The first connection I saw between The Handmaid's Tale and Jasmine was when Jane relates her current life to her past life, just as Offred often does in her narration. Jane comments on Scott's "perfect teeth," saying, "I envy him his teeth... [because w]e had no dentist in Hasnapur" (19). This novel, like The Handmaid's Tale, is told non-linearly, and so both narrators dip in and out of past and present.
It becomes clear that Bud is living his life, although now divorced and handicapped, close to how he lived it before, whereas Jane and Du's lives change drastically as they have to escape. This is similar to Commanders' lives and the lives of all other roles, but namely the Handmaids. This fact about Jane's family made me think of the moment the Commander gives Offred a magazine, even though she "thought such magazines had all been destroyed" (152). For Offred, these magazines are destroyed, because she is forced to change her life drastically, like Jane and Du. Even though the Handmaids remained in the same place, with Offred still in the same town that she lived in with her husband and daughter, their lives still are undeniably altered as Gilead society begins to take over. For the Commander, however, just like Bud, life is much closer to being the same as it had been.
Du and Jane conform to their new society in Iowa, just as Offred begrudgingly conforms to Gilead. Even though they all keep aspects of their past with them in their thoughts, they keep those thoughts silent. The difference between these characters' conformation is that Du and Jane comply with society's demands by choice, because they want to fit in, while Offred goes along with Gilead due to the powerlessness of her position.
Jane's father and Offred both live in the past. (43)
No comments:
Post a Comment