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In reply to the discussion: Rec if you agree: I applaud Michelle Wolf for calling out Sarah Sanders for her constant lies. [View all]JohnnyRingo
(18,624 posts)15. I applaud the Handmaids Tale reference.
I don't know about everyone else, but I did what Sarah did when she got home... I googled it:
Character Analysis
Agony Aunt
There are plenty of unlikable characters in this dystopic nightmarescape, but we have a special reserve of hatred for Aunt Lydia. A lot of that comes from the fact that she's a woman... and yet seems totally happy to be an agent of a Republic that is organized around the systematic repression of all women. Who does that, Aunt Lydia? Ugh, we hate you.
Sometimes Aunt Lydia seems to be the voice of the Women's Center and the voice of the Republic of Gilead. It's her voice the narrator hears over and over explaining the rules and consequences of this new lifestyle. Her words shape the manipulation and brainwashing at the Center, lead the women in remaking themselves as Handmaids, and twist Biblical passages to provide justification for this new lifestyle.
One of the narrator's key observations about Aunt Lydia is this: "Aunt Lydia thought she was very good at feeling for other people" (8.27). This says a lot both about Aunt Lydia and the way the narrator sees her. Aunt Lydia believes one of her strengths is "feeling for other people," but from where we're standing (via the narrator's vantage point) this is hardly true. The only people Aunt Lydia seems to feel for are Commanders' Wives. She tries to manipulate the Handmaids into feeling compassion for the Wives:
Try to think of it from their point of view she said, her hands clasped and wrung together, her nervous pleading smile. It isn't easy for them. (3.18)
This statement reveals Aunt Lydia's qualities as a master manipulator. She "pleads" with the Handmaids, using body language like "clasped and wrung" hands to signify entreaty, while "smil[ing]" at them and seeming to act "nervous." Yet are we supposed to find any of her rhetoric legit?
Agony Aunt
There are plenty of unlikable characters in this dystopic nightmarescape, but we have a special reserve of hatred for Aunt Lydia. A lot of that comes from the fact that she's a woman... and yet seems totally happy to be an agent of a Republic that is organized around the systematic repression of all women. Who does that, Aunt Lydia? Ugh, we hate you.
Sometimes Aunt Lydia seems to be the voice of the Women's Center and the voice of the Republic of Gilead. It's her voice the narrator hears over and over explaining the rules and consequences of this new lifestyle. Her words shape the manipulation and brainwashing at the Center, lead the women in remaking themselves as Handmaids, and twist Biblical passages to provide justification for this new lifestyle.
One of the narrator's key observations about Aunt Lydia is this: "Aunt Lydia thought she was very good at feeling for other people" (8.27). This says a lot both about Aunt Lydia and the way the narrator sees her. Aunt Lydia believes one of her strengths is "feeling for other people," but from where we're standing (via the narrator's vantage point) this is hardly true. The only people Aunt Lydia seems to feel for are Commanders' Wives. She tries to manipulate the Handmaids into feeling compassion for the Wives:
Try to think of it from their point of view she said, her hands clasped and wrung together, her nervous pleading smile. It isn't easy for them. (3.18)
This statement reveals Aunt Lydia's qualities as a master manipulator. She "pleads" with the Handmaids, using body language like "clasped and wrung" hands to signify entreaty, while "smil[ing]" at them and seeming to act "nervous." Yet are we supposed to find any of her rhetoric legit?
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Rec if you agree: I applaud Michelle Wolf for calling out Sarah Sanders for her constant lies. [View all]
S.E. TN Liberal
Apr 2018
OP
Yep, and as I read downthread, I see that some people just have to rag about something. . .
TheBlackAdder
Apr 2018
#69
She was careful to say "get stuck under a tree", not injure her. . . . nt
Bernardo de La Paz
Apr 2018
#10
All of the media sitting there who don't have the backbone, and ONE woman stands up.
rwsanders
Apr 2018
#13
Sanders is a significant part of undermining democracy in America due to her constant lying.
S.E. TN Liberal
Apr 2018
#20
Exactly. For three days I've been trying to find his comments right after he was hired....
George II
May 2018
#109
You insult Sarah Huckabee Sanders more than Wolf with your "concern" that a "working mother"
ehrnst
May 2018
#114
Now, you are switching to attacking what the author said, not what Michelle Wolf said.
S.E. TN Liberal
Apr 2018
#59
For the third time....Here's the response to your posts that say "report back." Makeup named Ash....
ehrnst
Apr 2018
#92
So you think that women can't handle being in the public eye and being joked about like men
ehrnst
May 2018
#113
I'm really looking forward to their reaper, a grim one. So far they haven't paid the price.
erronis
Apr 2018
#82
Republicans don't understand her jokes because they think about people's looks
IronLionZion
Apr 2018
#43
Sarah and the boss she idolizes just sent 200 women and children to their deaths
Eliot Rosewater
Apr 2018
#78
I wish she had spent a little more time roasting the originator of lies and made up shit...
meadowlark5
Apr 2018
#79