Hl Assignment 4

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In this extract, Atwood illustrates the idea, “How does a person’s definition of freedom change depending on what society restricts from them.”

claim 1: Through her use of juxtaposition, Atwood highlights how a person’s idea of freedom is affected by the restrictions set in place by society. Throughout the extract, Atwood compares playing scrabble with kinks and sexual images. After describing how Offred and The Commander played scrabble together, she illustrates images that seem forbidden to the reader. “Something unspeakable, down on all fours perhaps, perversions, whips, mutilations?” (155). The ease with which Offred thinks about these things make her view on scrabble more intense to the reader, consequently shocking them. “To be asked to play Scrabble instead,as if we were an old married couple, seemed kinky in the extreme, a violation in its own way.” By juxtaposing these two images, Atwood creates irony within the reader that helps establish just how society’s view on freedom has changed. A society where sexuality and kinks are to be expected, but playing scrabble is forbidden.

This is supported by by Atwood’s use of imagery. Her vivid description of the sexual perversions and kinks, followed directly by the game of scrabble create irony within the text. Irony which elicits discomfort from the reader that something which they’d view as normal, is seen as a “violation” by the narrator. Atwood toys with the connotation of scrabble and of sexuality to compare the two and develop them in the reader’s mind as things with the same levels of violation.