Status and Society

Compare and contrast the ways in which Atwood in the the Handmaids tale and Chaucer in the Wife of Baths tale explore status in society.

Within the Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood, we see the institutions of Gilead through the eyes of Offred. The institutions are oppressive to women and they are based on an unyielding and authoritarian class system.

In the Wife of Bath we hear about her life story from her own personal perspective and views. The Wife lacks attractive physical feature and tries to compensate for this flaw by wearing fashionable clothing which she makes her self; moreover, the Wife gets pleasure from looking superior to her peers.The Wife of Bath wears bright red sticking whilst when she foes on Pilgramages, the red denotes a colour and connotes passion, desire, lust and promiscuity. " Hir hosen weren of fyn scarlet red ful striete yteyd, and shoes ful miste and newe". The pre modifier "scarlet: emphasises the shade of red worn, also the whole quote is in thrid person and for that motive someone is

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Sorority Row :

Synopsis : During a party in the Theta-Pi sorority house, the sister Megan plays a prank with her unstable boyfriend Garrett simulating an OD after using pills. Her sisters Jessica, Claire, Ellie, Cassidy and Garrett's sister Chugs suggest to dump her "body" in a lake and the stressed Garrett sticks the tire iron through the Megan's chest killing her. Cassidy decides to call the police, but the sisters are convinced to dispose the body in a shaft and keep in secret under the leadership of Jessica that blackmails Cassidy. Eight months later, in their graduation party, the sisters receive a creepy message with the picture of the tire iron in the beginning of a nightmarish night.

Women in this film are dominant and therefore in control within this movie over men. However this film ends with one of the girls boyfriend being the killer getting his revenge on the other girls. The girls get killed off one by one, starting with the less innocent ones. The whole idea that only the non virginal girls disappear first connoting that being a non virgin is a bad thing. The target audience demographic is aimed at teenagers to young adults. They are represented as college girls who like to party, drink and play pranks. The stereotypes are effective because it fits in with the typical/conventional college horror film. In addition, one horror convention used is the use of small communities. It is set on a college campus which is a small community with people that will be closely knit. It makes use of a lot of sound effects to build tension and the use of lots of different camera angles and shots, such as the use of a worms eye shot. Iconography of blood is used aswell as lots of special effects. This thriller movie represnets women to be split in to two sub categories, 1. virginal, innocent, worthy of living 2. non virginal, worthy of dying, too out going and hence a negative representation.

I know what you did last summer : Four teens are in great danger one year after their car hits a stranger whose body they dump in the sea.

This movie follows a group of teenagers who accidentally kill a man whilst driving around acting foolish. After a year we return to the teenagers lives in a high school. At this point the movie follows one of the teenage girls when she receives a note consisting of : 'i know what you did last summer'. being the innocent one and wanting to go to the police she is the last one to be targeted. Whereas her 'pretty-pagean queen' friend is the first to get targeted. This representation is quite a pessimistic perspective of 'pretty girls', and therefore, a positive perspective of innocent and virginal girls.