expository paragraph

How effective is the author at capturing the reader’s attention in the first few chapters of the novel? The novel goes immediately into an unfamiliar, unexplained world, using unfamiliar terms like “Handmaid,” “Angel,” and “Commander” that only comes to make sense as the story progresses. In this novel, Margaret Atwood tells more than the story of Offred, the story of Gilead, and the story of a society set in the future where women are classified depending on the status of their husbands and the status of their “ovaries”. Their function is to be impregnated by Commanders, powerful males of the previous society, and to bear the children that will occupy the future.
Atwood’s writing is in the sense of trying to say too much, if not everything, in order to capture the reader’s attention, and strap them onto the happenings in the story, and the wanderings in the story. She tells this story in a light manner that is not afraid of speaking of heavy things. These first few chapters establish the novel’s style, which is characterized by physical description. The protagonist goes where her thoughts take her; one moment to the present, in the Commander’s house, and the next back in the gymnasium, or in the old world, the United States as it exists in Offred’s memory. The author captured my attention by making me want to know and understand more. As has been noted, Atwood’s writing is in sense of trying to say too much, if not everything, to capture readers attention, and make them want to know and understand more.

Select and comment on passages from the novel that establish the setting. Consider the role of time and place on the development of character in the first part of the novel.