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Title: Comparing Frankenstein and The Handmaid's Tale A-level revision notes (A* grade)
Description: Detailed comparison notes on Frankenstein and The Handmaid's Tale. These notes helped get me an A* for English Literature A-level. Includes comparison of themes, context, the language and structure of both novels. Very helpful for getting A* essays and for revising. Great price considering how long it took to put together these notes. I'd have loved to have had these notes at the start of the school year, they would have made life a lot easier!
Description: Detailed comparison notes on Frankenstein and The Handmaid's Tale. These notes helped get me an A* for English Literature A-level. Includes comparison of themes, context, the language and structure of both novels. Very helpful for getting A* essays and for revising. Great price considering how long it took to put together these notes. I'd have loved to have had these notes at the start of the school year, they would have made life a lot easier!
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Frankenstein and Handmaid’s Tale comparison notes
Dreams
o Dreams play a significant role in Gothic fictions- often reveal psychological states
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Victor’s dream that bringing the Creature to life was equivalent to killing Elizabeth- prophetic
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Suggests that sexuality frightens/revolts Victor- perhaps prefers to find a means of procreation that
eliminates sexual activity
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o Threat- anyone could be an eye/they’re everywhere
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o Enclosing narrative frames represent boundaries crossed/transgressions
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o Shelley’s message- we’re quick to judge on what we see- aesthetic prejudice- injustice/discrimination
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o Offred is involved in subversive efforts of Mayday
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Birth/fertility
o Women are fertile vessels ‘two legged wombs’ ‘we are containers’ pg107
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o Widespread protest against abortion at time written-demonized women who sought control over own body
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o No natural birth
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g
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o Widespread fear towards processes e
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Galvanism-restore life to a dead body through electrical currents
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Narrative structure
o Non chronological narrative switches constantly between past and present/ slips between memories
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o Makes clear Offred is in a liminal state between her past and present life
o Fragmented interior monologue contributes to verisimilitude and reflects the psychological pressure Offred’s
under
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g
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o Delayed/deferred information
...
st
o 1 person narrative- reader can only know what Offred experiences and remembers
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o Subtle lack of information creates suspense
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o Multiple 1st-person narrator- dynamic interplay between narratives- Walton’s narrative prepares reader for
Victor’s state of mind and the Creature’s narrative encouraging the reader to question Victor’s assumptions/
prejudices
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o Frame narrative- Chinese box- Walton-Victor-Creature-Victor-Walton
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Novel constructed of borrowings from many other texts
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Walton’s epistolary narrative aids believable aspect of novel- foundation of reality
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Bridges gap between reader and Victor
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Novel begins in media res = middle of things- then series of flashbacks- narratives are interrelated
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Pg124 ‘I will greatly multiply’
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Christian texts shaped western paradigm
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o Sufi proverb- under extreme conditions human survival instinct is extremely strong
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o Red shoes- link to Gilead via red and that in both texts dancing is associated with death e
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Offred does not wish
to be a ‘dancer’ at the salvaging- pg
...
o Bible- alluded to when the Creature asks Victor to create a companion- Shelley highlights expectations placed on
Eve before her birth by 2 male figures
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Epigraphs from Genesis- focuses on how life can be created/Paradise Lost asks why life is created
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‘deadly weight hanging around my neck’- Mariner had to wear albatross round neck- burden carried
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Duality of creature and Offred
o Offred’s liminal state between rebellion and indoctrination- makes her an ‘every-women’ figure’
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Half clinging to former self
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o The Creature is dual sided- a murderer yet a victim of humanity- draws reader into moral dilemma
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o The 2 Offred’s and 2 Ofglen’s
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o Motif returns in story of Ofglen ‘Doubled, I walk the street’
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o Offred disguised as Serena Joy when she goes to Jezebel’s/forced to look at own face in Serena Joy’s mirror
when putting makeup on
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o Popular tendency to refer to the Creature as Frankenstein- Shelley’s use of motif of the double
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o Percy Shelley- Prometheus Unbound presents double as counterpart to self
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o ‘I felt the fiend’s grasp in my neck’/ hears cries of victims in his ears- ambiguity
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o
o
o
Elizabeth ‘men appear to me as monsters thirsting for each other’s blood’- echoes doubling on wider social
level
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Externalization of a darker side of Victor/repressed part of his psyche
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Literally lightening reveals the figure of the Creature but metaphorically illuminates the darker side of
Victor
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Domesticity/Femininity
o Like Offred Victor loses family/Elizabeth attempts to help everyone to accept sad events/recover emotionally
...
o Serena Joy commits heresy saying the Commander is ‘sterile’
...
o Juxtaposition of female identity/objectification- Offred wears binary opposites of purity/overt sexuality- blue
cloak = colour of wives/sexually revealing clothing at Jezebels
...
o Male world presented as explorational/domineering while female world is associated with the domestic
sphere/empathy
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o Elizabeth seen as an object to be possessed/importance of physical beauty
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His obsession isolates him from his family/friends
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Domestic affections- Creature longs for and Victor repeatedly holds up as what he should’ve aspired
...
Victor ‘if no man allowed any pursuit whatsoever to interfere with tranquility of his domestic affections,
Greece had not been enslaved, Caesar would have spared his country’ pg
...
o However, the treatment of the Creature by the De Lacey’s points to a defect in the domestic world- insularity
...
While the Preface claims "Frankenstein" demonstrates ideal 'domestic affections', the family is actually
criticised for imposing artificial gender distinctions and for insularity
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Tension between softness/ease connoted by ‘silken’/tightness/restraint associated with ‘cord’
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Innocent/old-fashioned game takes on whole new meaning in Gilead
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24
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Stems from Adam + Eve in Bible- ate from the Tree of Knowledge- consequently banished from paradise
...
20th Century- clone of dolly the sheep-cloning became known as ‘Frankenstein science’- fears that what
Shelley imagined might become fact
...
o Light conventionally associated with discovery/knowledge/enlightenment- however in Frankenstein search for
‘light’ ultimately leads to darkness
...
o Knowledge makes the Creature aware that he’s different- learns only way out of pain is death- foreshadows
climax of novel
...
o
o
o
o
Walton similarly attempts to surpass previous human explorations-endeavoring to reach the North pole
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Victor ‘Learn from me
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The Creature naturally seeks knowledge- learns how to speak and read- but this makes him miserable
...
Victor’s ‘success’ has tragic consequences- Shelley warning that knowledge shouldn’t be used- personal
gain
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g
...
o
Title: Comparing Frankenstein and The Handmaid's Tale A-level revision notes (A* grade)
Description: Detailed comparison notes on Frankenstein and The Handmaid's Tale. These notes helped get me an A* for English Literature A-level. Includes comparison of themes, context, the language and structure of both novels. Very helpful for getting A* essays and for revising. Great price considering how long it took to put together these notes. I'd have loved to have had these notes at the start of the school year, they would have made life a lot easier!
Description: Detailed comparison notes on Frankenstein and The Handmaid's Tale. These notes helped get me an A* for English Literature A-level. Includes comparison of themes, context, the language and structure of both novels. Very helpful for getting A* essays and for revising. Great price considering how long it took to put together these notes. I'd have loved to have had these notes at the start of the school year, they would have made life a lot easier!