Close Reading Essay: a Handmaid's Tale

Close Reading Analysis: The Handmaid’s Tale Often times when one reads a piece of literary work, the way that its’ themes and storyline are interpreted is truly dependant upon the reader’s individual beliefs and morals. The same passage from a novel or poem can be seen in completely opposite perspectives from two different readers, despite the fact that they contain the same literary text. By definition, this is what close reading is. It is taking a passage (or passages) from a work of literature and truly examining every single aspect of its content, from the literal word usage within the passage itself, to the underlying message(s) that that particular passage may be delivering to the reader. The purpose of this is so that one may gain a full and better understanding of the work as a whole and the many different ways that it can be translated. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the author Margaret Atwood uses literary language as one of her major tools within the novel to really captivate the reader and her usage of words really helps the reader connect with Offred and understand the issues that her story brings to the forefront. However, despite the many in depth passages from Offred’s account that one could closely analyze to fully understand these issues, it is my belief that Offred’s story isn’t really put into perspective until the end of the novel in the section entitled “The Historical Notes,” which includes the following passage: “But let me be serious. I wish, as the title of my little chat implies, to consider some of the problems associated with the soi-disant manuscript which is well known to all of you by now, and which goes by the title of The Handmaid’s Tale. I say soi-disant because what we have before us is not the item in its’ original form. […] The superscription of “The Handmaid’s Tale” was appended to it by Professor Wade, partly in homage to the great Geoffrey Chaucer; but those of you know Professor Wade informally, as I do, will understand when I