Post-Reading

Gender Roles in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

1. Welcome - Hints & Tips
   
2. Pre-reading
   
3. Reading: Chapter 1
   
4. Reading: Chapters 2-13
   
5. Reading: Chapters 14-24
6. Reading: Chapters 25-30
7. Reading: Chapters 31-39, 40-46 and Historical Notes
8. Post-reading

Time Capsule

You have now finished reading the novel and the final section (Historical Notes).

Imagine Professor Piexoto announces at the Twelfth Symposium on Gilead Studies that a time capsule was found from the time Offred lived. In this time capsule, there is much more than just the tape cassettes: the capsule contains various items like diary entries, letters, newspaper articles, photographs, etc.

Task 14

Choose ONE of the following options and prepare a time capsule item that shows how life was like in Gilead. You should, of course, base your ideas on scenes and evidence from the story.

Options:

1.) A news report on the rise of the new state of Gilead

Go to breakyourownnews.com and create a fake news report on the rise of the new state of Gilead. Record yourself while presenting your news report. Imagine you are a news anchor and have 60 seconds to inform the people about what happened. (Use e.g. https://vocaroo.com/ for recording yourself)

2.) A WANTED! poster for an escaped Handmaid

E.g. use https://www.canva.com/de_de/ or a sheet of paper to create your poster. Include: where did she work? What does she look like? Where is she expected to be headed? Etc.

3.) A travel brochure's description of Gilead (e.g. from an Austrian traveller's point of view)

4.) A diary entry from the Commander's journal, recounting an evening he spent with Offred

5.) A diary entry from Nick's diary, e.g. when he winked at Offred secretly

6.) A diary entry from Offred's diary, e.g. a scene that takes place AFTER the events in the novel ended

You should fill one A4 page in a Word document. You can, of course, also include pictures or drawings etc.