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Zheng Jiayin (U0930491A), ADM

L814 Mid-term assignmenta book where each phrase is a moment. Each one complete and necessary. Each one is self

reliant: completes its work without leaving it up to the following phrase. As if nobody knew

whether another would follow

- Hlne Cixous

If Cixous is to be believed, the implication(s) of her claim is that a book is a paradoxical premise;composed both of phrases that are complete within themselves, and yet part of something else.

This would suggest that the book is both a sum of complete totals, and yet never quite just thatsummation: it is both more and less than its parts at the same time.

Please respond to Cixous claim with reference to at least one text (which may or may notbe from the course readings).

From Cixous statement, it can be inferred that the act of reading requires one to place

most emphasis on the details, because it is from each of these individual features that our

understanding of the text is formed. Although a focus on details contains the implication that the

big picture is overlooked, Cixous claim suggests, paradoxically, that the holistic reading of a text

can only be achieved with an in-depth comprehension of every minor part.

This is especially true in fragmented narratives, because our ability to understand and

piece together separate segments would then enable us to grasp the overall meaning of the text.

Margaret Atwoods The Handmaids Tale is one such example, and in the dystopian novel, we are

introduced to the projected theocratic totalitarian future of America through the eyes of the

protagonist Offred, a Handmaid whose state-sanctioned function is to bear children in the place

of infertile wives. Her narration at first seems confused and jumbled, with Offred not so much

telling a single story in a straightforward linear manner, but placing particular emphasis on

abstract objects and events.

In the space of waiting for the household to assemble, in one instance, Offred thinks,

Household: that is what we are. The Commander is the head of the household. The house is

what he holds. To have and to hold, till death do us part. The hold of a ship. Hol low. As Offred

moves through the different definitions of the word household, each phrase appears to be

suspended in a frame of meaning by itself, distinct from one another. But a closer reading would

bring to light a progression from merely stating (the official interpretation of household or

marriage as one made up of three parties the Commander, Wife and Handmaid), to exposing

the nature of such a contrived household hollow. As such, a focus on details would allow the

text to be read in its entirety as a literature of resistance against the totalitarian order; and

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enable the readers identification of Offred as the primary figure in this resistance as she

constructs her counter-reality to the regimes official discourse.

A complete understanding of the work only comes with sufficient attention to the time

and place of details. In The Handmaids Tale, Offreds storytellingfollows no chronological order

whatsoever, arbitrarily jumping from memory to reality, from past to present sometimes within

the space of a paragraph alone the significance of which we only grasp if we read the

supplementary Historical Notes at the back of the book. This section reveals that the whole text

is actually a transcript of separate tape recordings that Offred secretly saved, a retrospective

account of her experience as a Handmaid after she had escaped from it, hence undermining the

immediacy and emotional qualities of her story. Its narrative order has also been decided by

historians who rearranged Offreds voice recordings as they saw fit, which then puts the

authenticity of her original voice in question. Therefore, a comprehensive reading of the text can

only be gained by coming into terms with the reconstructed nature of Offreds narrative.

Also, the role of intertextuality makes a book more than merely the sum of its parts. The

Handmaids Tale, being grounded upon previous dystopian works such as George Orwells 1984,

is no different. The imagined world of the Republic that Atwood creates is based on the literal

interpretation of selected passages from the Old Testament, and the text itself reflects the form

and style of the monolithic theocracy that early Puritans introduced to America, addressing the

dynamics that bring about such a situation. With this knowledge, we would then be able to havemore multi-layered insights about the text.