VOICES IN THE DARKNESS
“People need such stories, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.”
― Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam
“Dear readers: everything you've ever asked me about Gilead* and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we've been living in.”
― Margaret Atwood
AXE : FICTIONS AND REALITIES
THèME : Dystopia, a societal catharsis?
PROBLÉMATIQUE : To what extent does fiction draw on reality to question, sublimate or reinvent it?
DEFINITION: A dystopia is a narrative that presents a fictional society, often set in the future, where people live under extreme control, fear or injustice. Dystopian fiction exaggerates real problems in order to warn society and make readers think about the actual world they live in.
Read this summary of the Handmaid’s Tale and answer the questions.
1) Find a title for each paragraph.
2) Where is the plot set ? What kind of society is this ? How is it called ?
3) What is the place of women in that society ?
4) In what categories are women sorted ?
5) What real-world issues appear in this summary ?
6) What dystopian issues appear in this summary ?
Women's rights in the USA
The fight about abortion rights
- → Who decides what laws should be federal?
- → Who is part of the Supreme Court?
- → What is the impact of the Supreme Court on on women’s abortion rights?
The Testaments
How can fiction open your eyes to the world you live in ?
On your own, focus on one aspect of the document. Then, get in groups, report your findings to the others and share your views in order to answer the final question.
Americans : The next climate migrants
Atlantic City. By the end of this century, sea level rise alone could displace 13 million people in the USA.
Can fiction do something to help people open their eyes ?Listen to the podcast and write down the speakers' arguments.
- On the first picture, we can se a group of of young women all wearing long red dresses and white winged bonnets. They are all lined up, their hands folded over their stomachs and their heads down. On the right, we can see a woman in a brown coat standing in front of them. - On the second picture, we can see a woman in a red cloak and a white winged bonnet apparently coming down from an escalator. She is being watched by a tall man wearing a military uniform and a helmet. She seems to be avoiding his gaze, looking right in front of her, not in a provocative way, but still rather determined.
- The third picture is a poster for series’ release on hulu. We can see a portrait of a woman. The picture is vertically split in two parts. On the left, she is wearing a white winged bonnet and a red hooded cloak, on the right she wears her hair down and she has ordinary clothes.
- The series seems to be about a very oppressive, authoritarian world. Seing both sides of the woman on the poster, we can assume that there will be a confrontation between this ficticious world and the real world.
To invent the ficticious world of Gilead, Margaret Atwood found her inspiration both where it was expected by her readers (probably her imagination) and in "the world we’ve been living in", aka the real world. It is a very disturbing thing to say, because Gilead seems to be absolutely atrocious and we don’t like to think that this world was constructed as a distorted miror of our reality. It leads us to believe that something similar could occur to us if we don’t watch out for democracy, freedom and human rights. This literary genre is called dystopia.
I think it is very closely related with our situation today, as Aunt Lydia mentions climate disasters for example. Indeed, in this extract, Aunt Lydia, is expressing regrets about not having paid enough attention to the world around her. The reference to Robert Frost’s famous poem, « The Road Not Taken », enables Aunt Lydia to insist on the fact that what matters is the choices you make. By choosing what seemed to be the simplest situation, she reduced her freedoms, and most importantly, the very freedom to make choices. According to Aunt Lydia, everyone had become accustomed to the situation : « we’d been hearing these things for so long ») and in a wonderful closing sentence, she reminds us of the price you pay for not being vigilant : « You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk falls on you. » This is a frightening sentence, but incredibly clever and true and it highlights our responsibility in the world's real major issue.
“People need such stories, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.” ― Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam The main topic of this quote is dark stories, the words « dark » and « darkness » both appear in a very short sentence. The author, Margaret Atwood, explains why people need stories like the Handmaid’s Tales. Her justification is that voices in the darkness are better than a silent void. We can assume that she prefers striking, shocking stories with a real message to meaningless chatter.
This woman is in what seems to be the New York subway. She is wearing the iconic costume of Margaret Atwood’s handmaids and she is holding a sign that reads “Make Margaret Atwood fiction again”. This implies that The Handmaid’s Tale has become reality, which means that women may be losing some of their rights, some of their freedoms. Besides, the phrase on the sign is a pun on Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America great again”, probably stating that the restrictions on women’s freedoms are related to his presidency.
VOICES IN THE DARKNESS
Hélène Y. Stamos
Created on January 7, 2026
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Transcript
VOICES IN THE DARKNESS
“People need such stories, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.” ― Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam
“Dear readers: everything you've ever asked me about Gilead* and its inner workings is the inspiration for this book. Well, almost everything! The other inspiration is the world we've been living in.” ― Margaret Atwood
AXE : FICTIONS AND REALITIES
THèME : Dystopia, a societal catharsis?
PROBLÉMATIQUE : To what extent does fiction draw on reality to question, sublimate or reinvent it?
DEFINITION: A dystopia is a narrative that presents a fictional society, often set in the future, where people live under extreme control, fear or injustice. Dystopian fiction exaggerates real problems in order to warn society and make readers think about the actual world they live in.
Read this summary of the Handmaid’s Tale and answer the questions. 1) Find a title for each paragraph. 2) Where is the plot set ? What kind of society is this ? How is it called ? 3) What is the place of women in that society ? 4) In what categories are women sorted ? 5) What real-world issues appear in this summary ? 6) What dystopian issues appear in this summary ?
Women's rights in the USA
The fight about abortion rights
The Testaments
How can fiction open your eyes to the world you live in ?
On your own, focus on one aspect of the document. Then, get in groups, report your findings to the others and share your views in order to answer the final question.
Americans : The next climate migrants
Atlantic City. By the end of this century, sea level rise alone could displace 13 million people in the USA.
Can fiction do something to help people open their eyes ?Listen to the podcast and write down the speakers' arguments.
- On the first picture, we can se a group of of young women all wearing long red dresses and white winged bonnets. They are all lined up, their hands folded over their stomachs and their heads down. On the right, we can see a woman in a brown coat standing in front of them. - On the second picture, we can see a woman in a red cloak and a white winged bonnet apparently coming down from an escalator. She is being watched by a tall man wearing a military uniform and a helmet. She seems to be avoiding his gaze, looking right in front of her, not in a provocative way, but still rather determined. - The third picture is a poster for series’ release on hulu. We can see a portrait of a woman. The picture is vertically split in two parts. On the left, she is wearing a white winged bonnet and a red hooded cloak, on the right she wears her hair down and she has ordinary clothes. - The series seems to be about a very oppressive, authoritarian world. Seing both sides of the woman on the poster, we can assume that there will be a confrontation between this ficticious world and the real world.
To invent the ficticious world of Gilead, Margaret Atwood found her inspiration both where it was expected by her readers (probably her imagination) and in "the world we’ve been living in", aka the real world. It is a very disturbing thing to say, because Gilead seems to be absolutely atrocious and we don’t like to think that this world was constructed as a distorted miror of our reality. It leads us to believe that something similar could occur to us if we don’t watch out for democracy, freedom and human rights. This literary genre is called dystopia.
I think it is very closely related with our situation today, as Aunt Lydia mentions climate disasters for example. Indeed, in this extract, Aunt Lydia, is expressing regrets about not having paid enough attention to the world around her. The reference to Robert Frost’s famous poem, « The Road Not Taken », enables Aunt Lydia to insist on the fact that what matters is the choices you make. By choosing what seemed to be the simplest situation, she reduced her freedoms, and most importantly, the very freedom to make choices. According to Aunt Lydia, everyone had become accustomed to the situation : « we’d been hearing these things for so long ») and in a wonderful closing sentence, she reminds us of the price you pay for not being vigilant : « You don’t believe the sky is falling until a chunk falls on you. » This is a frightening sentence, but incredibly clever and true and it highlights our responsibility in the world's real major issue.
“People need such stories, because however dark, a darkness with voices in it is better than a silent void.” ― Margaret Atwood, MaddAddam The main topic of this quote is dark stories, the words « dark » and « darkness » both appear in a very short sentence. The author, Margaret Atwood, explains why people need stories like the Handmaid’s Tales. Her justification is that voices in the darkness are better than a silent void. We can assume that she prefers striking, shocking stories with a real message to meaningless chatter.
This woman is in what seems to be the New York subway. She is wearing the iconic costume of Margaret Atwood’s handmaids and she is holding a sign that reads “Make Margaret Atwood fiction again”. This implies that The Handmaid’s Tale has become reality, which means that women may be losing some of their rights, some of their freedoms. Besides, the phrase on the sign is a pun on Donald Trump’s campaign slogan “Make America great again”, probably stating that the restrictions on women’s freedoms are related to his presidency.