The Canterbury Tales & The Scarlet Letter
English Lit: Edexcel A Level The Handmaid's Tale, topic 4.2.1
Literary Context: The Canterbury Tales
According to the Historical Notes, the title of the novel - The Handmaid's Tale - is an intertextual allusion to Chaucer's work, The Canterbury Tales.
Title: job of the narrator
- "The superscription "The Handmaid's Tale" was appended to it by Professor Wade, partly in homage to the great Geoffrey Chaucer"
- In the Canterbury Tales, the many stories are titled by the job of the narrator, like The Knight's Tale. So The Handmaid's Tale makes sense.
- A "tale" is often fictional, which throws doubt on Offred's authenticity.
The oral tradition
- Atwood may be referencing the oral tradition of storytelling.
- Women would share their experiences by speaking to family and friends because they were not educated enough to be able to write down their stories.
- We are told that Offred records her voice on a series of cassette tapes. This gives the oral tradition of storytelling to legitimise women's experiences a more technological twist.
Literary Context: The Scarlet Letter
Nathaniel Hawthorne wrote The Scarlet Letter in 1850. The novel is set in Puritanical Massachusetts in the 17th century and clearly influenced Atwood's novel.
Hester Prynne
- Hawthorne's protagonist, Hester Prynne, is an unmarried mother who refuses to say who the father of her child is.
- As punishment, she is forced to stand on a stage in front of the townsfolk to be ridiculed and humiliated. She has to wear a red letter A (standing for Adultery) for the rest of her life.
Significance of red
- The colour red symbolises sin and links both of the texts together.
- The Handmaids wear red habits. This links to the idea of shaming and humiliating women for their sexuality and bodies: “Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood, which defines us.” (Offred)
Test yourself on The Canterbury Tales & The Scarlet Letter
What are the stories in The Canterbury Tales titled by?
Why did women historically tell stories, rather than write them down?