Endings

A comparative analysisby

Miss Baker

Contents

• Expectations & Theory• Herland• A Handmaid’s Tale

What do we expect?

Tzvetan Todorov

Equilibrium1. state of rest or balance due to the 

equal action of opposing forces.2. equal balance between any powers, 

influences, etc.; equality of effect.3. mental or emotional balance;

Analytical Questions

• Do we have closure? Have our questions been answered?

• Has balance been restored?

• What’s changed?

• Are we happy with that?

Herland

‘We had all meant to go home again. [...] with

which agreement we at last left Herland.’

Herland

Terry

• ‘strong on facts’

• masculine, powerful, mechanical

Vandyck

• ‘back that up’

• sociological, analytical, inquisitive

Jeff

• ‘born to be a poet, a botanist’

• feminine, at one with nature

Herland

Terry

• punished, • imprisoned,

‘Expelled’ ‘under guard ... [having committed] an unpardonable sin’

• ‘madly in love’ ‘quite desperate’

• unchanged ‘Morbid, one-sided cripples’

Vandyck

• not completely rewarded but not completely punished

• ‘she urged me to be patient’, ‘of course, I cannot do as you wish’

• she would not let me go without her’

Jeff

• rewarded• loved ‘the most

absorbed of lovers’• sexually ‘so far only

Celis’• completely changed

and rejecting of home ‘Why should I want to go back to all our noise and dirt?’

Vandyck

• enlightened sociologically• ‘Now, in my efforts at explanation, I began to see both ways more keenly than I had before; to see the painful defects of my own land.’

• remains embedded in the patriarchal ideology of his society• ‘’Oh come, that’s a pretty hard word for it. After all, Alima was his wife, you know.’

Analytical Questions

• Do we have closure? Have our questions been answered?

• Has balance been restored?

• What’s changed?

• Are we happy with that?

Why is this

important for our

understanding of

the text?

The Handmaid’s Tale