Part One : How it all began
A. Pick out the elements that used to be part of a normal world and the elements that are the norm now.
| Aspects of normal life | Today’s norm |
| Millions of women have a job. | Apparently not all women work. |
| Banknotes or paper money existed and was widely used for groceries. | Banknotes are obsolete (« can’t buy anything with it », line 7) and are being replaced by plastic cards (« Everything went on the Compubank », line 43). |
| Humour such as signs on cash registers saying « In God We Trust, All Others Pay Cash » was widespread. | Such jokes are banned and considered as blasphemy. This example is reminiscent of Oliver Cromwell’s Protectorate (1649-1660) in England where plays were banned. |
B. what was the turning point between « then » and « now »? Quote the text.
Line 25 : « It was after the catastrophe, when they shot the President and machine-gunned the Congress and the army declared a state of emergency. »
C. Write a short chronology of events.
- Assassination of the President
- Congress is machine-gunned
- State of emergency declared
- Constitution is suspended
- No rioting in the streets
- People stayed at home at night, watching TV and waiting for instructions
- Prolonged state of suspended animation
- Censorship and closure of media
- Appearance of roadblocks
- Identipasses
- Elections postponed
D.
Women or American women
« All those women having jobs : hard to imagine now, but thousands of them had jobs, millions. » (line 1-3) – unemployment of women to guarantee their servitude, loss of women’s rights. The first person narrator-focalizer is a woman. Her friend Moira quotes an expression of the narrator’s mother : »They’ve been building up to this. It’s you and me up against the wall, baby. »
E. Summary
F. What ingredients does the author use to turn normality to dystopia?
- Technology (from papermoney to plastic card, « everything went on Compubank ») and media are used to give further control to the totalitarian power.
- Symbolic violence against democratic institutions (President, Congress, suspended Constitution, media) to establish totalitarianism.
- An invisible enemy (« There wasn’t even an enemy you could put your finger on » (line 38)) and scapegoating some members of society (« Islamic fanatics ») – Similar device as in Orwell’s Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) where the enemy changes at whim.
- Fundamental rights are deprived (freedom of association/riots, elections postponed, censorship of media, Identipass and roadblocks to control movement)
- Internal focalization of a first-person narrator indicates that freethinking and independent thought are banned.- Comparison between « then » and « now » indicates nostalgia resulting from a life of extreme misery and even uncertainty and hopelessness for the future.
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