Compare the way in which both writers use satire as a device to continue the accepted female roles in their respective society
Margaret Atwood and Mary shelly use satire as a device to criticise the accepted roles of women in their respective societies. Shelly magnifies the popular ‘angel of the house figure’ in order to critique the expectation that women must remain pious and devoted to their male counterparts more over this male dominated Chinese box narrative is reflective of Shelley’s attempt to distance female voices in order to highlight the powerful patriarchal society in which Shelley herself and other females were subjected to in the 1800s. Oppositely Attwood uses Offred as a mouth piece to denounce the unrealistic ideals that women faced in the previous 1980s American society but her conformity to the totalitarian regime allows Attwood to effectively condemn the new gender roles which have been assigned to the women.
Conceivably women with in the 1980s enjoyed liberation added by the gains of the second wave feminist movement contrastingly the 1800s confined women to a domestic bubble where her only role was to fulfil their maternal duties. The 60s and 70s encapsulate the removal of conservative views and the emergence into a new age where women governed their own lives and experienced a sense of autarchy never seen previously. Attwood thus uses the hand maid’s tale to reassert the thoughts of whether the freedom is experienced is sustainable or rather an illusion devised in order to make women feel there are becoming increasingly socially mobile. Hand maids are initially restricted to the white wings and full ankle skirt Offred even sees her own nakedness as ‘strange and ‘immodest’. The full skirts are symbolic of the demure nature of the handmaids but are also evidence of how they must constantly fit in to Gilead’s frivolous ideals, this is closely associated with the white wings that physically obstruct and frame the fertile women but also connotes the pious and virtuous qualities subliminally subjugated through largely male controlled advertising. Similarly Shelley satirises the tradition ‘angel of the house rule to bring o light the frigid society in which women are subject to under romanticist ideals as displayed by Caroline beau fort who was mostly occupied in attending him (her father) but strangely has a mind of ‘uncommon mould’.
Atwood further satirises the assumed ‘freedom to’ that the women in Gilead are given. In comparison there are very few differences in the amount of power given to the women In both the novels. Atwood paradoxically offers Offred narrative control over a situation in which she is the prisoner by detaching hr self from events , Offred assumes a degree of power in which she is able to define her existence or even construct it. However Atwood constantly reinforces through the names ‘Offred’ and ‘Ofwarren’ that the hand maids are ‘of’ another being (commander) and are subordinate to them. Correspondingly Shelley embeds a Chinese box narrative in which the masculine voice is dominant the virtual subversion of female characters and perspectives purposefully enacts in the novel's form the misogyny that dooms the male characters to failure and that particularly victimizes families, women, and children.
When taken at face value the sexual autocracy encountered by the 1980s American woman is arguably a result of the gains made by the second wave feminist movement. Never the Less Attwood satirises the portrayal of the westernised Japanese women in chapter37 to bring forth the thoughts that this ‘liberation is rather a freedom constructed by a patriarchal society. Attwood applies this satirical tone through the mouth piece, Offred who describes the rather conservative women to be thrusting the buttocks out and nearly naked. The use of the noun thrusting and the adjective naked displays Offred views of the women through the eyes of a heterosexual male – male gaze- the term gaze signifies the psychological relationship of power in which the gaze is superior to the object here we can track the role of the 1980s media where the gaze of the media overshadows and objectifies the female body. Oppositely Shelley’s hyperbolic portrayal of women with in the domestic sphere allows for a critical social commentary of the accepted female roles. Elizabeth is presented as finer than pictured cherub and as being heaven sent these celestial descriptions illustrate how women were constricted the this angel of the house doctrine.
Overall both writers use satire as a device to critique the accepted roles of women. Shelley’s hyperbolic representation of the female species magnifies the need to emancipate women from the shackles of the patriarchal society similarly Attwood uses satire to question whether the liberal society of the 1980s was genuine or rather a patriarchal construct.