world of eternal forms. His world of forms is not a different reality, but instead an outline by which material objects are created. This can be seen most prominently in Platos Parable of the Cave from book VII of The Republic. Â   Behold! human beings living in an underground den, which has a mouth open towards the light; here these people have been from their childhood, and have their legs and necks chained so that they cannot move, and can only see before them, being prevented by the chains from turning their heads. Above and behind them a fire is blazing at a distance, and between the fire and the prisoners there is a raised walk; and you will see, if you look a low wall built along the walk, like the screen which marionette players have in front of them, over which they show the puppets.'(514A-B The Republic) The prisoners watch the shadows projected on the wall and begin to attribute forms to these shadows, the shadows are as close to viewing reality that these ordinary men will get to viewing reality. He then goes on to say that a philosopher is much like a prisoner who freed from the cave comes to realise and understand that in fact the shadows on the cave wall are not constitutive of reality at all, for they are now able to recognize the true form of reality instead of the simple shadows that the prisoners see. From this Plato explains that our senses cannot be trusted when observing and goes on to conclude that the only way of realising absolute truth is through reason. This ability to recognise and understand the true forms of things is the central concept that establishes who holds the ruling powers in his kallipolis. After having determined that it was in fact possible to form an ideal city state, Plato then looks to chose a government that would rule both justly and firmly. Firstly he discusses the reasons for which people would desire to form a state and keep within its rules. Plato states that it is not the desire of man to form a state, instead it is an inevitable need of man, for man is not self sufficient and therefore needs to live in an organised society, and that each person has a natural talent for a certain area of work and should seek to develop it further for the benefit of the state. Plato embodies the natural inequality of humanity, the origin of the state, in the division of labour. Well then, how will our state supply these needs? It will need a farmer, a builder, and a weaver, and also, I think, a shoemaker and one or two others to provide for our bodily needs. So that the minimum state would consist of four or five men. (369d The Republic) He then goeson to say that the necessity to divide labour with accordance to specializations was prescribed by nature rather than decided by man. Because Platos state is based almost entirely on abstract ideas of both knowledge and nature, his approach to politics and government itself is more theoretical than actual. Therefore if a city seeks to uphold stability it must be ruled by those that are in possession of true knowledge, philosopher kings. Aristotle has objections to the very foundation of Platos kallipolis. Due to his more grounded approach more actual than theoretical in nature, Aristotle argues that man does not seek to make a state simply because it is essential due to man not being self sufficient, instead it is because of an innate instinct. He goes on to argue that the state in fact existed in nature before it was discovered by man, and that a human being is by nature a political animal, and anyone who is without a city-state'(1253a Politics)is not a man. Even in mans most primitive form, mans nature forces him to realise his role within a given city, or polis. It is in fact mans self preservation instincts that directs to the organization of the masses, attempting to avoid conflict. Thus politics through a formal government was a means by which to resist chaos: it is not as Plato believes a thing of forms, rather it is an innate instinct of man. Platos kallipolis had within it ideas of a strong unified community and conformity. Aristotle states that Platos assumption that the people can be as unified as he believes they must be in his kallipolis is entirely unrealistic. He rejects complete uniformity and conformity, describing the potential dangers in terms of the relationships between the state and the household, and the household and the individual, arguing that the more uniform a city state is, the more it will resemble a household and eventually even an individual. He goes on to conclude that a city-state is not a natural unity in the way some people say it is, and that what has been alleged to be the greatest good for the city-states destroys them. (Politics 1261b). When man is responsible for his own crops and home within a community, the effort and pride placed into the upkeep of them is massive. However in a community where there are a lot of shared goods very little effort is put in, because the thought that someon e else is attending to it makes them neglect it the more (Politics 1261b 30) and ultimately the city state is reliant upon a broad variety of people and services. The differences between Plato and Aristotles ways which they select their governments rullers an be attributed in part to Aristotles outright rebuffal of the kallipolis. Plato states that for a city to be ideal it has to be just and good, and that goodcan only be realised if the city is lead by people able to see the true forms of things and understand true knowledge. Ultimately philosophers must become kings, or kings must become philosophers, known as the guardian class. The rules selected by these guardian kings would be enforced by the Auxiliaries class, men of courage and intelligence, whilst the majority of people would make up the lower end of society, the producer class. His kallipolis is best described as an aristocracy, something Aristotle greatly disagrees with as he rejects the idea that those elite few with absolute truth will be the rulers of governments. Aristotle instead seeks to create a perfect relationship between the government and social order, looking most prolifically at balance when determining where the power of government would lie, whether it be in the hands of few or the masses. First he looked at whether or not the proposed leaders would govern for their own self interests or for good of the polis, separating the candidates into the three parts of the city state: the very rich, the very poor; and , third, those in between these. (Politics 295b) Aristotle determined that the poor do not know how to rule, but only how to be ruled in the way slaves are ruled'(Politics 295b) and that the rich do not know how to be ruled in any way, but only know how to rule as masters rule. (Politics 295b) Aristotle then goes on to determine that the middle class should form the ruling body because it reduces the chances of divisions because the middle do not desire other peoples property as the poor do, nor do other people desire theirsAnd because they are neither plotted against nor engage in plotting. (Politics 295b). Comparing the two proposed city states and governments it is clear that there is more to Aristotles objections to the parable of the cave: it is not just regarding the matter of the elite few being masters of the slaves that are the masses, but how the actual power is obtained. Plato believed that man could achieve absolute truth only by consideration of the eternal forms, not through observations and experiences. Aristotle instead shifted away from this view and instead used observations and experiences to pursue his goal of achieving knowledge. Famously Aristotle is thought of as the father of biology, his great encyclopaedia of knowledge and observations still influence the academics of today. Because the world is constantly changing, Aristotle determined that absolute knowledge is not possible, a stark contrast to Platos views, believing that through observing the material things, one could understand its underlying form. I personally believe that Aristotles way of viewing things is more effective simply because it is more realistic and down to earth, he is not always thinking of hypothetical forms like Plato, instead he is observing their real embodiments and coming to conclusions.

Discussing Unemployment In A Theoretical Perspective Economics Essay

Discussing Unemployment In A Theoretical Perspective Economics Essay Unemployment is phenomenon which happens when we find people available without work. It is a big social and economic problem which is very common nowadays in developing and developed countries; Unemployment is usually measured using unemployment rate. Unemployment in Abu Dhabi is phenomenon which has many rates, reasons and results. Before the independence of the U.A.E., The economy was under basic economic control. Fishing and little agriculture were in use as the main activities in UAE. With the breakthrough of oil UAEs economy extended and the oil sector represented more than 35% of UAEs GDP. In 2005, the U.A.E. produced about 2.4 million barrels per day, 85% of it was Abu Dhabis own product. The oil income permitted the government to spend charitably on infrastructure, education, and job creation. The ascending of oil prices in the 1970s provided the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries with the financial funds which made vast economic development programs that required invasion of non-national labor available. However, the slump in oil prices in the mid 1980s and the inhabitants expansion made unemployment an issue in GCC countries. This project assesses unemployment in the UAE and measures the unemployment rate in Abu Dhabi; the capital of the United Arab Emirates. As for the beginning, Unemployment is the incapability for workers who want to find profitable employment. The extent of unemployment in a nation is an indicator of the economic strength of that country. Many causes can negatively affect the unemployment rate counting corporate downsizing, mergers, implementation of automation technologies, and job outsourcing to other nations. UAE unemployment generally Unemployment in the UAE is seen one of the lowest in the world (Kawach 2002). It was initiated to be 2.4 percent by the end of 2001, where the estimated labor force was around 2.1 million and 2.0 million were employed. Due to the increase in population and the expansion in the number of national graduates from universities and higher education schools, unemployment along with nationals turned into a sensitive problem in latest years. Unemployment in the UAE has severe harmful effects on the society and the economy as well. The government will be under political force. It will spend more on social repayments. The economy will be wobbly and wealth misallocated. As a result, the government set a new labor policy to situate nationals in civic and private division jobs, which were up until that time overflowing by non-Emiraties. This policy alerted on a fussy sector, such as finance, in order to accomplish an aim of 30 percent nationalization. According to the Ministry of Planning, the number of working nationals did not surpass 9 percent of the total labor force in 2003. This shows the lack of the proper credentials of nationals to compete labor market requirements. In order to defeat this structural crisis in the 2 labor market, the government requested the educational foundations to put up the shutters of the breach between academic series and labor market through convenient and specialized schooling. Unemployment in UAE is determined in the middle of youth, where more than 50 percent of whole unemployment is involving those with an intermediary level of education and low level of expertise. Unemployment Labor Force We should know which people wants job and which dont in order to evaluate the scope of the unemployment problem. A lot of people dont have a job but people such as those are not part of our problem. Students which study in full-time bases are not among the labor force which is defined as People between 16-65 who are actually working plus all those who arent working but actively looking for a job. For example, old people who live through their retirement are not considered as part of a labor force. Moreover, prisoners who condemned in jail are not among the labor force. Housewives are not a part of the labor force except if they seek a job. Nevertheless, children under the age of 16 who are actually concerned about their play station are also not considered as parts of the labor force. So, actually labor force is about people who look for a paid job outside their houses which also means that people working voluntarily are not considered as part in the labor force. In the other hand, people who are neither employed nor actively looking for a job are called nonparticipants. In labor force we count both the employed and unemployed people who seek jobs. LABOR FORCE PARTICIPATION RATE: The amount of the total of no institutionalized and citizen population over 16 years old, we count them citizen labor force. The labor force participation rate is basically equal to the ratio of citizen labor force to the total of no institutionalized citizen population over 16 years old. To estimate the labor force participation rate we used the data that obtained along with other labor force data from the monthly current population survey conducted by the Bureau of the Census for the Bureau of labor statistics. Labor force participation rate = civilian labor force total no institutionalized civilian population Labor force growth Figure: P1.a (NOT real just assumption to make it easier to be understood for a reader) Since the labor force continues to grow each year and the population increases with continuing immigration as well, this will expand the production possibilities which cause us to produce more job vacancies in every year. That is such a bad news because then we will have to produce almost millions of jobs more every year to close up the gap. Once the economy finds itself unable to provide jobs to the increasing population UNEMPLOYMENT will be faced as a serious issue. UNEMPLOYMENT has several definitions; one of these definitions is the people who are searching for a job and cant find it through a precise sum of time. Unemployment can be weighed up through dissimilar ways. One of them is taking in thought the amount of people who are employed and those who are fired. (http://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Macroeconomics/Definitions_of_Unemployment) Measuring Unemployment. Measuring Unemployment is one of steps which help us to study, analyze, evaluate and put solutions for this occur, economics are the most people who focus on the unemployment rate. A main reason for this occurs is the normal increase in the number of people employed due to population and labor force increasing. Statistics of the unemployment serve many different purposes, we need some information which essential to macroeconomic and human resources development planning and policy formulation , this information like measures of labor supply, the structure of employment and the extent to which available labor is actually utilized. Data Sources of Measuring Unemployment : Administrative Records Statistics of unemployment can be drown from administration records , in this way we can registration data which derived from records are based on complete counts, so they will not affected by sampling errors , in addition they are cheap to obtain. But also this way is limited because it only cover small part of the population which uses employment exchanges or is qualified for unemployment insurance benefits. 2. Household Surveys In this source statistics of unemployment can also be obtained from household or labor force surveys, this survey composed sample of household and asking people of working age about their employment activities and also about availability for work by using standard questionnaire. This way also was limited because it depends only on nature replies of people in the household survey , so it will contains many different kind of errors . Reasons of unemployment. Discouraged workers In economics, a discouraged worker is someone between 16 and 65 years old who is not keenly looking for employment. This usually happens because the person has given up searching or has had no accomplishment in finding a job, which is why he is called discouraged. His belief may be obtained from a mixture of factors counting: a lack of jobs in their area or line of work; apparent discrimination for reasons, for example, age, race, sex and religion; a lack of required skills, training, or experience; or a disability. Discouraged workers, who are categorized as marginally attached to the labor force, on the margins of the labor force, or as part of hidden unemployment, are not regarded as to be element of the labor force and are consequently not counted in most official unemployment rates, which persuades the exterior and explanation of unemployment statistics. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Discouraged_worker) Underemployment The expression underemployment has three different separate meanings and functions. All meanings involve a state where a person is working, unlike unemployment, where a person who is searching for work but cannot find it. All meanings involve underutilization of labor that critics say [weasel  words] is neglected by a large amount of official (governmental agency) classifications and measurements of unemployment. Underemployment can mean: The employment of recruits with high skill levels in small wages occupations that do not require such abilities, for example a trained medical doctor who works as a taxi driver. Involuntary part-time workers who would like to be working for a full time work but can only hit upon part-time occupation. Overstaffing or hidden unemployment, the practice in which businesses provide work for people who are not fully occupiedfor example, workers at present not being used to produce goods or services due to legal or social limitations or because the work is highly seasonal. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underemployment). The Human Cost of Unemployment The unemployment causes the human cost, and there are many kinds of human costs. Because we are part of this world ,we must accept that there are casualties caused by unemployment and should be affected by losses. All the people going through these problems , but not all of them have a way to solve it. For the Psychological Study of psychological problems and disorders multiple passes by individuals as a result of these negative experiences and some of these psychological studies to mention talk that the psychological symptoms continue even after the economy improves which leades for men and womens problem to start getting worse. This stigma makes them away and cautious from the society, and perhaps makes them more faded. This increases the psychiatric unit that is the beginning of a psychological disorder at the other, and resorts of ignorance or desperation to relieve the pain do not like initially, including drugs or alcohol. After a long period of self begins Bloom, hates itself in a way that we cannot imagine. This ball will be circulated again and will be the beginning because the hate of others and resent them .., and the worst may retaliate against them (which means that the idea moved to negative behavior or criminal etc. Moreover, the negative aspects in the behavior for the unemployment people are sleeping for a long times and they become lack of sense in time or social and personal responsibly. The work make the person feel of his own personality and his impotents in the society and when he lost it he feel that he lost his social life and his personality as well. Full Employment It is clear that full employment is one of our major Goals in a countrys economy. It is also logical that there is no such a thing as (zero unemployment). That is why the term, Full Employment, is carried by other factors. In fact, There are some reasons why full employment à ¢Ã¢â‚¬ °Ã‚   zero unemployment. Seasonal Unemployment Seasonal unemployment is defined as unemployment resulting from a fall in aggregate demand in some economic sectors (and not the economy as a whole). It could see some economic sectors (ex. tourism as a sector, agriculture, or fishing), periods of recession, leading to loss of personnel in these sectors to their jobs temporarily. Frictional Unemployment It is a temporary cessation of work due to the transition from one job to another, or pause to search for another job or to study and so on. Structural Unemployment Economists often use the term structural unemployment for employment problems that arise because of a mismatch between the needs of employers and the skills and training of the labor force. For example, if music schools were to educate many more oboe players than could get positions playing the oboe, we might find that many of them would have to get jobs in other fields. Lacking training for other skilled fields, some oboe players might be unable to get any jobs at all. This would be an instance of structural unemployment. Structural unemployment raises some questions. If an oboe player were offered a job as a disk jockey, at very good pay, and refused the job because it was not the field for which he was trained, what should we make of that? Is the oboe player really willing to work at the going wage? Or should we consider the would-be oboe player as being out of the work force unwilling to work in the opportunities available to him? On the other hand, people with little in the way of training suffer more than average unemployment in most of the industrialized countries. This suggests that structural unemployment is really quite an important problem in the industrialized countries at the end of the twentieth century. Cyclical Unemployment It is the unemployment resulting from the volatility of aggregate demand in the economy, where economy is facing periods of low aggregate demand, resulting in the loss of part of the workforce functions and consequently; a higher unemployment rate in the economy. But it starts to decline when demand starts to rise again overall. The natural rate of unemployment scientists have agreed that the natural rate of unemployment or as they call IT, full employment, the rate of unemployment between 4 to 6%. UAE Unemployment The oil price boom of the 1970s resulted in vast economic development programs in the UAE and a shortage of national labor who are mainly employed in the public sector causes to dependence on foreign labor In 1980 there were more than 80% employment in the use and all of them were non national. In 1986, the falling oil made in United Arab Emirates to the high unemployment rate for the non national and it rise the number of the unemployment national people they search for a job. In doing research in the 2003 show that there are 2.4 per cent is prepared for total unemployment in the UAE national and non national, either at another level, the unemployment rate among the national people of the State is 10.4, its also shown The unemployment rate for women than men, where the percentage of women compared to men, 16.5 percent and accounted for 8.4 The unemployment in UAE has a lot of negative effects on the society and the economy As a result of the ill effects of unemployment in the UAE society government decided to draw up laws that employ citizens in public areas for both. Based on the lack of sufficient qualifications of national have asked the state government educational institutions n upgrading the level of education among students in order to reduce the high level of riparian State Estimating Unemployment in Abu Dhabi The United Arab Emirates has the lowest rate of unemployment of only three percent between its citizens on the Arab words. Dr. Khalid Al Khazraji, Under-Secretary of the Ministry of Labor and Social Affairs, has said that the unemployment percent between UAE citizens go beyond three percent. On the other hand he noted that the country is almost lacks a lot of statics on the size of the unemployment between UAE citizens. This rate is basically calculated prediction on which the governments build its plans and stratagems for the employment of the UAE nationals in the public and privets sectors. However the fact remnants that the influence of the UAE citizens to the private sector still weak for many reasons, some accredited to the unwillingness of national job seekers, while others to the unwillingness of companies. Although the unemployment rate in 2004 was about 20.60%, but this percent of the unemployment doesnt affect the UAEs position. The Survey Here is a simple survey analysis which is used to guess the unemployment rate in Abu Dhabi. And the questionnaire is promoted to cover the geographical area of Abu Dhabi. Actually the survey obtains the needed information on age, sex, level of education, family size, employed and unemployed members of the family, and why they are not employed, duration of unemployment, and types of jobs preferred. However the survey has been conducted by many ways such as mail distribution, phone cells, and personal interview on 500 families And the face rationality of government officials from the Ministry of Labor. The sample we selected it was depend on Cranachs Coefficient Alpha(0.83), the degree of confidence of the sample survey is tested using t- statics which are averaged 2 at 0.05 level of confidence. For the other statistical displays were measured such as frequency, mathematical average, and percentages. Results and analysis The results that are calculated from the returned survey are presented in Table 2. The unemployment rate along with nationals in Abu Dhabi was found to be 16 percent, and that is superior to the official approximations of 10.4 percent and 6.5 percent for the UAE and Abu Dhabi in that order. This is because rather to the tiny trial size, and can be also clarified by the diverse schemes used for assessment, and the reality that many families who have members that are at working age were barred from the labor force because they were not actually looking for jobs or were constant economically by social aid from the government or from unmitigated families. As anticipated, the result shows a high percentage of nationals that favor working at public sector managerial jobs, and this will enlarge the unemployment rates. The analysis proposes that unemployment rate is tend to boost for many explanations, such as the amplified number of graduates, the quality of education which market demand do es not meet with, and the work surroundings at the private sector with value to working hours and close performance dimensions which does locals are not attracted to. Finally, nationals still do not accept certain jobs because of society or that the jobs are not socially tempting. Conclusion The examination recommends improving the educational and training system to fit labor market requirements. It is also suggested to produce more exact and modernized data on the labor market including (job seekers, employers, and job opportunities), and for more information to be provided and an educational campaign to be carried out to change the approach of the UAE young people in the direction of working at the private sector. Further research is needed to revise the impact of unemployment on UAE economy, women contribution in the labor force and recognizing jobs favored by them, and measuring nationals efficiency weighted against to that of the expatriates, and finally restudying the labor law and rules in light of globalization and new scientific expansions. Resources Kqwach Nadim (Dec. 8, 2002), UAE Unemployment one of the lowest UAE Economic, Abu Dhabi. MENA Development report (2004), Unlocking the Employment Potential in the Middle East and North Africa. Toward a à ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦Ãƒ ¢Ã¢â€š ¬Ã‚ ¦ Social Contract. The World Bank, Washington, D.C. UAE Ministry of Planning 2004, UAE, Abu Dhabi. Muwia E. Ilbrahim, (Jan. 22.2004), Unemployment Spirals among UAE Nationals, Khaleej Times Online. http://www.tradingeconomics.com/Economics/Unemployment-rate.aspx?symbol=AED http://www.ipsnotizie.it/wam_en/news.php?idnews=1486 http://emirateseconomist.blogspot.com/2007/03/unemployment-in-uae.html http://lmi.state.oh.us/laus/laus.html http://www.bls.gov/cps/ http://www.bls.gov/news.release/empsit.nr0.htm http://www.legco.gov.hk/yr98-99/english/sec/library/989rp05.pdf http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unemployment http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Structural_unemployment http://1426.blogspot.com/2009_04_19_archive.html http://www.ctcdubai.org/images/Charts/infl_n_unempl.gif http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-seasonal-unemployment.htm http://www.ikhwanonline.com/Article.asp?ArtID=326SecID=391 http://www.ikhwanonline.com/Article.asp?ArtID=326SecID=391

Critique of The Breakfast Club Essay -- The Breakfast Club Movies Film

Critique of The Breakfast Club Breakfast Club is a comedy that was released in 1985. It was written, produced and directed by John Hughes. It’s about five teenage students from different social groups when forced to spend a Saturday together in detention they find themselves interacting with and understanding each other for the first time. A jock, Emilio Estevez, a stoner, Judd Nelson, a princess, Molly Ringwald, a basket case, Ally Sheedy, and a brain, Anthony Michael Hall, talk about everything from parental tension to sex to peer pressure to hurtful stereotypes while serving the eight hours in a library. Ultimately, the five find that they may have more in common than they ever imagined and learn more about themselves as well as each other. It begins with loud rock music playing as a quote from a David Bowie song is on a black background. It shatters like glass to show the high school that they are spending their detention in while the brain, Brian, is talking in the background, the movie ends like this also. While he says different things there are parts of the school that are cut to. An example would be when he is talking about a criminal they show a locker that says, â€Å"Open this locker and you will die fag!!!† written in black marker on it. The rest of the story takes place in the school library and what the five students do while their principle isn’t looking. At one point they smoke marijuana and the boy that is a jock breaks a glass door. They also put music on and dance around all over the library. One of the main characters John Bender, who they call Bender, is the criminal. He lights his shoe on fire to light a cigarette, he pulls apart books, and he steals the screw from the door that is suppose to be open so it closes and the principal can’t watch them. He ends up getting two months more of detention for telling of the principal by talking back to the principal. While that section of the movie is going on the camera angle makes the principal look really big because Bender is sitting down and the camera angle is angled up at the principal. Later in the movie he has all of them running in the hallway to go get marijuana. They are about to get caught but he tells the rest of the group to go back to the library and he takes the blame for not being in the library. The principal finds him and takes him to a closet by himself to sit for the ... ...ays in them. This movie was the bases of all other teenage movies. The story was on teenage love and how one got to the point of the first kiss, which all movies have in it now. It didn’t really change people but it made people laugh. It is one of those movies that is out there to make people laugh and want that to happen to them. In the technical sense it wasn’t very difficult to make, but the camera angles showed every side of every character. An example would be when Bender and Andrew are arguing the camera keeps changing from Bender to Andrew but different parts of their faces. Another example is when the principal is giving Bender the other two months on detention. The principal is standing and Bender is sitting. The shoots keep changing from Bender to the principal. The camera angle makes the principal look bigger then he really is and it shows Benders different reactions to what is going on. In conclusion, this movie is not a difficult movie to make but the acting had to be perfect and the camera angles had an effect in the movie. It’s a somewhat realistic movie. Voice over is used and it’s like a story being told to describe the essay that Brian writes for all of them.

Theme, Subject and Meaning in Breathless and Citizen Kane :: Film Movies

Theme, Subject and Meaning in Breathless and Citizen Kane Many devices such as theme, subject and meaning reflect different aspects of a film. The time and place that the movie is made are usually affected but this. A great example of this would be the film Breathless, directed by Godard. This is a story of the love between a small-time crook who is wanted for killing a cop, and an American woman who works for a French newspaper. Their relationship develops as the man hides out from the police. Breathless uses the famous techniques of the French New Wave: location shooting, improvised dialogue, and a loose narrative form. Godard also uses cuts that seem, to jump from one scene to another, with what seem to be deliberate \\"mismatches\\" between shots. This is what makes this movie so special. It could never have been made before it had been. It was made in the post worlds War II era in the year 1959. The plot and subjects reflect this, because there really is no major plot except for the one that I have already described. This was a revolutionary movie in that aspect. This movie was made in France, partly because that was where it was set, but mainly because that is where the new director c ould afford to make such a makeshift movie. Another example of a movie that shares such aspects is Citizen Kane. There are many references in this fictional movie to a non-fictional man. This man would be William Randolph Hearst. He was a self made millionaire quite like the main character of the movie. Hearst was also was in the business of journalism. He lived a very eccentric life like that of Kane’s. He was politically involved in the 1930’s as a pro-Nazi and in the 40’s as an anti-communist. This was similar to Kane’s character that ran for office in New York. While Kane enjoyed the luxuries of Xanadu, Hearst had his own castle at San Simeon. These are the similarities on screen between the two, but behind the scenes there was a heated debate over the making of this movie. Hearst did not want this movie made even though it was not exactly a portrayal of his life.

Capulet Character In Romeo and Juliet Essay

Capulet has had a dramatic change in character over the course of the book. At first, he would not dare see his young daughter get married yet. But he changed and decided that if she did not marry, she would be disowned. It is very confusing how this happens, because it is such a dramatic change in such a short period of time. At first, Capulet thinks that Juliet isn’t ready for marriage. For he believes that she is too young, innocent and immature. But saying o’er what I have said before. My child is yet a stranger in the world. She hath not seen the change of fourteen years. Let two more summers wither in their pride Ere we may think her ripe to be a bride. In this passage from Act I, Scene 2, Capulet tells Paris that his daughter is only thirteen years old, and not yet ready to be a bride. He tells him to wait two more summers until she’s fully ready to be wed. This shows the caring, fatherly side of Capulet. It shows through, because he is protecting his only child from escaping her childhood too early, and growing up too fast. He truly loves Juliet. Later in the story, in Act III, Scene 5, his point of view on this topic completely changes. He then concludes that if Juliet does not wed, she will be punished. â€Å"I’ll not wed,† â€Å"I cannot love,† â€Å"I am too young,† â€Å"I pray you, pardon me.†Ã¢â‚¬â€ But, an you will not wed, I’ll pardon you. Graze where you will, you shall not house with me. Look to ’t, think on ’t, I do not use to jest. Thursday is near. Lay hand on heart, advise. An you be mine, I’ll give you to my friend. An you be not, hang, beg, starve, die in the streets, Capulet mocked Juliet saying things that he agreed with in the past, and then threatened to throw her out on the streets if she did not marry. He went from a caring, protective father, to a father who didn’t care if his own daughter were to die. His mood change was drastic, and out of the blue. I don’t know exactly why his mood changed so suddenly, but I do know it happened, and it went downhill, not uphill. Capulet’s mood change was a big turning point in the book, because it triggered Friar’s new plan, which led to the death of the star-crossed lovers. He went from being loving, and sensitive, to brutal and irrational. He was not consistent and crossed his own words. Lord Capulet had a dramatic character change throughout the story regarding Juliet’s marriage, and it was not a good one.

An Analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale Margaret Atwood Context Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario, on November 18, 1939. She published her first book of poetry in 1961 while attending the University of Toronto. She later received degrees from both Radcliffe College and Harvard University, and pursued a career in teaching at the university level. Her first novel, The Edible Woman, was published in 1969 to wide acclaim. Atwood continued teaching as her literary career blossomed. She has lectured widely and has served as a writer-in–residence at colleges ranging from the University of Toronto to Macquarie University in Australia.Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale in West Berlin and Alabama in the mid-1980s. The novel, published in 1986, quickly became a best-seller. The Handmaid’s Tale falls squarely within the twentieth-century tradition of anti-utopian, or â€Å"dystopian† novels, exemplified by classics like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orw ell’s 1984. Novels in this genre present imagined worlds and societies that are not ideals, but instead are terrifying or restrictive. Atwood’s novel offers a strongly feminist vision of dystopia.She wrote it shortly after the elections of Ronald Reagan in the United States and Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain, during a period of conservative revival in the West partly fueled by a strong, well-organized movement of religious conservatives who criticized what they perceived as the excesses of the â€Å"sexual revolution† of the 1960s and 1970s. The growing power of this â€Å"religious right† heightened feminist fears that the gains women had made in previous decades would be reversed. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood explores the consequences of a reversal of women’s rights.In the novel’s nightmare world of Gilead, a group of conservative religious extremists has taken power and turned the sexual revolution on its head. Feminists argu ed for liberation from traditional gender roles, but Gilead is a society founded on a â€Å"return to traditional values† and gender roles, and on the subjugation of women by men. What feminists considered the great triumphs of the 1970s—namely, widespread access to contraception, the legalization of abortion, and the increasing political influence of female voters—have all been undone. Women in Gilead are not only forbidden to vote, they are forbidden to read or write.Atwood’s novel also paints a picture of a world undone by pollution and infertility, reflecting 1980s fears about declining birthrates, the dangers of nuclear power, and -environmental degradation. Some of the novel’s concerns seem dated today, and its implicit condemnation of the political goals of America’s religious conservatives has been criticized as unfair and overly paranoid. Nonetheless, The Handmaid’s Tale remains one of the most powerful recent portrayals of a totalitarian society, and one of the few dystopian novels to examine in detail the intersection of politics and sexuality.The novel’s exploration of the controversial politics of reproduction seems likely to guarantee Atwood’s novel a readership well into the twenty-first century. Atwood lives in Toronto with novelist Graeme Gibson and their daughter, Jess. Her most recent novel, The Blind Assassin, won Great Britain’s Booker Prize for literature in 2000. Plot Overview Offred is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic state that has replaced the United States of America. Because of dangerously low reproduction rates, Handmaids are assigned to bear children for elite couples that have trouble conceiving.Offred serves the Commander and his wife, Serena Joy, a former gospel singer and advocate for â€Å"traditional values. † Offred is not the narrator’s real name—Handmaid names consist of the word â€Å"of† f ollowed by the name of the Handmaid’s Commander. Every month, when Offred is at the right point in her menstrual cycle, she must have impersonal, wordless sex with the Commander while Serena sits behind her, holding her hands. Offred’s freedom, like the freedom of all women, is completely restricted.She can leave the house only on shopping trips, the door to her room cannot be completely shut, and the Eyes, Gilead’s secret police force, watch her every public move. As Offred tells the story of her daily life, she frequently slips into flashbacks, from which the reader can reconstruct the events leading up to the beginning of the novel. In the old world, before Gilead, Offred had an affair with Luke, a married man. He divorced his wife and married Offred, and they had a child together. Offred’s mother was a single mother and feminist activist. Offred’s best friend, Moira, was fiercely independent.The architects of Gilead began their rise to power in an age of readily available pornography, prostitution, and violence against women—when pollution and chemical spills led to declining fertility rates. Using the military, they assassinated the president and members of Congress and launched a coup, claiming that they were taking power temporarily. They cracked down on women’s rights, forbidding women to hold property or jobs. Offred and Luke took their daughter and attempted to flee across the border into Canada, but they were caught and separated from one another, and Offred has seen neither her husband nor her daughter since.After her capture, Offred’s marriage was voided (because Luke had been divorced), and she was sent to the Rachel and Leah Re-education Center, called the Red Center by its inhabitants. At the center, women were indoctrinated into Gilead’s ideology in preparation for becoming Handmaids. Aunt Lydia supervised the women, giving speeches extolling Gilead’s beliefs that women shou ld be subservient to men and solely concerned with bearing children. Aunt Lydia also argued that such a social order ultimately offers women more respect and safety than the old, pre-Gilead society offered them.Moira is brought to the Red Center, but she escapes, and Offred does not know what becomes of her. Once assigned to the Commander’s house, Offred’s life settles into a restrictive routine. She takes shopping trips with Ofglen, another Handmaid, and they visit the Wall outside what used to be Harvard University, where the bodies of rebels hang. She must visit the doctor frequently to be checked for disease and other complications, and she must endure the â€Å"Ceremony,† in which the Commander reads to the household from the Bible, then goes to the bedroom, where his Wife and Offred wait for him, and has sex with Offred.The first break from her routine occurs when she visits the doctor and he offers to have sex with her to get her pregnant, suggesting that her Commander is probably infertile. She refuses. The doctor makes her uneasy, but his proposition is too risky—she could be sent away if caught. After a Ceremony, the Commander sends his gardener and chauffeur, Nick, to ask Offred to come see him in his study the following night. She begins visiting him regularly. They play Scrabble (which is forbidden, since women are not allowed to read), and he lets her look at old magazines like Vogue.At the end of these secret meetings, he asks her to kiss him. During one of their shopping trips, Ofglen reveals to Offred that she is a member of â€Å"Mayday,† an underground organization dedicated to overthrowing Gilead. Meanwhile, Offred begins to find that the Ceremony feels different and less impersonal now that she knows the Commander. Their nighttime conversations begin to touch on the new order that the Commander and his fellow leaders have created in Gilead. When Offred admits how unhappy she is, the Commander remarks, â⠂¬Å"[Y]ou can’t make an omelette without breaking eggs. †After some time has gone by without Offred becoming pregnant, Serena suggests that Offred have sex with Nick secretly and pass the child off as the Commander’s. Serena promises to bring Offred a picture of her daughter if she sleeps with Nick, and Offred realizes that Serena has always known the whereabouts of Offred’s daughter. The same night that Offred is to sleep with Nick, the Commander secretly takes her out to a club called Jezebel’s, where the Commanders mingle with prostitutes. Offred sees Moira working there. The two women meet in a bathroom, and Offred learns that Moira was captured just before she crossed the border.She chose life in Jezebel’s over being sent to the Colonies, where most political prisoners and dangerous people are sent. After that night at Jezebel’s, Offred says, she never sees Moira again. The Commander takes Offred upstairs after a few hours, and th ey have sex in what used to be a hotel room. She tries to feign passion. Soon after Offred returns from Jezebel’s, late at night, Serena arrives and tells Offred to go to Nick’s room. Offred and Nick have sex. Soon they begin to sleep together frequently, without anyone’s knowledge.Offred becomes caught up in the affair and ignores Ofglen’s requests that she gather information from the Commander for Mayday. One day, all the Handmaids take part in a group execution of a supposed rapist, supervised by Aunt Lydia. Ofglen strikes the first blow. Later, she tells Offred that the so-called rapist was a member of Mayday and that she hit him to put him out of his misery. Shortly thereafter, Offred goes out shopping, and a new Ofglen meets her. This new woman is not part of Mayday, and she tells Offred that the old Ofglen hanged herself when she saw the secret police coming for her.At home, Serena has found out about Offred’s trip to Jezebel’s, and s he sends her to her room, promising punishment. Offred waits there, and she sees a black van from the Eyes approach. Then Nick comes in and tells her that the Eyes are really Mayday members who have come to save her. Offred leaves with them, over the Commander’s futile objections, on her way either to prison or to freedom—she does not know which. The novel closes with an epilogue from 2195, after Gilead has fallen, written in the form of a lecture given by Professor Pieixoto. He explains the formation and customs of Gilead in objective, analytical language.He discusses the significance of Offred’s story, which has turned up on cassette tapes in Bangor, Maine. He suggests that Nick arranged Offred’s escape but that her fate after that is unknown. She could have escaped to Canada or England, or she could have been recaptured. Character List Offred – The narrator and protagonist of The Handmaid’s Tale. Offred belongs to the class of Handmaids, fertile women forced to bear children for elite, barren couples. Handmaids show which Commander owns them by adopting their Commanders’ names, such as Fred, and preceding them with â€Å"Of. Offred remembers her real name but never reveals it. She no longer has family or friends, though she has flashbacks to a time in which she had a daughter and a husband named Luke. The cruel physical and psychological burdens of her daily life in Gilead torment her and pervade her narrative. Read an in-depth analysis of Offred. The Commander – The Commander is the head of the household where Offred works as a Handmaid. He initiates an unorthodox relationship with Offred, secretly playing Scrabble with her in his study at night.He often seems a decent, well-meaning man, and Offred sometimes finds that she likes him in spite of herself. He almost seems a victim of Gilead, making the best of a society he opposes. However, we learn from various clues and from the epilogue that the Comm ander was actually involved in designing and establishing Gilead. Read an in-depth analysis of The Commander. Serena Joy – The Commander’s Wife, Serena worked in pre-Gilead days as a gospel singer, then as an anti-feminist activist and crusader for â€Å"traditional values. In Gilead, she sits at the top of the female social ladder, yet she is desperately unhappy. Serena’s unhappiness shows that her restrictive, male-dominated society cannot bring happiness even to its most pampered and powerful women. Serena jealously guards her claims to status and behaves cruelly toward the Handmaids in her household. Read an in-depth analysis of Serena Joy. Moira – Offred’s best friend from college, Moira is a lesbian and a staunch feminist; she embodies female resourcefulness and independence. Her defiant nature contrasts starkly with the behavior of the other women in the novel.Rather than passively accept her fate as a Handmaid, she makes several escape att empts and finally manages to get away from the Red Center. However, she is caught before she can get out of Gilead. Later, Offred encounters Moira working as a prostitute in a club for the Commanders. At the club, Moira seems resigned to her fate, which suggests that a totalitarian society can grind down and crush even the most resourceful and independent people. Read an in-depth analysis of Moira. Aunt Lydia – The Aunts are the class of women assigned to indoctrinate the Handmaids with the beliefs of the new society and make them accept their fates.Aunt Lydia works at the â€Å"Red Center,† the re? education center where Offred and other women go for instruction before becoming Handmaids. Although she appears only in Offred’s flashbacks, Aunt Lydia and her instructions haunt Offred in her daily life. Aunt Lydia’s slogans and maxims drum the ideology of the new society into heads of the women, until even those like Offred, women who do not truly believe i n the ideology, hear Gilead’s words echoing in their heads. Nick – Nick is a Guardian, a low-level officer of Gilead assigned to the Commander’s home, where he works as a gardener and chauffeur.He and Offred have a sexual chemistry that they get to satisfy when Serena Joy orchestrates an encounter between them in an effort to get Offred pregnant. After sleeping together once, they begin a covert sexual affair. Nick is not just a Guardian; he may work either as a member of the Eyes, Gilead’s secret police, or as a member of the underground Mayday resistance, or both. At the end of the novel, Nick orchestrates Offred’s escape from the Commander’s home, but we do not know whether he puts her into the hands of the Eyes or the resistance.Ofglen – Another Handmaid who is Offred’s shopping partner and a member of the subversive â€Å"Mayday† underground. At the end of the novel, Ofglen is found out, and she hangs herself rather than face torture and reveal the names of her co-conspirators. Cora – Cora works as a servant in the Commander’s household. She belongs to the class of Marthas, infertile women who do not qualify for the high status of Wives and so work in domestic roles. Cora seems more content with her role than her fellow Martha, Rita.She hopes that Offred will be able to conceive, because then she will have a hand in raising a child. Janine – Offred knows Janine from their time at the Red Center. After Janine becomes a Handmaid, she takes the name Ofwarren. She has a baby, which makes her the envy of all the other Handmaids in the area, but the baby later turns out to be deformed—an â€Å"Unbaby†Ã¢â‚¬â€and there are rumors that her doctor fathered the child. Janine is a conformist, always ready to go along with what Gilead demands of her, and so she endears herself to the Aunts and to all authority figures.Offred holds Janine in contempt for taking the easy w ay out. Luke – In the days before Gilead, Luke had an affair with Offred while he was married to another woman, then got a divorce and became Offred’s husband. When Gilead comes to power, he attempts to escape to Canada with Offred and their daughter, but they are captured. He is separated from Offred, and the couple never see one another again. The kind of love they shared is prohibited in Gilead, and Offred’s memories of Luke contrast with the regimented, passionless state of male-female relations in the new society.Offred’s mother – Offred remembers her mother in flashbacks to her pre-Gilead world—she was a single parent and a feminist activist. One day during her education at the Red Center, Offred sees a video of her mother as a young woman, yelling and carrying a banner in an anti-rape march called Take Back the Night. She embodies everything the architects of Gilead want to stamp out. Aunt Elizabeth – Aunt Elizabeth is one of t he Aunts at the Red Center. Moira attacks her and steals her Aunt’s uniform during her escape from the Red Center. Rita – A Martha, or domestic servant, in the Commander’s household.She seems less content with her lot than Cora, the other Martha working there. Professor Pieixoto – The guest speaker at the symposium that takes place in the epilogue to The Handmaid’s Tale. He and another academic, working at a university in the year 2195, transcribed Offred’s recorded narrative; his lecture details the historical significance of the story that we have just read. Analysis of Major Characters Offred Offred is the narrator and the protagonist of the novel, and we are told the entire story from her point of view, experiencing events and memories as vividly as she does.She tells the story as it happens, and shows us the travels of her mind through asides, flashbacks, and digressions. Offred is intelligent, perceptive, and kind. She possesses enough faults to make her human, but not so many that she becomes an unsympathetic figure. She also possesses a dark sense of humor—a graveyard wit that makes her descriptions of the bleak horrors of Gilead bearable, even enjoyable. Like most of the women in Gilead, she is an ordinary woman placed in an extraordinary situation. Offred is not a hero. Although she resists Gilead inwardly, once her attempt at escape fails, she submits outwardly.She is hardly a feminist champion; she had always felt uncomfortable with her mother’s activism, and her pre-Gilead relationship with Luke began when she became his mistress, meeting him in cheap hotels for sex. Although friends with Ofglen, a member of the resistance, she is never bold enough to join up herself. Indeed, after she begins her affair with Nick, she seems to lose sight of escape entirely and suddenly feels that life in Gilead is almost bearable. If she does finally escape, it is because of Nick, not because of anything she does -herself.Offred is a mostly passive character, good-hearted but complacent. Like her peers, she took for granted the freedoms feminism won and now pays the price. The Commander The Commander poses an ethical problem for Offred, and consequently for us. First, he is Offred’s Commander and the immediate agent of her oppression. As a founder of Gilead, he also bears responsibility for the entire totalitarian society. In person, he is far more sympathetic and friendly toward Offred than most other people, and Offred’s evenings with the Commander in his study offer her a small respite from the wasteland of her life.At times, his unhappiness and need for companionship make him seem as much a prisoner of Gilead’s strictures as anyone else. Offred finds herself feeling sympathy for this man. Ultimately, Offred and the reader recognize that if the Commander is a prisoner, the prison is one that he himself helped construct and that his prison is heaven compared to th e prison he created for women. As the novel progresses, we come to realize that his visits with Offred are selfish rather than charitable.They satisfy his need for companionship, but he doesn’t seem to care that they put Offred at terrible risk, a fact of which he must be aware, given that the previous Handmaid hanged herself when her visits to the Commander were discovered. The Commander’s moral blindness, apparent in his attempts to explain the virtues of Gilead, are highlighted by his and Offred’s visit to Jezebel’s. The club, a place where the elite men of the society can engage in recreational extramarital sex, reveals the rank hypocrisy that runs through Gileadean society.Offred’s relationship with the Commander is best represented by a situation she remembers from a documentary on the Holocaust. In the film, the mistress of a brutal death camp guard defended the man she loved, claiming that he was not a monster. â€Å"How easy it is to inve nt a humanity,† Offred thinks. In other words, anyone can seem human, and even likable, given the right set of circumstances. But even if the Commander is likable and can be kind or considerate, his responsibility for the creation of Gilead and his callousness to the hell he created for women means that he, like the Nazi guard, is a monster. Serena JoyThough Serena had been an advocate for traditional values and the establishment of the Gileadean state, her bitterness at the outcome—being confined to the home and having to see her husband copulating with a Handmaid—suggests that spokeswomen for anti-feminist causes might not enjoy getting their way as much as they believe they would. Serena’s obvious unhappiness means that she teeters on the edge of inspiring our sympathy, but she forfeits that sympathy by taking out her frustration on Offred. She seems to possess no compassion for Offred. She can see the difficulty of her own life, but not that of another woman.The climactic moment in Serena’s interaction with Offred comes when she arranges for Offred to sleep with Nick. It seems that Serena makes these plans out of a desire to help Offred get pregnant, but Serena gets an equal reward from Offred’s pregnancy: she gets to raise the baby. Furthermore, Serena’s offer to show Offred a picture of her lost daughter if she sleeps with Nick reveals that Serena has always known of Offred’s daughter’s whereabouts. Not only has she cruelly concealed this knowledge, she is willing to exploit Offred’s loss of a child in order to get an infant of her own.Serena’s lack of sympathy makes her the perfect tool for Gilead’s social order, which relies on the willingness of women to oppress other women. She is a cruel, selfish woman, and Atwood implies that such women are the glue that binds Gilead. Moira Throughout the novel, Moira’s relationship with Offred epitomizes female friendship. Gi lead claims to promote solidarity between women, but in fact it only produces suspicion, hostility, and petty tyranny. The kind of relationship that Moira and Offred maintain from college onward does not exist in Gilead. In Offred’s flashbacks, Moira also embodies female resistance to Gilead.She is a lesbian, which means that she rejects male-female sexual interactions, the only kind that Gilead values. More than that, she is the only character who stands up to authority directly by make two escape attempts, one successful, from the Red Center. The manner in which she escapes—taking off her clothes and putting on the uniform of an Aunt—symbolizes her rejection of Gilead’s attempt to define her identity. From then on, until Offred meets up with her again, Moira represents an alternative to the meek subservience and acceptance of one’s fate that most of the Handmaids adopt.When Offred runs into Moira, Moira has been recaptured and is working as a pro stitute at Jezebel’s, servicing the Commanders. Her fighting spirit seems broken, and she has become resigned to her fate. After embodying resistance for most of the novel, Moira comes to exemplify the way a totalitarian state can crush even the most independent spirit. Themes, Motifs & Symbols Themes Themes are the fundamental and often universal ideas explored in a literary work. Women’s Bodies as Political Instruments Because Gilead was formed in response to the crisis caused by dramatically ecreased birthrates, the state’s entire structure, with its religious trappings and rigid political hierarchy, is built around a single goal: control of reproduction. The state tackles the problem head-on by assuming complete control of women’s bodies through their political subjugation. Women cannot vote, hold property or jobs, read, or do anything else that might allow them to become subversive or independent and thereby undermine their husbands or the state. Des pite all of Gilead’s pro-women rhetoric, such subjugation creates a society in which women are treated as subhuman.They are reduced to their fertility, treated as nothing more than a set of ovaries and a womb. In one of the novel’s key scenes, Offred lies in the bath and reflects that, before Gilead, she considered her body an instrument of her desires; now, she is just a mound of flesh surrounding a womb that must be filled in order to make her useful. Gilead seeks to deprive women of their individuality in order to make them docile carriers of the next generation. Language as a Tool of Power Gilead creates an official vocabulary that ignores and warps reality in order to serve the needs of the new society’s elite.Having made it illegal for women to hold jobs, Gilead creates a system of titles. Whereas men are defined by their military rank, women are defined solely by their gender roles as Wives, Handmaids, or Marthas. Stripping them of permanent individual na mes strips them of their individuality, or tries to. Feminists and deformed babies are treated as subhuman, denoted by the terms â€Å"Unwomen† and â€Å"Unbabies. † Blacks and Jews are defined by biblical terms (â€Å"Children of Ham† and â€Å"Sons of Jacob,† respectively) that set them apart from the rest of society, making their persecution easier.There are prescribed greetings for personal encounters, and to fail to offer the correct greetings is to fall under suspicion of disloyalty. Specially created terms define the rituals of Gilead, such as â€Å"Prayvaganzas,† â€Å"Salvagings,† and â€Å"Particicutions. † Dystopian novels about the dangers of totalitarian society frequently explore the connection between a state’s repression of its subjects and its perversion of language (â€Å"Newspeak† in George Orwell’s 1984 is the most famous example), and The Handmaid’s Tale carries on this tradition. Gilea d maintains its control over women’s bodies by maintaining control over names.The Causes of Complacency In a totalitarian state, Atwood suggests, people will endure oppression willingly as long as they receive some slight amount of power or freedom. Offred remembers her mother saying that it is â€Å"truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations. † Offred’s complacency after she begins her relationship with Nick shows the truth of this insight. Her situation restricts her horribly compared to the freedom her former life allowed, but her relationship with Nick allows her to reclaim the tiniest fragment of her former existence.The physical affection and companionship become compensation that make the restrictions almost bearable. Offred seems suddenly so content that she does not say yes when Ofglen asks her to gather information about the Commander. Women in general support Gilead’s existence by willingly participatin g in it, serving as agents of the totalitarian state. While a woman like Serena Joy has no power in the world of men, she exercises authority within her own household and seems to delight in her tyranny over Offred. She jealously guards what little power she has and wields it eagerly.In a similar way, the women known as Aunts, especially Aunt Lydia, act as willing agents of the Gileadean state. They indoctrinate other women into the ruling ideology, keep a close eye out for rebellion, and generally serve the same function for Gilead that the Jewish police did under Nazi rule. Atwood’s message is bleak. At the same time as she condemns Offred, Serena Joy, the Aunts, and even Moira for their complacency, she suggests that even if those women mustered strength and stopped complying, they would likely fail to make a difference.In Gilead the tiny rebellions of resistances do not necessarily matter. In the end, Offred escapes because of luck rather than resistance. Motifs Motifs ar e recurring structures, contrasts, or literary devices that can help to develop and inform the text’s major themes. Rape and Sexual Violence Sexual violence, particularly against women, pervades The Handmaid’s Tale. The prevalence of rape and pornography in the pre-Gilead world justified to the founders their establishment of the new order.The Commander and the Aunts claim that women are better protected in Gilead, that they are treated with respect and kept safe from violence. Certainly, the official penalty for rape is terrible: in one scene, the Handmaids tear apart with their bare hands a supposed rapist (actually a member of the resistance). Yet, while Gilead claims to suppress sexual violence, it actually institutionalizes it, as we see at Jezebel’s, the club that provides the Commanders with a ready stable of prostitutes to service the male elite.Most important, sexual violence is apparent in the central institution of the novel, the Ceremony, which compe ls Handmaids to have sex with their Commanders. Religious Terms Used for Political Purposes Gilead is a theocracy—a government in which there is no separation between state and religion—and its official vocabulary incorporates religious terminology and biblical references. Domestic servants are called â€Å"Marthas† in reference to a domestic character in the New Testament; the local police are â€Å"Guardians of the Faith†; soldiers are â€Å"Angels†; and the Commanders are officially â€Å"Commanders of the Faithful. All the stores have biblical names: Loaves and Fishes, All Flesh, Milk and Honey. Even the automobiles have biblical names like Behemoth, Whirlwind, and Chariot. Using religious terminology to describe people, ranks, and businesses whitewashes political skullduggery in pious language. It provides an ever-present reminder that the founders of Gilead insist they act on the authority of the Bible itself. Politics and religion sleep in the same bed in Gilead, where the slogan â€Å"God is a National Resource† predominates. Similarities between Reactionary and Feminist IdeologiesAlthough The Handmaid’s Tale offers a specifically feminist critique of the reactionary attitudes toward women that hold sway in Gilead, Atwood occasionally draws similarities between the architects of Gilead and radical feminists such as Offred’s mother. Both groups claim to protect women from sexual violence, and both show themselves willing to restrict free speech in order to accomplish this goal. Offred recalls a scene in which her mother and other feminists burn porn magazines. Like the founders of Gilead, these feminists ban some expressions of sexuality.Gilead also uses the feminist rhetoric of female solidarity and â€Å"sisterhood† to its own advantage. These points of similarity imply the existence of a dark side of feminist rhetoric. Despite Atwood’s gentle criticism of the feminist left, her re al target is the religious right. Symbols Symbols are objects, characters, figures, or colors used to represent abstract ideas or concepts. Cambridge, Massachusetts The center of Gilead’s power, where Offred lives, is never explicitly identified, but a number of clues mark it as the town of Cambridge.Cambridge, its neighboring city of Boston, and Massachusetts as a whole were centers for America’s first religious and intolerant society—the Puritan New England of the seventeenth century. Atwood reminds us of this history with the ancient Puritan church that Offred and Ofglen visit early in the novel, which Gilead has turned into a museum. The choice of Cambridge as a setting symbolizes the direct link between the Puritans and their spiritual heirs in Gilead. Both groups dealt harshly with religious, sexual, or political deviation. Harvard UniversityGilead has transformed Harvard’s buildings into a detention center run by the Eyes, Gilead’s secret po lice. Bodies of executed dissidents hang from the Wall that runs around the college, and Salvagings (mass executions) take place in Harvard Yard, on the steps of the library. Harvard becomes a symbol of the inverted world that Gilead has created: a place that was founded to pursue knowledge and truth becomes a seat of oppression, torture, and the denial of every principle for which a university is supposed to stand. The Handmaids’ Red HabitsThe red color of the costumes worn by the Handmaids symbolizes fertility, which is the caste’s primary function. Red suggests the blood of the menstrual cycle and of childbirth. At the same time, however, red is also a traditional marker of sexual sin, hearkening back to the scarlet letter worn by the adulterous Hester Prynne in Nathaniel Hawthorne’s tale of Puritan ideology. While the Handmaids’ reproductive role supposedly finds its justification in the Bible, in some sense they commit adultery by having sex with the ir Commanders, who are married men. The wives, who often call the Handmaids sluts, feel the pain of this sanctioned adultery.The Handmaids’ red garments, then, also symbolize the ambiguous sinfulness of the Handmaids’ position in Gilead. A Palimpsest A palimpsest is a document on which old writing has been scratched out, often leaving traces, and new writing put in its place; it can also be a document consisting of many layers of writing simply piled one on top of another. Offred describes the Red Center as a palimpsest, but the word actually symbolizes all of Gilead. The old world has been erased and replaced, but only partially, by a new order. Remnants of the pre-Gilead days continue to infuse the new world.The Eyes The Eyes of God are Gilead’s secret police. Both their name and their insignia, a winged eye, symbolize the eternal watchfulness of God and the totalitarian state. In Gilead’s theocracy, the eye of God and of the state are assumed to be one and the same. Chapters 1–3 Summary: Chapter 1 The narrator, whose name we learn later is Offred, describes how she and other women slept on army cots in a gymnasium. Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrol with electric cattle prods hanging from their leather belts, and the women, forbidden to speak aloud, whisper without attracting attention.Twice daily, the women walk in the former football field, which is surrounded by a chain-link fence topped with barbed wire. Armed guards called Angels patrol outside. While the women take their walks, the Angels stand outside the fence with their backs to the women. The women long for the Angels to turn and see them. They imagine that if the men looked at them or talked to them, they could use their bodies to make a deal. The narrator describes lying in bed at night, quietly exchanging names with the other women. Summary: Chapter 2The scene changes, and the story shifts from the past to the present tense. Offred now lives in a room fitted out with curtains, a pillow, a framed picture, and a braided rug. There is no glass in the room, not even over the framed picture. The window does not open completely, and the windowpane is shatterproof. There is nothing in the room from which one could hang a rope, and the door does not lock or even shut completely. Looking around, Offred remembers how Aunt Lydia told her to consider her circumstances a privilege, not a prison.Handmaids, to which group the narrator belongs, dress entirely in red, except for the white wings framing their faces. Household servants, called â€Å"Marthas,† wear green uniforms. â€Å"Wives† wear blue uniforms. Offred often secretly listens to Rita and Cora, the Marthas who work in the house where she lives. Once, she hears Rita state that she would never debase herself as someone in Offred’s position must. Cora replies that Offred works for all the women, and that if she (Cora) were younger and had not gotten her tubes tied, she cou ld have been in Offred’s situation. Offred wishes she could alk to them, but Marthas are not supposed to develop relationships with Handmaids. She wishes that she could share gossip like they do—gossip about how one Handmaid gave birth to a stillborn, how a Wife stabbed a Handmaid with a knitting needle out of jealousy, how someone poisoned her Commander with toilet cleaner. Offred dresses for a shopping trip. She collects from Rita the tokens that serve as currency. Each token bears an image of what it will purchase: twelve eggs, cheese, and a steak. Summary: Chapter 3 On her way out, Offred looks around for the Commander’s Wife but does not see her.The Commander’s Wife has a garden, and she knits constantly. All the Wives knit scarves â€Å"for the Angels at the front lines,† but the Commander’s Wife is a particularly skilled knitter. Offred wonders if the scarves actually get used, or if they just give the Wives something to do. She remem bers arriving at the Commander’s house for the first time, after the two couples to which she was previously assigned â€Å"didn’t work out. † One of the Wives in an earlier posting secluded herself in the bedroom, purportedly drinking, and Offred hoped the new Commander’s Wife would be different.On the first day, her new mistress told her to stay out of her sight as much as possible, and to avoid making trouble. As she talked, the Wife smoked a cigarette, a black-market item. Handmaids, Offred notes, are forbidden coffee, cigarettes, and alcohol. Then the Wife reminded Offred that the Commander is her husband, permanently and forever. â€Å"It’s one of the things we fought for,† she said, looking away. Suddenly, Offred recognized her mistress as Serena Joy, the lead soprano from Growing Souls Gospel Hour, a Sunday-morning religious program that aired when Offred was a child. Analysis: Chapters 1–5The Handmaid’s Tale plunges im mediately into an unfamiliar, unexplained world, using unfamiliar terms like â€Å"Handmaid,† â€Å"Angel,† and â€Å"Commander† that only come to make sense as the story progresses. Offred gradually delivers information about her past and the world in which she lives, often narrating through flashbacks. She narrates these flashbacks in the past tense, which distinguishes them from the main body of the story, which she tells in the present tense. The first scene, in the gymnasium, is a flashback, as are Offred’s memories of the Marthas’ gossip and her first meeting with the Commander’s Wife.Although at this point we do not know what the gymnasium signifies, or why the narrator and other women lived there, we do gather some information from the brief first chapter. The women in the gymnasium live under the constant surveillance of the Angels and the Aunts, and they cannot interact with one another. They seem to inhabit a kind of prison. Offre d likens the gym to a palimpsest, a parchment either erased and written on again or layered with multiple writings. In the gym palimpsest, Offred sees multiple layers of history: high school girls going to basketball games and dances wearing miniskirts, then pants, then green hair.Likening the gym to a palimpsest also suggests that the society Offred now inhabits has been superimposed on a previous society, and traces of the old linger beneath the new. In Chapter 2, Offred sits in a room that seems at first like a pleasant change from harsh atmosphere of the gymnasium. However, her description of her room demonstrates that the same rigid, controlling structures that ruled the gym continue to constrict her in this house. The room is like a prison in which all means of defense, or escape by suicide or flight, have been removed.She wonders if women everywhere get issued exactly the same sheets and curtains, which underlines the idea that the room is like a government-ordered prison. We do not know yet what purpose Offred serves in the house, although it seems to be sexual—Cora comments that she could have done Offred’s work if she hadn’t gotten her tubes tied, which implies that Offred’s function is reproductive. Serena Joy’s coldness to Offred makes it plain that she considers Offred a threat, or at least an annoyance. We do know from Offred’s name that she, like all Handmaids, is considered state property.Handmaids’ names simply reflect which Commander owns them. â€Å"Of Fred,† â€Å"Of Warren,† and â€Å"Of Glen† get collapsed into â€Å"Offred,† â€Å"Ofwarren,† and â€Å"Ofglen. † The names make more sense when preceded by the word â€Å"Property†: â€Å"Property Offred,† for example. Thus, every time the women hear their names, they are reminded that they are no more than property. These early chapters establish the novel’s style, which is charac terized by considerable physical description. The narrator devotes attention to the features of the gym, the Commander’s house, and Serena Joy’s pinched face.Offred tells the story in nonlinear fashion, following the temporal leaps of her own mind. The narrative goes where her thoughts take it—one moment to the present, in the Commander’s house, and the next back in the gymnasium, or in the old world, the United States as it exists in Offred’s memory. We do not have the sense, as in some first-person narratives, that Offred is composing this story from a distanced vantage point, reflecting back on her past. Rather, all of her thoughts have a quality of immediacy. We are there with Offred as she goes about her daily life, and as she slips out of the present and thinks about her past.Chapters 4–6 Summary: Chapter 4 As she leaves the house to go shopping, Offred notices Nick, a Guardian of the Faith, washing the Commander’s car. Nick liv es above the garage. He winks at Offred—an offense against -decorum— but she ignores him, fearing that he may be an Eye, a spy assigned to test her. She waits at the corner for Ofglen, another Handmaid with whom Offred will do her shopping. The Handmaids always travel in pairs when outside. Ofglen arrives, and they exchange greetings, careful not to say anything that isn’t strictly orthodox.Ofglen says that she has heard the war is going well, and that the army recently defeated a group of Baptist rebels. â€Å"Praise be,† Offred responds. They reach a checkpoint manned by two young Guardians. The Guardians serve as a routine police force and do menial labor. They are men too young, too old, or just generally unfit for the army. Young Guardians, such as these, can be dangerous because they are frequently more fanatical or nervous than older guards. These young Guardians recently shot a Martha as she fumbled for her pass, because they thought she was a man in disguise carrying a bomb.Offred heard Rita and Cora talking about the shooting. Rita was angry, but Cora seemed to accept the shooting as the price one pays for safety. At the checkpoint, Offred subtly flirts with one of the Guardians by making eye contact, cherishing this small infraction against the rules. She considers how sex-starved the young men must be, since they cannot marry without permission, masturbation is a sin, and pornographic magazines and films are now forbidden. The Guardians can only hope to become Angels, when they will be allowed to take a wife and perhaps eventually get a Handmaid.This marks the first time in the novel we hear the word â€Å"Handmaid† used. Summary: Chapter 5 In town, Ofglen and Offred wait in line at the shops. We learn the name of this new society: â€Å"The Republic of Gilead. † Offred remembers the pre-Gilead days, when women were not protected: they had to keep their doors closed to strangers and ignore catcalls on the s treet. Now no one whistles at women as they walk; no one touches them or talks to them. She remembers Aunt Lydia explaining that more than one kind of freedom exists, and that â€Å"[i]n the days of anarchy, it was freedom to.Now you are being given freedom from. † The women shop at stores known by names like All Flesh and Milk and Honey. Pictures of meat or fruit mark the stores, rather than lettered signs, because â€Å"they decided that even the names of shops were too much temptation for us. † A Handmaid in the late stages of pregnancy enters the store and raises a flurry of excitement. Offred recognizes her from the Red Center. She used to be known as Janine, and she was one of Aunt Lydia’s favorites. Now her name is Ofwarren. Offred senses that Janine went shopping just so she could show off her pregnancy.Offred thinks of her husband, Luke, and their daughter, and the life they led before Gilead existed. She remembers a prosaic detail from their everyday l ife together: she used to store plastic shopping bags under the sink, which annoyed Luke, who worried that their daughter would get one of the bags caught over her head. She remembers feeling guilty for her carelessness. Offred and Ofglen finish their shopping and go out to the sidewalk, where they encounter a group of Japanese tourists and their interpreter. The tourists want to take a photograph, but Offred says no.Many of the interpreters are Eyes, and Handmaids must not appear immodest. Offred and Ofglen marvel at the women’s exposed legs, high heels, and polished toenails. The tourists ask if they are happy, and since Ofglen does not answer, Offred replies that they are very happy. Summary: Chapter 6 This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary. (See Important Quotations Explained) As they return from shopping, Ofglen suggests they take the long way and pass by the church. It is an old building, decorated inside with paintings of what seem to be Puritans from the colonial era.Now the former church is kept as a museum. Offred describes a nearby boathouse, old dormitories, a football stadium, and redbrick sidewalks. Atwood implies that Offred is walking across what used to be the campus of Harvard University. Across the street from the church sits the Wall, where the authorities hang the bodies of executed criminals as examples to the rest of the Republic of Gilead. The authorities cover the men’s heads with bags. One of the bags looks painted with a red smile where the blood has seeped through.All of the six corpses wear signs around their necks picturing fetuses, signaling that they were executed for performing abortions before Gilead came into existence. Although their actions were legal at the time, their crimes are being punished retroactively. Offred feels relieved that none of the bodies could be Luke’s, since he was not a doctor. As she stares at the bodies, Offred thinks of Aunt Lydia telling them that soon their new life would seem ordinary. Analysis: Chapters 4–6 The theocratic nature of Offred’s society, the name of which we learn for the first time in these chapters, becomes clear during her shopping trip.A theocracy exists when there is no separation between church and state, and a single religion dominates all aspects of life. In Gilead, state and religion are inseparable. The official language of Gilead uses many biblical terms, from the various ranks that men hold (Angels, Guardians of the Faith, Commanders of the Faith, the Eyes of God), to the stores where Offred and Ofglen shop (Milk and Honey, All Flesh, Loaves and Fishes), to the names of automobiles (Behemoth, Whirlwind, Chariot). The very name â€Å"Gilead† refers to a location in ancient Israel. The name also recalls a line from the Book of Psalms: â€Å"there is a balm in Gilead. This phrase, we realize later, has been transformed into a kind of national motto. Atwood does not describe the exact details of Gilead’s state religion. In Chapter 2, Offred describes her room as â€Å"a return to traditional values. † The religious right in America uses the phrase â€Å"traditional values,† so Atwood seems to link the values of this dystopic society to the values of the Protestant Christian religious right in America. Gilead seems more Protestant than anything else, but its brand of Christianity pays far more attention to the Old Testament than the New Testament.The religious justification for having Handmaids, for instance, is taken from the Book of Genesis. We learn that neither Catholics nor Jews are welcome in Gilead. The former must convert, while the latter must emigrate to Israel or renounce their Judaism. Atwood seems less interested in religion than in the intersection between religion, politics, and sex. The Handmaid’s Tale explores the political oppression of women, carried out in the name of God but in large part moti vated by a desire to control women’s bodies.Gilead sees women’s sexuality as dangerous: women must cover themselves from head to toe, for example, and not reveal their sexual attractions. When Offred attracts the Guardians, she feels this ability to inspire sexual attraction is the only power she retains. Every other privilege is stripped away, down to the very act of reading, which is forbidden. Women are not even allowed to read store signs. By controlling women’s minds, by not allowing them to read, the authorities more easily control women’s bodies. The patriarchs of Gilead want to control women’s bodies, their sex lives, and their reproductive rights.The bodies of slain abortionists on the Wall hammer home the point: feminists believe that women must have abortion rights in order to control their own bodies, and in Gilead, giving women control of their bodies is a horrifying crime. When Offred and Ofglen go to town to shop, geographical clues and street names suggest that they live in what was once Cambridge, Massachusetts, and that their walk takes them near what used to be the campus of Harvard University. The choice of Cambridge for the setting of The Handmaid’s Tale is significant, since Massachusetts was a Puritan stronghold during the colonial period of the United States.The Puritans were a persecuted minority in England, but when they fled to New England, they re-created the repression they suffered at home, this time casting themselves as the repressors rather than the repressed. They established an intolerant religious society in some ways similar to Gilead. Atwood locates her fictional intolerant society in a place founded by intolerant people. By turning the old church into a museum, and leaving untouched portraits of Puritan forebears, the founders of Gilead suggest their admiration for the old Puritan society. Chapters 7–9 Summary: Chapter 7I would like to believe this is a story I’m tel ling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. (See Important Quotations Explained) At night, Offred likes to remember her former life. She recalls talking to her college friend, Moira, in her dorm room. She remembers being a child and going to a park with her mother, where they saw a group of women and a few men burning pornographic magazines. Offred has forgotten a large chunk of time, which she thinks might be the fault of an injection or pill the authorities gave her.She remembers waking up somewhere and screaming, demanding to know what they had done with her daughter. The authorities told Offred she was unfit, and her daughter was with those fit to care for her. They showed her a photograph of her child wearing a white dress, holding the hand of a strange woman. As she recounts these events, Offred imagines she is telling her story to someone, telling things that she cannot write down, because writi ng is forbidden. Summary: Chapter 8 Returning from another shopping trip, Ofglen and Offred notice three new bodies on the Wall.One is a Catholic priest and two are Guardians who bear placards around their necks that read â€Å"Gender Treachery. † This means they were hanged for committing homosexual acts. After looking at the bodies for a while, Offred tells Ofglen that they should continue walking home. They meet a funeral procession of Econowives, the wives of poorer men. One Econowife carries a small black jar. From the size of the jar, Offred can tell that it contains a dead embryo from an early miscarriage—one that came too early to know whether it was an â€Å"Unbaby. † The Econowives do not like the Handmaids.One woman scowls, and another spits at the Handmaids as they pass. At the corner near the Commander’s home, Ofglen says â€Å"Under His Eye,† the orthodox good-bye, hesitating as if she wants to say more but then continuing on her way. When Offred reaches the Commander’s driveway she passes Nick, who breaks the rules by asking her about her walk. She says nothing and goes into the house. She sees Serena Joy out in the garden and recalls how after Serena’s singing career ended, she became a spokesperson for respecting the â€Å"sanctity of the home† and for women staying at home instead of working.Serena herself never stayed at home, because she was always out giving speeches. Once, Offred remembers, someone tried to assassinate Serena but killed her secretary instead. Offred wonders if Serena is angry that she can no longer be a public figure, now that what she advocated has come to pass and all women, including her, are confined to the home. In the kitchen, Rita fusses over the quality of the purchases as she always does. Offred retreats upstairs and notices the Commander standing outside her room. He is not supposed to be there. He nods at her and retreats. Summary: Chapter 9Offred remember s renting hotel rooms and waiting for Luke to meet her, before they were married, when he was cheating on his first wife. She regrets that she did not fully appreciate the freedom to have her own space when she wanted it. Thinking of the problems she and Luke thought they had, she realizes they were truly happy, although they did not know it. She remembers examining her room in the Commander’s house little by little after she first arrived. She saw stains on the mattress, left over from long-ago sex, and she discovered a Latin phrase freshly scratched into the floor of the closet: Nolite te bastardes carborundorum.Offred does not understand Latin. It pleases her to imagine that this message allows her to commune with the woman who wrote it. She pictures this woman as freckly and irreverent, someone like Moira. Later, she asks Rita who stayed in her room before her. Rita tells her to specify which one, implying that there were a number of Handmaids before her. Offred says, gue ssing, â€Å"[t]he lively one . . . with freckles. † Rita asks how Offred knew about her, but she refuses to tell Offred anything about the previous Handmaid beyond a vague statement that she did not work out. Analysis: Chapter 7–9Atwood suggests that those who seek to restrict sexual expression, whether they are feminists or religious conservatives, ultimately share the same goal—the control of sexuality, particularly women’s sexuality. In the flashback to the scene from Offred’s childhood in which women burn pornographic magazines, Atwood shows the similarity between the extremism of the left and the extremism of the right. The people burning magazines are feminists, not religious conservatives like the leaders of Gilead, yet their goal is the same: to crack down on certain kinds of sexual freedom.In other words, the desire for control over sexuality is not unique to the religious totalitarians of Gilead; it also existed in the feminist anti-porn ography crusades that preceded the fall of the United States. Gilead actually appropriates some of the rhetoric of women’s liberation in its attempt to control women. Gilead also uses the Aunts and the Aunts’ rhetoric, forcing women to control other women. Again and again in the novel, the voice of Aunt Lydia rings in Offred’s head, insisting that women are better off in Gilead, free from exploitation and violence, than they were in the dangerous freedom of pre-Gilead times.In Chapter 7, Offred relates some of the details of how she lost her child. This loss is the central wound on Offred’s psyche throughout the novel, and the novel’s great source of emotional power. The loss of her child is so painful to Offred that she can only relate the story in fits and starts; so far the details of what happened have been murky. When telling stories from her past, like the story of her daughter’s disappearance, Offred often seems to draw on a partial o r foggy memory. It almost seems as if she is remembering details from hundreds of years ago, when we know these things happened a few years before the narrative.Partly this distance is the product of emotional trauma—thinking of the past is painful for Offred. But in Chapter 7, Offred offers her own explanation for these gaps: she thinks it possible that the authorities gave her a pill or injection that harmed her memory. Immediately after remembering her daughter, Offred addresses someone she calls â€Å"you. † She could be talking to God, Luke, or an imaginary future reader. â€Å"I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling,† Offred says. â€Å"Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance . . A story is a letter. Dear You, I’ll say. † In the act of telling her imagined audience about her life, Offred reduces her life’s horror and makes its oppressive weight endurable. Also, if she can think o f her life as a story and herself as the writer, she can think of her life as controllable, fictional, something not terrifying because not real. We learn in Chapter 8 that Serena used to campaign against women’s rights. This makes her a figure worthy of pity, in a way; she supported the anti-woman principles on which Gilead was founded, but once they were mplemented, she found that they affected her as well as other women. She now lives deprived of freedom and saddled with a Handmaid who has sex with her husband. Yet Serena forfeits what pity we might feel for her by her callous, petty behavior toward Offred. Powerless in the world of men, Serena can only take out her frustration on the women under her thumb by making their lives miserable. In many ways, she treats Offred far worse than the Commander does, which suggests that Gilead’s oppressive power structure succeeds not just because men created it, but because women like Serena sustain it.Nolite te bastardes carbo rundorum—the Latin phrase scrawled in Offred’s closet by a previous Handmaid—takes on a magical importance for Offred even before she knows what it means. It symbolizes her inner resistance to Gilead’s tyranny and makes her feel like she can communicate with other strong women, like the woman who wrote the message. In Chapter 29 we learn what the phrase means, and its role in sustaining Offred’s resistance comes to seem perfectly appropriate. Chapters 10–12 Summary: Chapter 10 Offred often sings songs in her head—â€Å"Amazing Grace† or songs by Elvis.Most music is forbidden in Gilead, and there is little of it in the Commander’s home. Sometimes she hears Serena humming and listening to a recording of herself from the time when she was a famous gospel singer. Summer is approaching, and the house grows hot. Soon the Handmaids will be allowed to wear their summer dresses. Offred thinks about how Aunt Lydia would describe t he terrible things that used to happen to women in the old days, before Gilead, when they sunbathed wearing next to nothing. Offred remembers Moira throwing an â€Å"underwhore† party to sell sexy lingerie.She remembers reading stories in the papers about women who were murdered and raped, but even in the old days it seemed distant from her life and unrelated to her. Offred sits at the window, beside a cushion embroidered with the word Faith. It is the only word they have given her to read, and she spends many minutes looking at it. From her window, she watches the Commander get into his car and drive away. Summary: Chapter 11 Offred says that yesterday she went to the doctor. Every month, a Guardian accompanies Offred to a doctor, who tests her for pregnancy and disease.At the doctor’s office, Offred undresses, pulling a sheet over her body. A sheet hangs down from the ceiling, cutting off the doctor’s view of her face. The doctor is not supposed to see her fac e or speak to her if he can help it. On this visit, though, he chatters cheerfully and then offers to help her. He says many of the Commanders are either too old to produce a child or are sterile, and he suggests that he could have sex with her and impregnate her. His use of the word â€Å"sterile† shocks Offred, for officially sterile men no longer exist. In Gilead, there are only fruitful women and barren women.Offred thinks him genuinely sympathetic to her plight, but she also realizes he enjoys his own empathy and his position of power. After a moment, she declines, saying it is too dangerous. If they are caught, they will both receive the death penalty. She tries to sound casual and grateful as she refuses, but she feels frightened. To revenge her refusal, the doctor could falsely report that she has a health problem, and then she would be sent to the Colonies with the â€Å"Unwomen. † Offred also feels frightened, she realizes, because she has been given a way ou t. Summary: Chapter 12It is one of Offred’s required bath days. The bathroom has no mirror, no razors, and no lock on the door. Cora sits outside, waiting for Offred. Offred’s own naked body seems strange to her, and she finds it hard to believe that she once wore bathing suits, letting people see her thighs and arms, her breasts and buttocks. Lying in the bath, she thinks of her daughter and remembers the time when a crazy woman tried to kidnap the little girl in the supermarket. The authorities in Gilead took Offred’s then-five-year-old child from her, and three years have passed since then.Offred has no mementos of her daughter. She remember