Notes

Difference between old and new testament:
The Christian Bible has two sections, the Old Testament and the New Testament. The Old Testament is the original Hebrew Bible, the sacred scriptures of the Jewish faith, written at different times between about 1200 and 165 BC. The New Testament books were written by Christians in the first century AD.12 Jul 2011
The Old Testament shows the wrath of God against sin (with glimpses of His grace); the New Testament shows the grace of God toward sinners (with glimpses of His wrath)

Judicial precedent means the process whereby judges follow previously decided cases where the facts are of sufficient similarity. The doctrine of judicial precedent involves an application of the principle of stare decisis ie, to stand by the decided.
Similarly, they may use biblical/relgious texts as precedent in the handmaids tale by utalising the old testament to justify the actions in gilead.
Atwood suggests that radical governemnt dont jsut spring up. They are evoloutions and refinements of previous histprical roots/ideas. For isntanc ein the US this view of women as equal, able to divorce emn and be part of their metoo movements is only a very recent development in the 18th centuary. Merely, 17th centuary a centuary earlier the puritan rule was in vigour and its marked bias against women would only need a opputunity of social chaos to reassert itself. This still occurs today with all this equality and fairness disapperaing the instance there is spcial chaos e.g victim blaming in rape cases, the movement of men against feminsits who have taken to extremeism and celibacy.
Spying and survillence has always been around and is very much stilla orund today. The stasi police had massive archieves of survillence file/videos/audio recordings, the alisbury urssian spy poisoning,

Indystopias characters are controlled through propoganda. Such as the one in the rachel and leah centre, the wall, the constant overtly positve news about the war,
Information, inderpendent though and freedom are restricted. The people are stopped from wirting and using langauge by setting pre scripted conversations/phrases., they have pictures on shop signs rather than words, no names the names are assigned to the handmaids, all the poeple are put into uniform and categorised.
Citziens are fearful they're constantly under survillence by the eyes (nick is suspected as being one as he winks at ehr she cant tell if hes defiant or testing her), eachother (offreds orignal suspicion of offglen),

The dystopian protaganist:
Offred isnt struggling to escape because she doesnt want to escape. She's in it to play the long game and survive instead unlike moria.
She's also a middle and ordniary person. She isn't moira or offwarren who are too extremes. In this sense she resembles her readers Atwood draws paralles between us and her. She isn't a hero shes isnt an unattainable person- she's regular.
Offred may not have escaped-her story just may have. Like anne frank she didnt survive but her tale and dientity live on Through her words.
The dystopian protagnaist also helps the audience to recognisze the negative aspects of the dystopian world through ehr perspective. e.g people strive for a feminsit world and she points out when thinking of her mum that 'its a womens world' now. She hsows us our ideals such as freedom are corrupt because freedome for some is not freedom for all.