Question
How and why does Atwood compare the maids and their “cold eyed teenaged killer”, Telemachus? 200 words
Atwood makes the comparison between Telemachus and the maids, highlighting parallels, stating that they were “infants when he was an infant, wailing just as he wailed, helpless as he was helpless, but ten times more helpless as well”. Quotes like this create a defined distinction between the maids and Telemachus, they are one in the same besides their status at birth, their power.
They are both human, they both have the same mortal flesh, they were both born in the same location at the same time, but one was given every power that they could wish for and the other “found”. Atwood makes this active comparison to make the audience think about what the maids did to deserve their fate, a fate they could never have controlled no matter how much they wished to.
The maids implore the reader to “Ask the Three Sisters, […] Only they know how events might then have been altered”. This metaphor of the Three Fatal Sisters explores the idea that the ability to change one’s fate is inherently linked with power, and those who are the bottom of the hierarchy can’t change anything no matter how much they tried because nothing would change.
The maids and Telemachus are the same, but yet just due to their birth they are fated completely seperate lives.