ENG110Y1 Lecture 7: Handmaid's Tale Plot Notes
Document Summary
Our thoughts are often a blend of memories of the past and speculation about the future. Whenever the narrator has a flashback to a memory an absence of quotation marks is lacking to separate speech from thoughts. Often the narrator"s flashbacks are used to explain the past and provide context to the plot of the story. Furthermore, the narrator"s thoughts seem to be very much blended, it is quite difficult to tell if a flashback is occurring or if the narrator is speaking about the present. What techniques does the novelist use to keep the past separate from the present in the narrator"s telling of the story? the chronology of the novel definitely felt strange. At times the novel would jump to the past at points that seemed insignificant, and would fast forward without notice to the reader. This often led to confusion when reading the story.
