...of Woman, portrays the exact feelings of Offred, the main character in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Taking place in a dystopian future, The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a totalitarian government under which women are harshly subjugated. Instead of accepting her current position as a handmaid. Offred longs to return to her previous life; however, in the Republic of Gilead, gender-based oppression is commonplace and often prevents Offred from achieving both her short and long-term aspirations. Similar to the painting Fair Rosamund by Arthur Hughes, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale examines how sexual oppression leads to the loss of identity, shaming of...
Words: 2399 - Pages: 10
...Context: Right now, at this precise moment, Offred is fulfilling her duties of getting the groceries for the Commander’s household, but with an addition of having to go with another assigned handmaid, Ofglen. Long story short, because the handmaids can cause trouble to those in power, they are subjected to have “watchers”; watchers, whom are hidden as other handmaids. This constant intimidation spooks Offred into being extremely wary of Ofglen’s true intentions, so much as that she decides in the end, that she will play the part of being a “true believer”. This troll becomes the first of many, where they venture out to different food markets and catch the attention of desperate untouched men. Context: During one of the many walks Ofglen...
Words: 378 - Pages: 2
...The main character of the story is Offred, who is a handmaid. She swears to never say her former name, as that is something that doesn’t matter anymore. She’s lost her husband, Luke, as well as her daughter, who we don’t know the name of. Offred has been assigned to a new commander, because the last one didn’t work out. She seems to always follow the codes set into place, but she starts to realize that everything is completely disastorious and she speaks out against it. Her only real job is to bear children to the commander, as all the children were affected by the nuclear gas during the war. Costumes are a symbol in the novel, as they have returned to colonial period clothing. They all wear different colors. The commanders wear black, their wives a blue...
Words: 691 - Pages: 3
...The Handmaid’s Tale Societies throughout history have impacted the lives of its inhabitants. In “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood the main character, Offred, is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead which is the new society that took over the United States. Offred experiences some truly horrific things. This society shaped the lives of the citizens into something far from our modern day human experience by societies using the idea of normality. In the Republic of Gilead people use diction to make things that are unusual seem normal. One example of this is calling women “Handmaids”, “Marthas” or “Wives”. These terms devised by the Republic are used to make the profession of women become their identity. They also do this by giving...
Words: 520 - Pages: 3
...so that they could “exchange names”. By using the verb “learned” Atwood shows these women capable to acquire knowledge to adapt to situations while doing this together the women exchange pieces of their identity with one another establishing a stronger relationship. (3)In the past women hadn’t had the same freedom they once did. For example the character, Lady Nijo in Act One stated how she “belonged” the Emperor a position she was “brought” up from a “baby”. The word belonged suggests how she is a possession, an object, a thing without feelings to her a woman capable of making her own decisions. It implies it is the purpose of women to serve men; it’s what they’re bred for. The recurring b’s her conveys that she felt angry but there was very little she could do about it.(4) By contrast the women in the future dystopian novel once had freedom before and lost when Gilead came into power. Offred compares the value of the board game Scrabble when it was “once the game of old women”, “Now of course”; the value is “Now it’s different” it “is freedom”. Atwood uses the repetitive “Now” to emphasize how the sight Scrabble is intoxicating Offred and how she longs for freedom. It also demonstrates how the short sentences here to have more impact and importance to the statements. She also shows how simple luxuries like a common game of Scrabble can contribute to freedom that the citizens of Gilead used to have, one that the reader can relate to. (5) The reminiscence of Marlene’s guests in...
Words: 885 - Pages: 4
...own small ways. The women are the key to the survival of Gilead. In order to ensure their survival, the founders of Gilead drew up a philosophy that they drilled into the women’s heads. They first broke down the women’s spirit by essentially re-educating them about what would now be accepted in society and would not be tolerated. "Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary" (Atwood 33). The Aunts drill this propaganda into the Handmaids’ heads to ensure that they will remember. This type of brain washing helped break down the Handmaids’ morals. Continuously being told that what they were being tasked was right made it easy for the Offred, the main character who is a Handmaid, to be impregnated by the Commander. She disregarded the Commander’s wife, not of spite but out of indifference. The propaganda spread by the government eventually...
Words: 1512 - Pages: 7
...Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 i RTNA01 1 13/6/05, 5:28 PM READING THE NOVEL General Editor: Daniel R. Schwarz The aim of this series is to provide practical introductions to reading the novel in both the British and Irish, and the American traditions. Published Reading the Modern British and Irish Novel 1890–1930 Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Daniel R. Schwarz Brian W. Shaffer Forthcoming Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel Paula R. Backscheider Reading the Nineteenth-Century Novel Harry E. Shaw and Alison Case Reading the American Novel 1780–1865 Shirley Samuels Reading the American Novel 1865–1914 G. R. Thompson Reading the Twentieth-Century American Novel James Phelan ii RTNA01 2 13/6/05, 5:28 PM Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Brian W. Shaffer iii RTNA01 3 13/6/05, 5:28 PM © 2006 by Brian W. Shaffer BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Brian W. Shaffer to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and...
Words: 123617 - Pages: 495
