... and painful memories for company, the narrator, Offred, a handmaid herself, shows many signs of retreating further and further into her own world. Throughout "The Handmaids Tale", symbolism and imagery are reoccurring themes, and we see different thought processes through dramatic events and everyday situations. In reading "The Handmaids Tale" I noticed that everyday items and observations are likened to some kind of ... describes herself as "a Sister, dipped in blood." This image in particular refers to menstruation, a process the Handmaids have grown to dread as it proves they have "f...

• Word Count: 1438
• Approx Pages: 6
• Grade Level: High School

Brian Ricketts Doctorow's novel, Welcome to Hard Times is an anti-western novel. Doctorow attempts to debunk the western myth of the American dream. The essential theme in the novel is that the west fails to live up to the hope that civilization can conquer evil. In this way, it was first seen as an un-American ... women. These leaders see this as a return to a time when gender roles were more identifiable and less confusing. In modernist writing, rights and wrongs are more identifiable and characterization and theme less ambiguous. Like Doctorow's Hard Times, Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale se...

• Word Count: 2490
• Approx Pages: 10
• Grade Level: High School