Handmaids Tale Speech
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- Category: English: Novels
- Date Submitted: 07/27/2011 01:19 AM
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English Extension Speech, pretending to be Margaret Atwood. Yeah Dog...
Ciara Warsop.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I’d like to thank you for inviting me back to Macquarie University to talk to you about The Handmaids Tale, its social and historical context, and why it is still valued 20 years after it was written.
Now I understand most of you in the room are too young to remember 1985 and its political climate, so you may ask what was the social context of this book? Well to illustrate this as best I can let me take you back to 1985. Ronald Reagan had just been sworn into his second term of office, and was still opposing the equal rights amendment, a bill that protected racial minorities, homosexuals and women from discrimination. The feminist backlash was in full swing, and a return to traditional values was becoming apparent. As well as this, many feminists were arguing amongst themselves on issues to do with pornography and the sexual revolution. Also many bills were beginning to be passed throughout government that almost reversed what feminists had fought so hard for over the previous 2 decades, and it was thought many civil liberties were being attacked.
I wanted to write The Handmaids Tale in the tradition of other similar dystopian novels such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, each of which were written as a horrible forewarning as to what may have happened in the future if we had continued on the same path. In my book I like to think that I began to explore the consequences of the reversal of women’s rights. It was written in a time when feminists argued for liberation from traditional gender roles, but it looked as though they may lose, Gilead however, is a society that has returned to traditional values and gender roles, and the subjugation of women by men. Women in Gilead are forbidden to read, write or vote. Essentially I wanted to write a novel that examined in detail the intersection of politics, religion...
Ciara Warsop.
Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen. I’d like to thank you for inviting me back to Macquarie University to talk to you about The Handmaids Tale, its social and historical context, and why it is still valued 20 years after it was written.
Now I understand most of you in the room are too young to remember 1985 and its political climate, so you may ask what was the social context of this book? Well to illustrate this as best I can let me take you back to 1985. Ronald Reagan had just been sworn into his second term of office, and was still opposing the equal rights amendment, a bill that protected racial minorities, homosexuals and women from discrimination. The feminist backlash was in full swing, and a return to traditional values was becoming apparent. As well as this, many feminists were arguing amongst themselves on issues to do with pornography and the sexual revolution. Also many bills were beginning to be passed throughout government that almost reversed what feminists had fought so hard for over the previous 2 decades, and it was thought many civil liberties were being attacked.
I wanted to write The Handmaids Tale in the tradition of other similar dystopian novels such as George Orwell’s 1984 and Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World, each of which were written as a horrible forewarning as to what may have happened in the future if we had continued on the same path. In my book I like to think that I began to explore the consequences of the reversal of women’s rights. It was written in a time when feminists argued for liberation from traditional gender roles, but it looked as though they may lose, Gilead however, is a society that has returned to traditional values and gender roles, and the subjugation of women by men. Women in Gilead are forbidden to read, write or vote. Essentially I wanted to write a novel that examined in detail the intersection of politics, religion...