24 June 2013

Episode 3 of The Custom House: Theocracy & Dystopia in The Handmaid's Tale

The Custom House - Theocracy and Dystopia (Extended Conversation w/Purnima Bose)View Edit

Artist: WFHB
Title: Theocracy and Dystopia (Extended Conversation w/Purnima Bose)
Album: The Custom House
Comment: copyright (c) 2013 Bloomington
Length: 32:36 minutes (29.85 MB)

This week we discuss how Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale demonstrates how easily modern America might become a truly repressive theocracy. The extended cut includes a review of the plot of the novel as well as a discussion of the cultural milieu in which Atwood composed the narrative. There is also a brief discussion of how the movie adaptation with Natasha Richardson, Aidan Quinn and Robert Duvall alters the book's ending.

America is a land founded on commercial ventures intended to gather in the riches of a virgin land but also upon the Puritan plan to set up a theocratic state. In this episode of The Custom House Purnima Bose, a professor in the International Studies Department of Indiana University, discusses how Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale demonstrates how easily modern America can become a truly repressive theocracy.

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