Dystopia Sources

Controlling the Word - The Language of Dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale and The ChrysalidsA Level student Alicia Smith suggests that the power of language is at the heart of Atwood's and Wyndham's dystopian visions.

The Handmaid's Tale and The ChrysalidsIt's no coincidence that the word 'dystopia' is relatively new to the English language. The idea of the dystopia - the 'imaginary society characterised by human misery' - only emerged as a genre in the twentieth century, with such famous examples as Orwell's 1984 and Huxley's Brave New World. It's been suggested that this is at least in part due to the horrific events of that century, during which war, genocide and totalitarian regimes took the lives of millions and led to widespread disillusionment. Dystopian novels reject the idea of social perfection being possible, and often act as warnings of the dangers of certain political stances - for example, the thinly-veiled Communism in 1984 or the religious bigotry in The Handmaid's Tale.

However, politics isn't all there is to dystopian literature, as the current revival of the genre in young adult fiction suggests. Examining two notable dystopian novels - The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood and The Chrysalids by John Wyndham - shows us what could be seen as the genre's central concern: the power of language.

Language and PowerStarting with The Handmaid's Tale, we can see that it certainly is a political novel - specifically, a feminist one. Atwood explicitly states that it

highlighting the 'warning' aspect of her dystopian novel. But in her portrayal of an oppressive society in the near future, the focus is continually on the use of language as a means of power. The government uses Biblical texts as a form of propaganda; for example, Offred recalls how the 'usual stories' were 'drummed into us' and also how the government inserted its own values into these apparently Biblical lessons

Blessed are the silent... I know they made that up.

On a wider scale, the government represses individuality by manipulating language; the Handmaids' names are taken from them and replaced with derivatives of the men they serve - Offred, Ofglen, Ofwarren. The labels of 'Handmaid', 'Wife' and 'Unwoman' also remove any individual identities and define women simply by their roles.

The Chrysalids features a similar use of labels to categorise and oppress minorities; the religious leaders of the Labrador community condemn genetic deviants, such as the protagonist and his friends, as 'Blasphemies', 'Deviations' and 'mutants', all nouns which imply evil abnormality. Religion and religious language is the single most important element of Wyndham's imagined society - the semi-Biblical Definition of Man and sayings such as 'Blessed is the Norm' act as a constant backdrop to the protagonist's life and the novel itself, while other concepts are named along similar religious lines, such as 'Tribulation' and 'Purity'. This all suggests that the leaders' power is maintained by controlling how people perceive the world through language.

Rebelling through LanguageBut power in these two novels is not exclusive to the oppressive governments. Dystopian fiction usually focuses on, or at least, includes resistance to oppression, and in The Handmaid's Tale and The Chrysalids the strength of the ruling elite means that real political or violent resistance is impossible - so the oppressed minorities rebel primarily through language. In The Chrysalids, protagonist David and his friends' act of resistance to the 'Norm' is telepathy - a new kind of language undetectable by their oppressors, which enables them to question the accepted worldview by sharing their knowledge and minds more closely than others can with 'inadequate words'. The value of words, in particular those of the oppressors, is also called into question by the character of Uncle Axel: he refers to the word 'Tribulation' as 'a rusted mirror, signifying nothing' and dismisses talk of losing faith as 'preacher-words'. A similar narrative role in The Handmaid's Tale is filled by Moira, who is portrayed as the most rebellious woman in the novel and in several places is shown using language to defy the power of Gilead; for example, she changes the lyrics of 'There is a Balm in Gilead' to 'There is a Bomb', ridiculing the regime's propaganda. The fact that she is always referred to as Moira - never by any of the derivative names which other women in the novel receive - suggests that she keeps an individual identity, resisting all attempts to erase it.

Controlling the WordOffred, the protagonist of The Handmaid's Tale, is less openly rebellious than Moira, but arguably this means she uses language as a means of resistance more - there is no other safe outlet for her anger. Wordplay is a striking feature of Offred's narration

Household... to have and to hold... the hold of a ship. Hollow.

This is significant when contrasted with the lack of self-expression women are intended to display in Gilead, as Offred's vivid and multi-layered narrative defies the regime's insistence that 'Blessed are the silent'. Critic Felicity Currie says that 'Offred controls patriarchy's most powerful weapon: the WORD', and indeed Offred keeps herself sane under oppression by secretly reading, writing and speaking - dwelling on the forbidden message written on her bedroom floor, the cushions stitched with the names of virtues and her clandestine conversations with fellow Handmaid Ofglen. Her Scrabble games with the Commander are portrayed as dangerously subversive acts of political and sexual deviance. Taking the novel as a whole, Offred's most basic resistance is the act of telling her story, which we discover has been recorded for distribution throughout the country.

Violence - Real and LinguisticOf course, it's obvious that language is not the only means of obtaining or wielding power in either novel. Like most real dictatorships, the governments of Labrador and Gilead use terror and brutality to oppress minorities and maintain control; in The Handmaid's Tale, armed soldiers - 'Guardians' and 'Angels' - are ever-present, preventing active rebellion, and Offred's paranoia about Nick - 'Perhaps he is an Eye' - reflects the terror of the regime's secret police. In The Chrysalids, violence is the automatic reaction to anything deviant and the novel is permeated by the protagonists' tension over their possible discovery, expressed in particular by David's recurring dream of his father sacrificing a deviation - first a calf, then his friend Sophie, and finally his telepathically-gifted sister Petra. The violence of the regime comes to a climax near the end of the novel where hundreds of men are mobilised to track down and kill the telepaths and other mutants. However, while acknowledging that Atwood and Wyndham accurately portray the use of terror as power by dictatorships, we can note that this power is bound up with, and justified by, the use of language. The semi-Biblical names of the soldiers and police in Gilead give them the aura of divine approval and power; in Labrador, the religious rhetoric of David's father similarly justifies violence against the oppressed minority by declaring them less than human.

So in conclusion, it's reasonable to say that in The Handmaid's Tale and The Chrysalids at least, language and its use or abuse is an important theme and concern. Considering that many, if not most, dystopian novels deal with oppressive governments of one sort or another, this is perhaps not surprising - oppressive rulers tend to suppress individual identity, and language is hugely important to individual self-expression. The message of these two novels - and perhaps the dystopian genre as a whole - seems to be that how we speak determines how we live, and so determines who we are.

Two Different Kinds of Dystopia - The Handmaid’s Tale and 1984A Level student Grace O'Duffy compares the way two iconic dystopias create equally disturbing but different visions of future worlds.

Never again will you be capable of love, or friendship, or joy of living, or laughter, or curiosity, or courage, or integrity. You will be hollow. We shall squeeze you empty and then we shall fill you with ourselves.Nineteen Eighty-Four

The backdrops of George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four and Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale are startling dystopian worlds which envision a very disturbing future indeed. The two novels are made unsettling in very different ways, and yet they both display features that are typical of the dystopian genre. Totalitarianism and the theft of freedom snake through both Oceania in Nineteen Eighty-Four and Gilead in The Handmaid's Tale, with gender-based discrimination being taken to the extreme in the latter and horrifying indoctrination earning the former its infamy as one of the most effective dystopian works ever written.

Remoulding MindsOf course, brainwashing is a significant element in The Handmaid's Tale as well. The 'Aunts' drill their conservative Christian views into the Handmaids to the extent that they begin to believe the blame for rape should fall on the shoulders of the victim. They are discouraged from free thought as far as possible - 'Like all other things now, thought must be rationed', but Atwood's characters never go as far as Orwell's to manipulate the mind. Brainwashing in Nineteen Eighty-Four borders on the downright terrifying, most notably in the infamous Room 101, where Party member O'Brien reveals that they never simply kill the disobedient; they 'correct' wandering thoughts first.

We make the brain perfect before we blow it out.

Orwell's dystopia is so disturbing because Winston is the only character we see with any true memory of history, and of right and wrong in the moral sense, yet we see the Party

burn all evil and illusion out of him.

If the mind can be so easily remoulded, then how can anyone in Oceania be sure that what they know is really what they know, or whether someone else has etched it on to their mind? The thought of such a world is genuinely chilling.

A Grip on Childhood and LanguageFurthermore, a reality where your own children would betray you out of sheer obedience to the government would surely be the greatest fear of many. The Party can destroy childhood with its propaganda and indoctrinate emotionless values into the innocent, and this is a truly disturbing aspect of the novel. It is made all the more disturbing as these young Spies are horribly reminiscent of the Hitler Youth, which had been going strong just a few years before the publication of Orwell's novel. The iron grip of the Party is further demonstrated by the official language of Oceania, 'Newspeak' - 'the only language in the world whose vocabulary gets smaller every year'. This means that rebellion will eventually become impossible in Oceania, as there will be no words in human knowledge capable of forming any anti-Party thought:

In the end we shall make thoughtcrime literally impossible, because there will be no words in which to express it.

Anyone who is not indoctrinated with unwavering love for the Party will not be capable of giving any thought to it. While the characters in The Handmaid's Tale, have little hope to dwell on, they are at least able to dwell on it.

A Narrator who doesn't Know it allA common trait of the novels is that neither author makes use of an entirely omniscient narrator; we only know what happens when the central characters do (Offred in The Handmaid's Tale and Winston in Nineteen Eighty-Four). This underlines the unpredictability of the dystopian world, and amplifies the terror of living under totalitarian regimes. However, Atwood and Orwell do employ different types of narrators to varying effects. Atwood's choice of first-person narrator means Offred is less estranged from us, becoming less of a character and more of a real person than Nineteen Eighty-Four's Winston. Winston is slightly more distanced from us by Orwell's choice of the third-person limited omniscient narrator. However, it could be said that Orwell's choice of narrator solidifies the events of his novel as the narrator sticks very firmly to Winston's point of view, and so we get the benefit of his thought without doubting his actions. Offred, on the other hand, can sometimes be unreliable - can we be sure that she always tells the truth?

Orwell's Detached Style

Orwell's bleak, almost matter-of-fact storytelling contributes to a dystopia that is absolute in its despair. Winston seems resigned to the world in which he resides and it affects the languages he uses, detaching emotion from thought, for example when he contemplates murder:

The piece of glass in his pocket would be heavy enough for the job.

Even the lack of punctuation here adds to the bluntness of Winston's deliberations.

Atwood's 'Feminine' StyleThe Handmaid's Tale contrasts notably with Nineteen Eighty-Four's menacing language. The latter makes no pretence about being a dystopia, with its ashen skies and intimidating propaganda posters; whereas the sunny and softly described Gilead seems quite pleasant from a purely aesthetic perspective. Furthermore, Offred's stream of consciousness often strays into écriture feminine; she describes herself as

a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping.

Focusing on vague, symbolic emotions cloaks some of the truth of what goes on in Gilead, and some might say that we never even see the extent of the horrors of what goes on there, because Offred tries her best not to give it too much thought. This is quite disturbing as it shows that dystopias can be disguised, which is markedly different from Orwell's unyielding approach in conveying the hostile Oceania.

Based on RealityThe real terror of both Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Handmaid's Tale lies in the fact that they are in some ways based on real events of the past and present. This makes the possibility of these dystopian worlds becoming reality seem plausible: though Oceania and Gilead may seem very extreme, they cannot easily be ridiculed. Everything that happens in The Handmaid's Tale has occurred in some way in the past, and it takes place in the future, even now. Therefore there is an element of fear as the reader asks - if this has happened before, and human nature never really changes, then might this really become reality? Some of the values in The Handmaid's Tale are, startlingly, held by some in the modern Western world. Atwood mocks the conservative views of America's 'Bible Belt', but it could be more of a warning than a satire. Her dystopia is also rendered more of a plausible future by its genesis: environmental and nuclear problems, that we are faced by today. If this is Atwood's prediction for the future, then it is disturbingly hard to dispute.

If Nineteen Eighty-Four was, similarly, Orwell's personal prediction of the future, that it has arguably lost some of its effect: the year 1984 has been and gone and Orwell's vision has not been realised. Even at the time of its publication, some were unconvinced by its credibility. Literary critic Harold Nicolson commented:

Such inconsistencies of detail prevent our surrendering ourselves wholly to Mr. Orwell's thesis: but it is an excellent thesis none the less.

Many, however, regarded it as a genuinely alarming 'political prophecy' with the recent dictatorship of Germany still fresh in readers' minds, and Stalin's ongoing grip of the USSR. Now that it can no longer be true, Nineteen Eighty-Four's impact is perhaps blunted, but I would say that it remains nonetheless powerful. The fact that this novel once seemed like a possible future speaks volumes about the state of the world when Orwell wrote it, and while 'telescreens' are absent from the modern day, and there is no network of intimidating Ministries, some aspects of Oceania are now a part of everyday life. Phone conversations can be listened to and recorded by the government, CCTV is rife and the advance of technology might be restricting our language. Is 'text speak' just a more subtle form of 'Newspeak?'

Two Different ApproachesThe Handmaid's Tale and Nineteen Eighty-Four are both seminal works of dystopian fiction, achieved by very different approaches from Atwood and Orwell. While both novels share many classic elements that can be found throughout the history of dystopian literature, the fascinating thing about them is how they differ. The verisimilitude of The Handmaid's Tale is what makes it such a hellish place, as it forces the reader to reflect on the similarities between reality and Atwood's creation. Nineteen Eighty-Four bears a frightening resemblance to regimes and attitudes we know have existed, with the Party's ability to warp minds making the novel a truly disturbing read. The vague uncertainty with which Atwood writes rivals Orwell's frankness, and the fact that such different depictions can be so equally compelling illustrates the vast bank of fears that cement dystopian fiction as such an enduring genre.

BibliographyLacroix, Jean-Michel.1998. Conte de la servante.

Touching wood reading 1984 in 2003What happens when a novel set in the future becomes history? Can it ever be anything more than a literary curiosity? Lucy Webster thinks so.

In 1949 the reviewer for the New York Times suggested that the 'greatness' of Nineteen Eighty-Four may be 'only immediate, its power for us, alone, now, in this generation, this decade, this year, that it is doomed to be the pawn of time.'

It is a possibility which has concerned critics more and more as the crucial date fades further and further into the past. Alex Webb's article for The Independent (January 2000), sums it up, asking 'Do we still need George Orwell? ... [are Orwell's] ideas still relevant, or are they now simply fading into history?'

It's a reasonable question. After all, it is now almost twenty years since 1984 and even the most enthusiastic conspiracy theorists would have to concede that we are not living in Orwell's nightmare of a totalitarian police state. Indeed since 1984 we have seen the end of the Cold War, the collapse of the Soviet Union, the fall of the Berlin Wall, the triumph of consumerism and the rise and rise of the individual.

For people living today in a time of plenty, with the freedom to protest, to criticise our leaders and expose their 'doublethink', can Nineteen Eighty-Four, George Orwell's last and most famous novel, be anything more than an historical curiosity? Apparently, it can: in 2003 listeners to Radio 4's Today programme voted it the book to represent England. Not only that, but a quick search on the Internet reveals that there are many thousands of new readers eager to share their response to the novel and to urge others to read it too. It seems that Nineteen Eighty-Four's power over new readers is as great now as it ever was. What is it about Orwell's novel which has prevented it from becoming a 'pawn of time' as the New York Times reviewer feared? And what does its continued power and influence tell us about the novel, its readers and its place in our society?

A satirical dystopiaThe first thing to recognise is that Nineteen Eighty-Four is not a prediction but a satire. Airstrip One is both a nowhere land and an exaggerated representation of how Orwell saw 1940s London. The Guardian's reviewer of 1949 was only too aware of the relationship between the fictional Airstrip One and the London in which he read the novel. Significantly he interpreted these connections in terms of what should be learned from it:

... it is an instructive book; there is a good deal of What Every Young Person Ought to Know - not in 1984, but 1949. (The Guardian, Friday June 10th, 1949)

Readers today echo this sentiment, continuing to read the novel not as an out-dated prediction or a satire of one particular period in history, but as a warning not to become complacent about their own freedom:

he has portrayed a chillingly credible dystopia. In our deeply anxious world, the seeds of unthinking conformity are everywhere in evidence; and Big Brother is always looking for his chance.

While the year 1984 is long past, the book is still a relevant and potent warning of what the future may bring if we let it.

Our place in the storyBut the continued influence of Nineteen Eighty-Four and its ability to affect readers so powerfully is not just down to what it has to say, but how it says it. The reason this book remains so popular with readers is because it is an engaging page-turner of a story. While Orwell's novels and essays often explore the same ideas (freedom of speech, the individual and totalitarianism, for example), it is the novels Nineteen Eighty-Four and Animal Farm which have both infiltrated the common consciousness and which continue to be read widely. Stories involve the emotions and are thus more powerful than any argument or political speech could ever be. Nineteen Eighty-Four is frightening and memorable because the reader experiences what life would be like under such a regime. We care about Winston and Julia and applaud their rebellion. We think of ourselves in their position and wonder what we would do.

But most important, we are ourselves swept into the meaning and means of a society which has as its single aim the total destruction of the individual identity. ... It is in the intimate history, of course, that he reveals his stature as a novelist, for it is here that the moral and the psychological values with which he is concerned are brought out of the realm of political prophecy into that of personalised drama ... (New York Times, 12th June 1949)

The ease with which readers put themselves into Winston's place is in part because he is an 'Everyman' figure. He is nondescript, physically unprepossessing, a middle ranking official who, despite his hatred and fear of the system, nonetheless feels pride in what he does. But he is also a hero (and perhaps a typically English hero): the underdog, an individual fighting against a system he knows will beat him in the end, no matter what he does. He is the person we hope we would be in his circumstances.

Winston's rebellionWinston's rebellion, therefore - and the form it takes - is particularly powerful for the reader who recognises in Winston his own ordinariness. Winston rebels through language: it begins with thoughts which if the Newspeak project reaches fulfilment will not only be illegal but actually impossible. As the New York Times reviewer pointed out, with the triumph of Newspeak 'there will be no tools for thinking outside the concepts provided by the state ...' This is something Winston refuses to accept, worrying endlessly over the disparity between what he remembers happening and the past as it is endlessly re-written by Big Brother's minions - including himself. His rebellion deepens when he buys a notebook, pen and ink and begins to write; he writes because through expressing himself in his words, and not the Newspeak of Big Brother, he records and preserves the truth as he sees it. In doing so asserts his freedom and his individual identity.

Language in my opinion holds the key to the important place which Orwell's novel holds in our society. A story of two individuals, their futile fight for freedom and truth and their doomed love for each other, Nineteen Eighty-Four is, at heart, a warning to us of what could happen if we allow our language to be wrested from us and abused.

Both Big Brother and Winston make it clear that it is through the destruction of language that the individual's ability to think independently is eroded. Those who control the language and what is written down control the present and the past and those who control the past, control the future.

Orwell's novel provides us with the context and words to discuss frightening and complex ideas for the loss of individual freedom, the manipulation of language and therefore truth. 'Newspeak', 'doublethink', 'thoughtcrime' and 'Big Brother' have become a shorthand, used by those who have not read the novel. To erase the influence of the novel on this and future generations would require a feat of re-writing and brainwashing worthy of Big Brother himself.

To have the freedom to possess and pass on the book itself is a measure of the freedom we enjoy - reassurance that the society we frighten ourselves with is still only a fiction. Orwell's novel is a talisman against the erosion of our freedoms; reading Nineteen Eighty-Four is the literary equivalent of touching wood.

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/14606

Dystopia - an OverviewRobert Kidd provides an overview of the dystopian literature, discussing Brave New World, Cloud Atlas, Oryx and Crake, Nineteen Eighty-Four and The Handmaid's Tale, amongst others.

Rarely is the future envisaged as an idyllic place to dwell: the success of The Hunger Games and the re-making of Philip K Dick inspired films such as Total Recall and the new TV series, Utopia, suggests that the future in all its fearsome incarnations is still as intriguing (and commercial) as it ever was for HG Wells and Fritz Lang. The futurologists employed by big business may try to sell us a vision of a utopian dream but the novelists, filmmakers and TV programmers know that it is doom and disaster that plays best with the contemporary audience - and it always has done. Deep down we know that a dystopian future is more likely than a utopian one, particularly with humanity at the helm of planet Earth.

To a large extent dystopian literature is a product of the 20th century although its antithesis, utopian fiction, predates it by some hundreds of years. Of course there have been pessimistic visions of the future before but the abiding feature of what we now class as a dystopian vision is the subjugation of the individual by an authoritarian collective be it political (Nineteen Eighty-Four), technocratic (Brave New World, We, The Machine Stops), theocratic (The Handmaid's Tale) or a blend of all or some of the above as in the consumerist nightmare at the heart of Oryx and Crake.

Dystopian fiction is concerned with paradigms of power and dystopias are concerned with the way in which this power is mediated between the individual and the authority of the state. The dystopian vision is distinct from the apocalyptic in that the later concerns a destroyed world where civilisation as we know it has come to an end, as in The Road by Cormac McCarthy, whereas a dystopian text usually involves a world where a ruling ideology imposes its vision of social order on the masses as in Nineteen Eighty-Four or The Handmaid's Tale. Often those in power insist that their vision of society is a 'perfect' one - a utopian world. What becomes clear in each re-working of the genre is that one individual's utopian idyll is a dystopian reality imposed on those who do not share his or her perfect vision.

What renders dystopian literature so popular is the tension between two basic human instincts: the desire to improve the human condition and the basic right of self-determination for each individual. As society becomes more able to change its condition,

so the potential for conflict between these two drives becomes increasingly likely. The rapid increases in scientific technological prowess over the 19th and 20th centuries produced a possibility for the perfection of the human condition unimaginable in the centuries beforehand. A perfectible future seemed not just possible but likely within the lifetime of successive post-industrial populations. However, the very imminence and ease of such a future has been enough to generate a contrasting slew of fearful fantasies. These are partly based on the suspicion that in a world where every desire is anticipated and provided for there is an implicit loss of autonomy and partly based on a puritanical sense that pleasure has to be earned through hard work and a commensurate measure of pain. Western societies, where dystopias tend to be generated, are founded on a belief that 'nothing comes from nothing'; everything has its price and mankind will ultimately have to pay for its luxury and leisure. In Ishiguro's Never Let Me Go he explores the banality of this 'easy evil' through the trope of a quasi-genteel alternative world, an 'almost England', where boarding schools become the breeding grounds for cloned surrogates whose only purpose in life is to provide spares for their 'originals'. The novel raises all sorts of issues, not least the moral myopia of a society too self-regarding to consider the cost of their health and longevity. The donors stand for every stitch of clothing fabricated in sweatshops and sold in the high street, every laboratory animal, every aspect of our world grounded in the poverty, neglect and exploitation of others. In the novel, ordinary people are uncomfortable in the presence of the donors; they resent being brought face to face with the cost of their utopian existence.

Utopian fiction conjures a world that is an ideal; an idyll where all of man's virtues are celebrated and his vices have been overcome. It is, however, often a satirical vision which invites the reader to see the gap between this ideal and the reality of human existence. One root of the term Utopia is derived from the Greek: ou (not) and topos (place) literally meaning 'nowhere' and so there is a sense of the unrealisable inherent in the term. A Utopia evokes an aspiration beyond the present capabilities of humanity. Thomas More first coined the name in a satire where the perfection of his conjured utopian state contrasted markedly with the reality of 16th-century Europe. From the very start the word has had a political and social dimension; it has been a part of a didactic genre designed to encourage the reader to question his contemporary condition and consider what possibilities the future might hold.

The dystopia is arguably a more direct critique of contemporary society. It tends to extrapolate contemporary fears and constructs a paradigm that accentuates the very worst features of the human condition. These fears alter from era to era, or at least the repressive regime alters according to the authors' socio-historical context. In The Machine Stops (1909), Forster imagines a world run entirely by a machine designed to serve man. However, it is immediately apparent that Man has become so dependent

upon the machine that the roles have reversed and the individual is controlled by a technology that dictates every minute of his or her life. All independent thought must defer to the needs of a society that now operates as merely a mechanistic programme run by the machine. In this short story the central concern of the modern dystopia can be seen; autonomy has been lost and the individual's identity has little value when weighed against the perceived needs of society. The horror of the Great War with its industrial scale of killing only underscores the bleak truth of Forster's vision: a society numbed by technology runs the risk of devaluing humanity. Other writers in the genre express similar concerns but the regime in control may derive its authority from a more overtly political model such as The Party in Nineteen Eighty-Four or Corporations in Oryx and Crake. Each age throws up a new monster which takes on the guise of the absolute power against which the individual pits his/her independence.

The ruling powers of most dystopias justify their existence through some practical or moral 'good' bestowed upon the community: utility, expediency, pragmatism, morality. In addition, they usually invoke a dogmatic construct that can be deferred to: theology, science, technology or commerce. However, the satisfaction of the utopian goal of one social cadre usually compromises the rights, desires or aspirations of another, hence the dystopia. In some respects a dystopia is merely the dysfunctional outcome of a utopian ideal. As John Carey points out in his Introduction to The Faber Book of Utopias, even the most benign of intentions inevitably leads to the destruction humanity as we know it:

...the dilemma that confronts all utopian projects [is] they aim at a new world, but must destroy the old.

And later:

The aim of all utopias, to a greater or lesser extent, is to eliminate real people...In a utopia real people cannot exist for the very obvious reason that real people are what constitute the world that we know and it is that world that every utopia is designed to replace.

Significantly, in Oryx and Crake, Jimmy's reincarnation in the 'brave new world' created by Crake is 'Snowman' a contraction of 'abominable snowman': he sees himself as 'ab omin', an ill omen. He is a degrading remnant of humanity whose flawed personal history encapsulates the potential plight of our present. At the conclusion of the novel the reader is left in 'snowman's land' where the choice is between the old life, represented by the surviving human castaways who arrive on the beach, and the new world, represented by the perfect harmony of the Crakers. 'Time to go', the final words of the novel, leave the reader no wiser as to the path Snowman will take: should he defend the Crakers from the humans or should Snowman reconnect with his own humanity and almost certainly

doom the Children of Crake? Crake's experiment poses the question posed by all utopias: would humanity sacrifice itself in order to achieve perfection?

In her essay, 'Dire Cartographies', Atwood coins the term 'Ustopia' as a conflation of utopia and dystopia. She sees the two concepts as inextricably linked; in the quest for the former we uncover the latter. She concludes:

...we should try to make things better, insofar as it lies within our power. But we should probably not try to make things perfect, especially not ourselves, for that path leads to mass graves.

Although dystopian fiction is a vision of the future it is distinct from the apocalyptic text. The latter may place the protagonist in a world of social breakdown and civil disorder but it lacks the coherent repression of the individual that defines the fears of the former. The father and son in The Road experience the consequences of a catastrophic breakdown of civilisation but they are not threatened by a concerted and coherent authority that seeks to reign in or destroy their individuality. It could be argued that only the initial period of Atwood's Oryx and Crake is dystopian as, by the time Crake's plan has been enacted, there is only the question of survival for Snowman and his charges; the corporate authorities have all been destroyed and the world is apocalyptic. It is in Jimmy's world that the individual is conditioned and controlled in an environment where society has sold its soul in order to gain the fashionable uniformity offered by global commerce. Conscience is sacrificed on the altar of ease and utility.

The onion-like structure of Cloud Atlas leads us out of our past and into a distant future via number of narrative excursions into different genres. This structure, which returns us to where we began, only reinforces the sense that humanity simply repeats its mistakes in an infinite variety of ways. The tools of our destruction may differ but the tendency towards annihilation remains the same. Central to this is the selfish certainty that adherence to a specific creed or dogma justifies the destruction of those who wish to follow their own beliefs.

The genre invites the reader/viewer to balance the benefits bestowed upon societyby the imposition of a particular ideology and compares these benefits to what is lost along the way. Often, dystopian fiction is a critique of the consequences of utilitarianism/ expediency. The model dystopian text is usually constructed in terms of an individual protagonist in conflict with the impersonal machine of the state. In spite of the general 'good' conferred upon all citizens by the governing entity (often, but not always, a political construct) there is a corresponding loss of individuality. The Machine Stops, The Pedestrian, Nineteen Eighty-Four, A Clockwork Orange, Brave New World, Fahrenheit

451: each and all evoke a society where individuality is challenged by a ruling elite but in each case the mechanics of control are different.

The central fear of dystopian literature is that the future of the human race is ultimately reductive. In Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale the female is stripped of her femininity; in A Clockwork Orange Alex is stripped of his capacity for moral choice; in The pedestrian Leonard Mead is even stripped of his right to walk alone, the blandly chilling truth of his world is that everyone has been soft soaped into a belief in the virtual narratives piped into the tomb-like living rooms. Written in the 1950s, this latter vision is possibly our 21st century truth and a vindication of the genre. In our era it is the seductive visions of a technical and pharmaceutical paradise that seem most likely to result in Atwood's Ustopia rather than the political repression of Orwell or Burgess. Either way, being beaten into submission or succumbing to the blandishments of big business, the dystopian novel supplies sufficient doubt to keep us alert to what lies ahead.

Recommended texts:FictionMargaret Atwood: Oryx and CrakeMargaret Atwood: Year of the FloodAnthony Burgess: A Clockwork OrangeRay Bradbury: Fahrenheit 451Ray Bradbury: The PedestrianEM Forster: The Machine StopsAldous Huxley: Brave New WorldKazuo Ishiguro: Never Let Me GoDavid Mitchell: Cloud AtlasThomas More: UtopiaGeorge Orwell: Nineteen Eighty-FourZamyaten: We

Critical TextsMargaret Atwood: In Other WorldsBaccolini and Moylan: Dark HorizonsJohn Carey (ed.): The Faber Book of UtopiasGregory Claeys (ed.): Utopian LiteratureTom Moylan: Scraps of the Untainted Sky

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/15558

Technology and Machines in the Dystopian NovelRobert Stevenson Brown explains how The Time Machine, Brave New World and Nineteen Eighty-Four reflect twentieth-century fears about the power of technology.

The modern age is full of buttons attached to shiny machines that make nice things happen when you push them. In these days of the internet and iPhones, where happiness is just an app away, it is tempting to see machines and technology in purely utilitarian terms. They make our lives easier, more enjoyable, more varied. As Ninette sang right back in the 1960s, 'the world's gone mad just pushing little buttons' and it is tempting to forget that machines and technology also have a darker side. Many machines have been invented to help us kill other humans more efficiently and technology has enabled those in power to keep tabs on us all in a way never before possible. It is this sinister aspect of technology and machines, and the possibility of an unpleasant future which they could create, that interested the dystopian writers of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Leisure and labourH.G. Wells' The Time Machine (1895) is an example of the dystopian genre in its embryonic stages. The time machine, invented by a man known simply as 'The Time Traveller', is a thoroughly Victorian contraption, performing just as its owner wants it to and allowing him to return, slightly shaken, with only a minor graze on his chin, in time for supper. But Wells uses the dystopian society visited by The Time Traveller to make some interesting comments on the possible evolution of humanity. He imagines a society where the easy life of the aristocracy (the Eloi), made possible by the labours of a working class (the Morlocks), has lead them to become mentally and physically frail. The Eloi live above ground in a beautiful world that seems utopian at first glance, but they are, in fact, at the mercy of the Morlocks who live underground. Morlocks make the clothes and provide the food for the Eloi but they also kill and eat them. Wells compares the Eloi to cattle and uses them to warn his readers of the dangers of becoming addicted to ease and too far removed from nature for, as The Time Traveller says:

intellectual versatility is the compensation for change, danger and trouble.

The Eloi are victims of evolution, and importantly it is those who control the machines (the Morlocks), who come to control society.

History and DarwinismThe genre of utopia was based on a belief both in the perfectibility of man and that happiness was humanity's goal. However, events in the first half of the twentieth century (the unprecedented death toll of World War One, the Nazi atrocities of World War Two and the invention of the atom bomb), in which machines and technology played a large part, meant that such beliefs became discredited.

In the nineteenth century the genre of Naturalism applied Darwin's theory of evolution to literature. Authors like Emile Zola challenged the Enlightenment belief that man was a rational creature, focussing instead on the fact that humans had evolved from animals. If humans were not necessarily rational beings, created for the greater good, then it follows that the machines they create are not totally rational or benign either.

Production-line humansAldous Huxley takes this a step further and shows machines being used to artificially control the evolution of humans. Brave New World is set in the year 632 AF (After Ford - that is, Henry Ford the inventor of the mass produced automobile). It is set in a society where:

the principle of mass production has at last [been] applied to biology

Machines are used to condition human embryos and ensure that the irrational and unpredictable aspects of human nature are removed so that the vast majority of citizens can direct their whole energy to the strengthening of the social order.

The Central London Hatchery where these model citizens are produced resembles our car factories with their production lines and robots. Importantly, the lower your class the less individuality you are given and the more vigorously you are conditioned to fulfil your role in society. Whilst Alphas (a well-educated professional class) are produced artificially, it is the lower classes who are really subjected to mass production; Epsilons, a sort of slave class who perform all the menial jobs, are created using 'Bokanovsky's Process' so that up to 96 individuals are produced from just one embryo. These vast numbers of 'identical twins', as they are called, produce some of the most nightmarish scenes of the novel.

The battle of the individualMustapha Mond, one of the 10 all powerful 'World Controllers' in the novel explains that they were forced to create their society because of the horrible things which machines were enabling people to do to each other. In contrast, in Brave New World, the machine is not used to kill but to modify individuals to make them stable and valuable members of

a totalitarian society. Through Mond, Huxley articulates some pressing issues which existed in the early 1930s in a society still reeling from the apocalyptic events of World War One. Huxley shows that when such a mechanised means of reproduction is used, the value of human life is dramatically reduced. As the director says:

Murder kills only the individual - and, after all, what is an individual?...we can make a new one with the greatest of ease.

If the individual is threatened in Huxley's dystopia then so is literature; all books written before 150AF have been banned and subsequent books are subjected to strict censorship. In simple terms the novel is viewed as antisocial; in the words of Mond:

you can't consume much if you sit still and read books.

In a desperate battle for both the individual and the novel, Brave New World focuses on three individuals for whom the pursuit of happiness is not enough: Bernard the 'romantic loner', John the 'noble savage' and Helmholtz the intelligent writer. These characters are used as a critique of the artificially and mechanically evolved society of the future, a reminder that some element of the monkey is always present in man.

1984 - surveillance and controlThe society Huxley portrays is both frightening and intriguing for the reader, but being set 600 years in the future, it is distant and therefore much of the sense of threat is lost. We are free to mock the ideology of Fordian society and marvel at their use of technology without any fear that such a future is imminent.

George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four is a very different matter. Like Huxley, Orwell imagines a totalitarian society which wants to eradicate the concept of the individual but with the key difference that the way in which the citizens are controlled is more mundane, more psychological and more believable. Oceania, and its recognisably communist rulers headed by Big Brother, have realised that the machines could produce enough material goods to make everyone wealthy, which would destroy their authority. They have hijacked machines and ensured that they are used mainly to further their two aims: conquering the whole globe and stopping people from thinking independently.

This need to control their subjects so completely means that most of the technology encountered in everyday life by the novel's hero Winston Smith is used by Big Brother for surveillance. There is the telescreen (a device like our T.V.) which is used to disseminate propaganda, but is also able to watch your movements and listen to what you are saying. Orwell's idea and the power that such surveillance gives the viewer has,

of course, been used to create a very successful T.V. programme in recent years: Big Brother.

Freedom of thoughtHowever, the power of these surveillance machines has its limitations, and therefore the authority of Big Brother is not absolute. The party still have no means of discovering:

against his will, what another human being is thinking.

This means that, whilst the material world is completely controlled by Big Brother, the same influence cannot be applied to the internal consciousness of the individual. People are still able to think what they want. Through Winston Smith, Orwell shows how the ability of the individual to think freely in a society that attempts absolute control is empowering. Winston realises that there is an alcove in his home where he cannot be seen by the telescreen and begins using this space to write a diary, something forbidden (on pain of death) by Big Brother. As the novel progresses, he exploits his small amount of freedom more and more to take control of his own life and do the things which bring him pleasure. His affair with Julia, another party worker, typifies his rebellion; a natural human relationship which Big Brother has sought to eradicate.

But Orwell's vision is more pessimistic than that of Huxley. Winston is not allowed to make his final tragic stand against society, as John does in Brave New World by committing suicide, instead he is exposed as a traitor and tortured until he renounces all his rebellious thoughts, even his love for Julia.

A reflection on dystopiasIn dystopias, authors take beliefs and trends within their own societies which they find worrying and extrapolate and exaggerate these aspects to create a nightmarish society of the future. This allows them better to communicate their fears to the reader. We often view the machines we own, our computers, our cars, our mobile phones, as symbols of our individuality. As the T-shirt says, 'I shop therefore I am'. But, as these three dystopias show, machines can be used by those in power to completely eradicate individuality. One of the vital functions of dystopias is to make readers re-evaluate their relationship with the machines and technology of the modern world.

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/15223

Cormac McCarthy The RoadWhether you're studying the novel as a dystopia, for comparative coursework, or as a stimulus for your own writing, Ray Cluley's exploration offers an analysis not only of the bleak world of the book but also its structure and spare, haunting, lyrical style.

As part of the Edexcel specification students are expected to produce a piece of writing based upon a topic-specific core text. Cormac McCarthy's The Road is an ideal choice for either the Dystopia or Journeys and Pilgrimages options.

The novel tells of a father and son's journey across a devastated America. It is a journey fraught with dangers, the biggest of which seems to be other survivors. Indeed, the ordeals people will endure or put others through in order to survive is very much at the heart of McCarthy's novel, demanding far more attention than what may have caused the apocalyptic disaster that has ruined the world around them.

Ash and GrayWhatever happened, it has left the world a barren place, with 'ash' and 'gray' competing for the most repeated word throughout the novel. When the father uses his binoculars he's looking for 'anything of color', promising his son the sea will be blue. It isn't, of course; it's 'gray'. The ash falls like snow, and there are hints enough for the reader to suppose the cause was something nuclear due to 'A long shear of light and then a series of low concussions', revealed in a rare flashback, yet there doesn't appear to be any radiation sickness. In the film version the light and its concussions is one of the first lines narrated as a voiceover, so it's clearly very significant, but the film does little else to offer explanation either. Father and son come across 'figures half mired in the blacktop, clutching themselves, mouths howling', people literally trapped within the road, their journeys halted whilst that of the protagonists goes ever on. Buildings are askew because 'iron armatures had softened in the heat and then reset again' whilst 'melted window glass hung frozen down the walls like icing on a cake'. It's an effective and telling simile, emphasising a desperate fixation with food.

War for SurvivalWhatever war may have created this dystopian landscape, it is the war that follows that McCarthy is interested in showing us; the war for survival. For the protagonists, this survival is a matter of day to day urgency and they spend much of the novel searching for food on a journey that takes them through a multitude of dystopian settings and

scenarios; abandoned trucks, empty towns, forests where trees fall apparently spontaneously to illustrate how the natural world is falling apart around them. Occasionally they find a rotten apple or a few hard seeds, and in one touching scene the two share a can of cola. It's a scene that draws attention to the boy as being born of this new world, with no knowledge of what came before; 'What is it, Papa?' he says of the distinctive can. Yet his realisation, 'I wont ever get to drink another one' does not stop him insisting that his father share it, a man who has lived in this new world for all the years of his son's life. He is a good boy, and concern for his welfare is what keeps the father, and the reader, persisting with what would otherwise be a miserable journey indeed.

A Moment for ReliefThe consistently bleak imagery and monotonous drudge of day to day survival goes a long way towards providing an almost euphoric section in the book when the two come across a bunker stocked with food.

Crate upon crate of canned goods. Tomatoes, peaches, beans, apricots. Canned hams. Corned beef. Hundreds of gallons of water in ten gallon plastic jerry jugs. Paper towels, toiletpaper, paper plates. Plastic trashbags stuffed with blankets.

It's a list unlike any other McCarthy has written in the novel so far, a paragraph of plenty with provisions enough to feed them for months, and the reader is as shocked as the characters to come across it. This oasis in the barren desert that was the world comes at a time when hope is particularly low and it is all the more effective for it, an extended scene of such relief that the reader will be forgiven for wanting the journey to end there.

Movement and TravelIt doesn't, though. The bunker provides only a short rest as The Road is a story of travel, of movement. Besides, not every discovery has been so fortuitous, which may explain why the father is so reluctant to stay and test their luck. That events should take a turn for the worse is a natural assumption for a man who has seen a good world gone bad. For the boy, though, things can only ever get better and he sees the bunker as a place to stay. He provides the story's hope, personifies it in fact, which is why we so desperately want him to survive.

A Spiritual NovelThe entire novel is a sequence of steps in search of sustenance, and not always of the physical kind. The Road is a very spiritual text, something McCarthy highlights with his use of figurative language. Generally his writing is rather sparse and fragmented, a style that suits the setting for the world of The Road is one of lack, an empty place, a

devastated space bereft of beauty. Sentences are often simple or, if extended, made up of clauses linked by repeated conjunctions, a technique called polysyndeton, resulting in frequent comparisons with Hemingway. And yet the novel is not without its similes and metaphors, the vast majority of them spiritual in nature. The father, coughing, is 'kneeling in the ashes like a penitent' and his preparation for the boy's sleep are 'like some ancient anointing', the boy a 'golden chalice, good to house a god'. The two are compared to 'mendicant friars', the boy 'glowing in that waste like a tabernacle'.

The Father's Perspective'Where men cant live gods fare no better' says the man claiming to be Ely, suggesting theirs is a Godless world. This may be why McCarthy uses so much religious imagery to describe it and those who travel its road, an attempt by the father character to reassert a holy presence in a world that would otherwise be religiously vacant, for it is from his perspective most of the tale is told. Indeed, there is even a brief moment of intrusive first-person narrative:

That dog that he remembers followed us for two days. I tried to coax it to come but it would not

he says to the reader in an explicit attempt to impose his own perspective. There's a desperation to this jarring change in style but it effectively underlines the fact that the father is in control, or trying to be, putting us in a position similar to that of the boy in that we are powerless to voice our own opinion or sway the father in his course of action.

A PilgrimageThe father and son relationship also puts us in mind of Christian beliefs, albeit implicitly, just as the desolate world around them seems like Hell on Earth with its 'dull sulphur light from the fires'. The boy, though, is quite explicitly a saviour figure, at least in the father's eyes. 'If he is not the word of God God never spoke' he says. The Road is clearly not only a physical journey but a metaphorical one as well, a pilgrimage of sorts, in which the man's efforts to feed and protect the boy are his efforts to serve his God. Similarly, in giving him a reason to live, the boy returns this love. The father's strength is physical whereas the son's is more spiritual, roles that define them more than any name would.

Moral TestsAs well as the physical threat of starvation and murder, man and boy face various moral tests. It is the boy who gives Ely food, both of the adults claiming they would not have done the same. When they are later robbed the father threatens to kill the thief before making him strip and stealing his things. Only because it upsets the boy does he then

return them, explaining 'I wasn't going to kill him'. 'But we did kill him' the boy realises, understanding you don't need to pull a trigger to kill someone. It is perhaps in these moral conflicts that the novel is most bleak, despite the abundance of dystopian landscapes. 'You're not the one who has to worry about everything' the man says, to which the boys replies 'Yes I am.' Theirs is a journey from one testing situation to another so that when McCarthy writes of:

The ashes of the late world carried on the bleak and temporal winds to and fro in the void

he could easily be describing his protagonists. The father's failings in these tests are as symptomatic as his cough in representing his eventual death. Only then can the boy begin a journey that is truly his own, rising phoenix-like from a world of ash to create a new one for himself in which hope is allowed to exist.

The Road is a moving novel rendered all the more powerful by a believability which gives it a sense of inevitability. It's a dystopian journey during which the cry 'Are we there yet?' can perhaps be answered rather pessimistically with 'Nearly'. We need to take heed so as not to follow its path.

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/15270

Fragmenting the whole - the narrative inventiveness of The Handmaid’s TaleA Level student Katy Murr argues that in The Handmaid's Tale, fragmentation and the focus on playing with and laying claim to language, is closely connected to Atwood's feminist slant on dystopia.

Throughout The Handmaid's Tale, Offred's voice appears deliberately fragmented. As Offred says, it is 'limping and mutilated.' We can see Atwood clearly breaking down the narrative by means of religious epigraphs, a multitude of staccato chapters, and huge time jumps. This sense of fragmentation, then, leads to a tone of fear, an effect of the dystopian world of Gilead.

Claiming a voiceCrucially, The Handmaid's Tale sets itself apart from predecessors of the dystopian genre, offering an intimate, female, first- person narrative; Atwood steps away from narratives such as Huxley's Brave New World or Orwell's 1984, choosing a voice which acknowledges major women writers, such as Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir. Despite the unsettled, fragmentary feeling of Offred's voice, it is also through this fragmentation that Atwood allows Offred to claim power. As early as chapter two, we see Offred reeling against indoctrination from the totalitarian state of Gilead:

Waste not want not. I am not being wasted.

Such manipulation of the Gileadian state's slogans epitomises Offred's power - a linguistically wielded awareness, an active observance which keeps her living. Although the state may warn the handmaids not to think, Offred recognises the pertinence of independent thought. Through her narrative, she claims a voice and a place for her thoughts.

Thinking can hurt your chances, and I intend to last.I am alive, I live, I breathe.

In any usual context, this last statement might be taken for granted. Here, however, Atwood shows how Offred uses the active verbs to reinforce her sense of identity, when it is being violently challenged by the state of Gilead. The 'I' which is usually morphed into a blanket term for the handmaids, as the state doubles them and reduces their

individuality, labelling them 'two by two', is pushed away. Crucially, Offred begins to recognise the individual nature of herself, as the 'we' and 'two' of the state becomes an 'I': the declaration of Offred's own, separate identity.

Claiming territoryHaving highlighted her sense of individual identity, Offred proceeds to contemplate a sense of possession and questions whether she can really have her 'own' room:

The door of my room - not my room, I refuse to say my

This self-conscious awareness of having one's own space immediately engages with Woolf's feminist essay, A Room of One's Own. In Offred's characteristic style, elements of this discussion are scattered throughout the narrative, as she questions ideas concerning possession and belonging. Whilst she is possessed and reduced to a mere 'handmaid' by the Gileadian state, she in turn seeks to have something as her 'own', a means of control.

In chapter three Offred recognises that 'This garden is the domain of the Commander's wife', in turn realising that she does not yet have a domain. And yet a few chapters on, the fragmentary consideration of possessing spaces recurs. Offred claims:

The night is mine, my own time.As long as I don't move. As long as I lie still. The difference between lie and lay. Lay is always passive.

A little further on, Offred finds herself asking:

Was he in my room? I called it mine.My room, then. There has to be some space, finally, that I claim as mine, even in this time.

If we look again at the verbs, it is clear that Offred has a sensitivity to language, that it is within language, within her narrative, that Offred seeks to remain active. The words are almost sacred, something to relish. This idea of language as a huge freedom - for 'context is all' - is encapsulated in the description of the game of scrabble between Offred and the Commander:

What a luxury. The counters are like candies, made of peppermint, cool like that.Choice of words is something sensual for Offred. It is something she feels, tastes, enjoys. Here, in language, she maintains her individual place.

Although the 'lie/lay' comparison occurs relatively early in the narrative, Offred's fragmentary narrative structure sees her alluding to it in the episode with the doctor, in chapter eleven. She corrects herself, with attention to linguistic subtleties, as usual:

I went to the doctor. Was taken

It is through her jumpy narrative that this distinction between active and passive, dominating and submissive, is heightened. By returning to ideas which were only briefly touched upon, Atwood builds up the idea of a narrator, Offred, who is incredibly responsive to language. Indeed, 'waiting is also a place' for Offred; 'it is wherever you wait.' For Offred, 'it is this room' - in other words, she waits for her freedom and inches towards it within her narrative.

Piexioto's final sayAlthough you could say that inclusion of the historical notes threatens Offred's narrative, since the dry, academic, male-centric discourse weakens Offred's story by threatening the previous narrative in which the female, Offred, was the main focus, this reading doesn't seem to take into account the full scope of what Atwood, as a deliberate stylist of the narrative voice, is trying to do. As the fictional Professor Piexioto informs us, 'there was little that was truly original' about Gilead and this was deliberate on the part of its real author. Atwood garnered her ideas for Offred's narrative from the external world, be that Afghanistan with its 'full', covering-up clothes for women, or America's fundamentalist Christian right, criticised in the epigraph's religious extracts which echo in ironic fragments throughout the text. This external world of ours includes those who try to diminish women or their stories as 'little', as both the Commander and Professor Piexioto do:

'How is the fair little one this evening?'... I notice that everything this evening is little. He wishes to diminish things, myself included.As the title of my little chat implies [Historical Notes on The Handmaid's Tale]...

Of course, it could be argued that Piexioto is being self-deprecating here. However, when you examine his talk in the wider context and see how he marginalises Offred whilst according importance to the role of the 'elusive Commander', it seems more likely that Piexioto is in fact attempting to reduce the authenticity of Offred's story. In deliberately posing such a male-centric narrative of someone who 'held out no hope of tracing the narrator herself', Offred's strong, female-centred narrative is challenged. Offred faces being reduced to a mere artefact, a sideline in a man's history. When Offred has worked to create a 'herstory' which tells of women being subordinated in extreme manners under a totalitarian state where writing is banned, what is key is that this is only a possibility, not a certainty or something that has already actually happened. And, for

the reader, it is Offred's voice and the power of her story that remains in the mind, not that of the academic who attempts to 'own' her through his academic discourse.

Undoubtedly, Atwood does justice to the gender debate by encouraging the reader's 'questions', creating a conflict of narrative which demands our thought. Without the epigraphs, stream of consciousness-like interruptions and various voices, this would not have been possible. Atwood simultaneously presents a strongly female narrative voice, whilst also acknowledging the existing threat posed from males who seek to concentrate on 'his story' rather than 'her story.'

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/15136

Atwood, Margaret: The Handmaid’s Tale: A critical essayAn analysis of The Handmaid's Tale.

The Handmaid's Tale depicts an extreme version of the societal norm and appears to predict or warn of the dangers of totalitarianism and theocratic dictatorship. Written by a woman, its most obvious function as a dystopia is to present patriarchy as a dominant theme. The novel asks awkward questions concerning female complicity in such a system. The novel's past is our present and the nostalgia Atwood creates for the past challenges us to look at our own society and the parallels within in that, (in the novel) allowed the Gilead take-over: declining birth rate, increased infertility and the threat of nuclear disaster.

In Gilead, stringent authoritarianism means the suspension of constitutional rights, racial cleansing, torture, sectarian wars, public execution, secret police attacks, indoctrination and the victimisation of women. Eroticism is shown to be a central theme and women are inevitably seen as objects of sexual fantasy, treated according to their child-bearing capabilities. 'From each according to her ability; to each according to his needs' quotes a distorted Marxist phrase to emphasise this point. Every act associated with sexual activity is assigned a public ritual which is controlled by patriarchy: copulation, birthing, Prayvaganzas. Offred sees herself as a 'two-legged womb, that's all', 'secretary flesh', 'a pure pig' and 'part of a psychological experiment'.

The importance of language is highlighted as the main instrument of ideological and social control. The names people are given determines the way they perceive themselves - 'Of-fred' infers the subjugation of women and their 'ownership' by men.

Offred is the anonymous sufferer who articulates all. She concentrates not on politics but on private matters. She offers an inside view of the effects of political change through an ordinary, powerless citizen. She suggests that in all patriarchal tyrannies there is a complete vacuum: morally, culturally and intellectually. These have been replaced by suppression of the truth, violence and deception. Offred's voice is therefore a vehicle for confronting crucial matters. What was it like to be human then? Was it possible to be human then? Is 'then' so different from 'now' or the Epilogue's future?

The society defeats Moira (the most rebellious, politically astute and observant woman in the novel), who foresaw the coup d'etat and whose prediction, 'It's me and you up against the wall' foreshadowed the hanging and sexual perversion sanctioned in Gilead.

At Jezebel's, Offred knows she will not get 'swashbuckling heroism' from Moira, who has ended up as the saddest stereotype of all - in a brothel, having been tortured and silenced into submission. Janine is an example of impending mental and emotional collapse: voluntary victim in the Red Centre to mad woman at the Particization, clutching a handful of bloodstained hair. After the triumph of the birth, she is left neglected 'crying helplessly'. The night scenes reveal Offred's debates with herself which reflect the narrow line that separates endurance from crazed panic,' Oh God, oh God, how can I keep on living?' She confesses to enjoy taunting Janine and takes an active part in public executions. However, she replies affirmatively to the question, 'Are you happy?' 'I feel for the first time their true power' is such an instance that suggests that Offred is teetering on the brink of total acquiescence - a terrifying thought.

When Offred asks the apparently trivial question, 'I would like to know what is going on' Atwood is commenting on the dangers of passivity and using an example of an extreme society to examine our own. This makes us realise how ill-informed we are about the evils of our contemporary world and how easy it is to accept the unlawful and bizarre as acceptable.

When Offred meets the Commander in frequent rendezvous in his office, we are shown that it is all too easy to create a 'humanity' for someone. She feels sympathy for him - 'he was so sad.' Offred never allows herself to forget that he is in greater control and is trapped in traditional patriarchal assumptions ('nature's norms') which justify the double standard of Gilead. His explanation for the system is simplistic and patronising - women were enslaved as men had nothing to work for. 'We thought we could do better... better never means better for everyone... it always means worse for some.' The relationship with the Commander is still a game of sexual power. The doctor is another ambiguous figure who represents the evils of a patriarchal structure. He is prepared to abuse his position for his own sexual gain. In the Epilogue, Professor Pieixoto's fascination with male politics serves to irritate readers into recognising the evils of male domination and unchecked sources of power.

There is a warning about women also: they are shown to be not uniformly subversive. If the characters represent groups, then Serena Joy and the Aunts are the opponents of feminism and among the Handmaids there is a wide spectrum of views - from Janine to Moira. The creators of Gilead showed foresight in having women against women and this is a warning to the reader that a women's culture is no guarantee of sisterhood as Offred's mother's generation of feminists optimistically envisaged.

Women can be violent and vindictive and may collaborate in oppressive regimes alongside men. The Aunts, for example, are propagandists on behalf of the central authority. They tell distorted tales of women's lives in pre-Gileadean times, showing

crude videos of women being attacked. They are also responsible for some of the gruesome cruelties in Gilead - feminist salvagings, persecution and individual punishments at the Red Centre.

Offred's mother emphasises the dangers of passivity and women who take no interest in women's rights and suffer the results later. She calls Offred a 'backlash of a post-feminist generation of women, naive and politically irresponsible' - therefore urging us not to adopt these views. Despite this, Atwood is warning against going too far. Gilead happened because men felt threatened by feminist forces and the result was a society unlike one that had been expected. 'Mother... you wanted a woman's culture. Well, now there is one. It isn't what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies.' The reader must be aware of evil power groups who exploit the slogans of radical feminists as new instruments of female oppression. For example, women wanted freedom from male attacks, but now '... nobody touches us,' as Offred says.

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/14345

Cloud Atlas - OCR coursework on a modern novelA Level student Yi Wen Hon writes about David Mitchell's award-winning novel, adapted from her OCR coursework on the modern novel.

An intricately constructed work of art, the novel Cloud Atlas presents within each of its six interconnected sections the idea of man's repression in the political, social, historical, as well as psychological arenas. Through the use of structure, language and character, these themes are clearly outlined with emphasis upon mankind's thirst for power and the cycle of destruction brought about by this.

The power of territorialismThe story both begins and ends with one of the most basic displays of power: that of territorialism, as the might with which colonialists impose their authority over the colonized can clearly be seen. Lines such as 'protesting Aboriginals... were casually slain' and 'I was hooded like a goat b'fore slaught'rin'' indicate the oppressors' self-assured superiority over the conquered, who are dehumanized and thus subject to enslavement. A deep sense of irony can be seen here as it is the colonizers, instead of the colonized, who embody less human characteristics, with their animalistic 'rapacity... for dominion' as well as their 'savage' and 'predatory' nature forming the basis of their dominion over others. This arrogance attributes itself to a belief in 'God's ladder of civilization', with Christianity seen as a 'civilizing' force upon 'savages'. Religion is thus depicted as an empty construct designed to justify human actions, although this could also be interpreted as evidence of man's lack of respect for the sacred in his manipulation of belief.

Corporate colonialismThe corporate world, as the modern equivalent of colonialism, is depicted in the novel as a strongly negative force which encroaches upon all areas of life. For example, in 'Half-Lives', the power possessed by corporations can clearly be seen, as Seaboard 'could buy Alaska if they wanted'. Indeed, in 'An Orison of Sonmi~451', the authoritarian 'corpocratic' government of Nea So Copros is presented as having an almost religious dominance over the minds of its citizens, in keeping with the ideas of dystopia first imagined by the likes of Huxley and Orwell. 'The eternal feet of the Beloved Chairman' and 'Catechisms' are mentioned: the language here is biblical in tone. One of these Catechisms, 'A Soul's Value is the Dollars Therein', encapsulates the idea of man's

greed consuming his own self. This self-destruction reflects itself insociety's spiritual disintegration, in which individuality is lost and souls are seen as interchangeable and material.

Flawed humanityIt is due to man's enslavement to his own faults that he succumbs to such degeneration, both psychological and spiritual. For example, Frobisher's pride and his greed for 'fame and fortune' in 'Letters from Zedelghem' enable his manipulation by a 'parasite-master', his Artist's narcissism preventing salvation from his inevitable downfall. Cavendish, on the other hand, is subjected to the restrictions of old age, sardonically echoing images of colonialism in the line, 'the tribe of the elderly will claim you'. His sense of incapacity breeds bitterness, as for example he 'snapped' and says 'my sarcasm disgusted me'. This could be seen as an indication of the moral deterioration in society characteristic of the 21st century, although this frustration could also perhaps highlight both the physical and psychological effects of ageing. It is his inability to accept this that forces Cavendish's submission to the tragicomedy that is Aurora House. As mentioned above, it is mankind's inherent 'will to power', the 'entropy written within his nature', which leads to the 'Fall' of 'Civ'lize'. Humans are portrayed as victims of their own flawed souls, and the course of civilization becomes inevitable as these errors are repeated throughout time.

Repetition and reincarnationIt is our humanity that facilitates both our successes and failures, and the parallels and echoes in each section emphasize this idea of mankind's helplessness in the inevitable cycle of history. For example, the ship 'the Prophetess' features prominently in the first section and is mentioned in the third section, whilst a 'Prescient ship' which brings with it hope of salvation appears in the last. Besides this, the parabolic order in which the six stories are arranged echoes the inevitable symmetry of action and consequence as well as its cyclic quality. The idea of repetition in history and time is also shown in the theme of reincarnation, which remains temptingly implicit through the 'comet-shaped birthmark' possessed by each protagonist in the novel - an idea dismissed by Cavendish as 'far too hippie-druggy-new age'. Nevertheless, the character ironically appears as a reincarnation of himself from Mitchell's debut novel, Ghostwritten. As a critic from The Guardian suggests, the way in which Mitchell chooses to interweave characters and places in literature is an indication of the 'hidden order' of life, and this enables us to 'make sense of our brief lives' by relating them to humanity's subservience to time.

Authority over the readerThe readers, as human beings, are just as subject to the ideas of control and captivity evoked by Mitchell as the characters in the novel. By structuring his narratives in a

'sextet for overlapping soloists', with each section interrupted by the next in mid-breath, Mitchell declares his power over the readers in his manipulation of their emotions as well as in his control over the information conveyed to them. This is further emphasized by the comments scattered throughout the text reminding the reader of the artificiality of the work, as Frobisher declares, 'it... seems too structured... and its language doesn't ring quite true' whilst Sonmi says, 'Didn't you spot the hairline cracks... in the plot?' In this way, the Wittgensteinian idea of language as a powerful means of control is underlined, and the author's position of authority over individuals, both fictional and real, is demonstrated.

The power of the readerNevertheless, despite having successfully depicted mankind as 'helpless victims of greater forces', Mitchell reverses this by ending the novel on a didactic note. In doing so, he encourages the reader to transcend his authorial control by seeing past the fragmented counterpoint of interwoven narratives in order to view the novel's central themes and ideas as a whole. As the symbolically-named Adam declares, 'if we believe humanity may transcend tooth and claw... we must begin somewhere', with inclusive, personal language employed here as a means of persuasion. Thus, the power of the reader to subvert the natural course of history is shown, providing a glimmer of hope with which man can escape the 'entropy written within his nature'.

Captivity and controlThe novel Cloud Atlas is, in essence, an exploration of the various forms of captivity and control which are entwined in the nature of humanity. Nevertheless, within this idea of man's subservience to powers beyond his control lies the hope of salvation and liberation. These themes are carefully arranged in a tightly woven multitude of styles and ideas, which, when unravelled, provide the reader with a sense of having glimpsed 'a truer Truth, hiding in imperfect simulacrums of itself'.

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/14859