Topic Proposal

This novel is confusing to say the least. If there was one thing that I want to focus on in this novel, the one thing that I want to learn more about would be how the women were put into that situation in the first place. My main research will be about the history of a handmaid. What are they historically and was it the same as in the book by Atwood? I hope that my research will help me discover exactly what a handmaid is, so that I can fit it into the context of the book. Was Atwood writing a fictional book about real experiences, or real things that happened? These are the guiding questions I hope to answer to really and fully dive into the text. I feel that with more knowledge I will be able to understand exactly were Atwood was coming from, when she wrote this book. I choose this topic because it was the most interesting. There are other places I have read about handmaidens, like the Bible, but from what I always understood they were not the same as they are portrayed in this book by Atwood. This is by far however, the hardest book I have had to read and analyze. I do hope to learn more about the language she uses to write this book, and I hope to overcome this challenge and learn to analyze even hard to understand texts.

A link that I found that talks a little bit about Atwood’s life can be found here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Margaret_Atwood

A visual that I found for this blog post was on YouTube from the user, writersFESTIVAL. It is of Atwood doing an author's reading! Enjoy!