In 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood and 'The Remains of the Day' by Kazuo Ishiguro compare how the authors focus on identity through the use of their characters and their relationships.

Authors Avatar

Daniel Ward    TROTD = The Remains of The Day         THT = The Handmaid’s Tale

In ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ by Margaret Atwood and ‘The Remains of the Day’ by Kazuo Ishiguro compare how the authors focus on identity through the use of their characters and their relationships.

‘The Remains of The Day’ and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ are two novels from opposing ends of the fictional literature spectrum. On one side we have “THT” a novel set within a dystopian future using relationships between characters to emphasise the strictness of the regime currently being operated in Gilead most fitting would the relationship between The Commander and Offred. In a totally different end of the metaphorical literature spectrum we have “TROTD” which sets its main characters within Darlington Manor in the month of July 1956 where the novels protagonist, Stevens, the first person narrator looks back in retrospect towards the events of the early 1920’s where him and his fellow under-staff observe their employer gradually lean towards Nazism and becoming a national traitor in the crucial build up to World War II. The relationships explore within this novel are also used to enforce the hierarchy within Darlington hall. Both novels are shown to explore various themes including that of, Age, Personal interaction, Dignity (or a lack of dignity), regret loss and above all else personal identity and its effect on the individual characters identity.

In “THT” Offred’s society is set within a dystopian future whereas in “TROTD” Stevens is set within a nostalgic backdrop of rural England. This contrast of setting is ideal when comparing the main characters from the two novels.  On one side we have Offred caught within a future that holds no resemblance to its former beauty and morals (we notice that various landmarks in “THT” i.e. Harvard university in Boston, Massachusetts where the dreaded ‘wall’ offers its sick service just outside the campus) where men are in charge of society using women plainly for reproductive purposes therefore being a patriarchal orientated society. Again with Stevens we also have this male dominated hierarchal society but it’s entirely circled around a single most significant symbol, as we see that Stevens applies the same standards of greatness to the landscape of England as he does to himself. He feels that this English landscape is beautiful due to its restraint, calm, and lack of spectacle—the same qualities Stevens successfully cultivates in his own life as a butler aspiring to "greatness." This use of setting in both novels is important as it gives ‘Stevens’ and ‘Offred’ noticeably pressuring conditions in which their relationships must triumph, blossom and most importantly evade.

Join now!

 

“TROTD” tells the story of an elderly English butler named Stevens as he confronts disillusionment through a recalled life spent in service with his long remembered memories viewed against a backdrop of war and the rise of Fascism. “THT” Offred is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic state that has replaced the United States of America. Because of dangerously low reproduction rates, Handmaids are assigned to bear children for elite couples that have trouble conceiving. The Commander is the head of the household where Offred works as a Handmaid. He initiates an unorthodox ...

This is a preview of the whole essay