Literature has often been used as a medium in which the author can bring to light the plight of people who are ostracized or marginalized for any number of reasons. From segregation and racial discrimination to inequality between Genders and the oppression of women, literature has the ability to reach out and usurp the perspective of the reader and provide them with a whole new one to shine a light on what life may be like being subjected to such experiences of “Otherness”. Both The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King are both books which bring to the fore the plights of two different groups of people: Women and the domination and subjugation of the gender is the basis for The Handmaid’s Tale, while Green Grass, Running Water identifies the attempt of Native Americans to hold onto their culture in the face of a society that disregards their ancestry and subsequently find themselves marginalized, and both books show how each of these groups attempt to speak out and resist despite the odds against them.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a book that explores the oppression and subjugation of women at the hands of a totalitarian regime …show more content…
This particular aspect of Eli’s character is an attempt by Thomas King to point out the similar situation of many Native Americans living in the United States of America today who are having to give up their past in order to attain a future, despite the immeasurable cost of losing their heritage and traditions, and it is this loss of heritage and traditions and the marginalization of the Native American people that Thomas King wishes to explore through the events in his