THT CRITICAL THEORIES

EXISTENTIAL APOLOGIA

• desperate coping mechanism wo men use to survive,undermine devaluation, coercsion, enslavement etc 
• she clings to society through enjoyment of simple pleasures-smoothing lotion on her hands 
• recollects pleasant frivolities that owmen once enjoyed
• alleviation from present misery

ORAL HISTORY freqeunt vehicle of the oppressed

• turn to the personal narrative as a means of preserving experince 
• offred offers inside view of effecs of political chnage ti ordinary citizens 

SPECUALTIVE FICTION

• intenetionally unsettling blen of surmise and warning based on current policitical social and relig trends 
• offred compelled to tell her story 
• her bleak fictional mnarratve connects real events of 1980s with possibel rramifications for a society gone too far into conservatism and mutated form of ww1 facsism 

WOMEN

• aunts intense efforts at subordination and indoctrination
• turning women agaisnt women 
• though off resists brianwash-her refrence to aunt kydias redious precepts and aphirsms-show the success of the regime 
• admits to enjoying torturing janine 
• and when japanese tourists ask her if happy she says yes
• she teeters on brink of total acquiescence-scares her
• moira and mother subvert authority 
• but she does possess a sense of humour 
• near mid life when values mothers campaigns 
• wife-drawn from phyllis 
• GIVEN SUBJECT MATTER FEMALE NARRATOR ETC 
• CORAL ANN HOWELLS ARGUES THAT ATWOOD ;CHOICE OF DEAMLE NARRATOR TURNS TO TRADITIOANLLY MASCULINE DYSTOPIAN GENRE UOSIDE DOWN'

PSYCHOLOANALYTICAL CRITISCMS 

• human behaviour determined by desires and drives 
• off becomes aware of this through dreams etc 
• night sections expression of hopes fears and desires etc 

FOCAULDIAN

• he wrote about roture punishemtn and discipline and how modern society creates docile bodies via surveillance and their internalisation 
• gilead is 'within you'
• HEIDI SLETTEDAHL MACPHERSON describes how republic fucntions 'overt mechanism of control'

POSTMODERNISM

• moving…