Professor Cline
English 102
11 November 2010
Topic Proposal
The topic that I plan to explore for Essay #4 is Cults. You can compare The Handmaid’s Tale to a cult. The definition of cult is: A group of people showing such devotion. (Webster Dictionary). It doesn’t say whether this devotion is voluntary or forced. In regard to cults and The Handmaid’s Tale, the devotion is definitely forced. For this blog post, you have asked; What about this text confuses you? Cults don’t confuse me. The answer to this question is not the subject that I’m writing my paper about. My confusion is I don’t really understand what led up to the Republic of Gilead? Was it World War III? I read the book and then re-read some chapters. Another confusing point is how do we know that Offred made it to the Canadian Border? As you can see my confusion has nothing to do with my subject matter (cults). My main question would be; “how do people end up in cults?” In comparing the book to cults, they are both the product of major “mind f**k” and master manipulators.I chose the topic of cult’s because I’ve always found them interesting, how one person can get total strangers to do the weirdest and sickest things. It’s so crazy and very sad.
I don’t know how this subject matter will help me better understand Atwood. I don’t quite understand this question? Atwood is a writer, who came up with this insane story.
Works CitedWebster Dictionary. New Edition, Springfield, Massachusetts. 1994.
