Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale Essay examples -- Margaret Atwoo

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale Chapter nine opening section two of the novel is mainly recalling the last chapters and about the narrator rediscovering herself, surfacing the truth. In section one we see the narrator talking in the present tense in a very descriptive form, outlining the novel. However in section two we see her talking in the past tense demonstrating the stories she is telling. The separation between the human and the natural world and the narrator’s struggle with language most directly portrays the novel's dualities. In chapter nine there are many areas’s in which specific linguistics are used to tell the story. This is evident in the very opening paragraph of chapter nine, when the narrator says â€Å"The trouble is all in the knob at the top of our bodies†. The noun euphemism ‘knob’ for the head has connotations of a mechanical device which links in to the â€Å"illusion that they are separate†. This creates a binary opposition between emotion versus reason (heart versus brain), creating the idea that the narrator is dislocated form herself. The narrator is sceptical about language as she blames words and makes it the culprit just like when the ‘husband’ kept saying he loved her on page 28. Another area where we see the narrator’s distrust in words is when she clearly states â€Å"I’ll never trust these words again†. The use of this future tense declarative reveals the narrator’s fear and suspicion of words (especially about the word love). The narrator seems to think the entire body should be called the same as she says â€Å"the language is wrong, it shouldn’t have different words for them†. Later we see Atwood displaying the narrator’s pessimistic language when she uses the declarative â€Å"Bu... ...r’s memories more. This is evident in chapter ten whist the narrator is view the scrapbooks, she says â€Å"I couldn’t remember ever having drawn these pictures† and â€Å"I was disappointed in myself, I must of been a hedonistic child†. The verbs clustered together suggest the narrator really struggles to recall her memories. Another key suggestion to the narrator’s fault memory is the way she intertwines the past and present, making the reader at times unaware of which is which, also the way in which the narrator continually contradicts herself. This is evident on page twenty when she is placed in a paradoxical position when she thinks â€Å"if you live in a place you should speak the language. But this isn’t where I lived†. We see the clear contradiction as earlier she stated â€Å"I can’t believe I’m on this road again† notifying the reader that she does belong there.