...Oppression on Women in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, is memoir of a little girl growing in Iran. She refers to a secular pre revolutionary time through contrast, the oppressive characteristics of the fundamentalist government upon women in particular. Her work is a lot similar to Margaret Atwood's, A Handmaid’s Tale, in which the protagonist Offred reflects upon her former life’s freedom, cherishing her former name and in doing so emphasizes the cloistered and enslaved life that she must now endure. Although both Margaret Atwood and Satrapi show how a totalitarian state oppresses women in different ways by taking away the freedom to think and decide for oneself, both accentuating on the ways a woman should dress, which stratified society in Handmaid’s tale and enforced religious modesty in Persepolis. Growing up in the western society, we often think clothing as a means of expressing our individuality, our style, defining who we are. Offred grew up in a similar environment but it was taken away once she became a Handmaid. That was the precise reason why she felt “ fascinated but also repelled” (28) at the same time when she saw the Japanese tourist. She says she “used to dress like that. That was freedom. Westernized they used to call it”(28). She says this because she no longer gets to dress like the tourists any more. In a very little amount of time, the society has forced every individual to change...
Words: 960 - Pages: 4
...Primo Levi’s If this is a man, is a book about his personal experience at a concentration camp in poland during the second world war. It is very interesting but at the same time horrific because of what he had gone through. Margaret Atwood’s Handmaids Tale is a fictional novel about a woman living in a distopia in the near future. Their world is in that state because of nuclear war. The women who are able to give birth are called handmaids whose soul job is to give birth to children which aren’t theirs. It is also an interesting book but it does have a less realistic feeling to it. One of the main themes in If this is a man is the ‘demolition of a man.’ It is also a theme in The Handmaids Tale, but it is not discussed. During the rule of hitler, the regime would confiscate all of the prisoners possessions, which in my opinion could make them feel almost inhuman. Primo Levis character in this incredible story has a very strong personality. At one point he tells himself and believes that he has no chance of survival and he does not grasp on any chance of hope that comes along, compared to what many others did. He stays strong and is tries not to lose himself without any of his possessions etc. At first he is documenting exactly what happened to him, and gives no apparent emotion to what is happening. His use of the third person when describing events that occur and emotions make his writing more objective. He tells the reader that from what he has seen loss...
Words: 313 - Pages: 2
...space you inhabit not just with your body but with your head. It’s that kind of space in which we find ourselves lost. What a lost person needs is a map of the territory, with his own position marked on it so he can see where he is in relation to everything else. Literature is not only a mirror; it is also a map, a geography of the mid. Our literature is one such map, if we can learn to read it as our literature, as the product of who and where we have been. We need such a map desperately; we need to know about here, because here is where we live. For the members of a country or culture, shared knowledge of their place, their here, is not a luxury but a necessity. Without that knowledge we will not survive.” Margaret Atwood, Survival As Atwood’s statement demonstrates, Canadian literature is concerned with place and displacement, and with the development of an effective identifying relationship between self and environs. Canada’s literature whether written in English or French reflects three main parts of Canadian experience. First, Canadian writers often emphasize the effects of climate and geography on the life and work of their people. Second, frontier’s life is part of Canada’s experience that appears frequently in its literature; Third, Canada’s position in the world profoundly affects many Canadian writers. French Canadians often feel surrounded by their English speaking neighbors. They have made a determined effort to preserve their own institutions...
Words: 3528 - Pages: 15
...Atwood’s Look into the Future Margaret Atwood used The Handmaid’s Tale to depict the possible future of the United States. Atwood takes current societal, economical, political, environmental and gender-related issues and uses them to create a possible future that is just as oppressive as the country’s past, leaving the reader to contemplate what they can do as a human being to protect this earth, and/or society from becoming a country “established by religious fanatics who have dismantled the republic, liquidated the opposition and replaced out present political system with a quasi-military infrastructure,” (Kendall 149). Atwood brings up such issues as money, a predominantly male government, the environment, and the value of a woman’s body throughout the text in an effort to bring to light some of the typical controversies of present time. “Yet the book just does not tell me what there is in our present mores that I ought to watch out for unless I want the United States of America to become a slave state something like the Republic of Gilead whose outlines are here sketched out,” (McCarthy 150). Atwood makes her warnings clear through the Tale she has written. Atwood uses a common middle class woman, in an effort to sympathize with the majority of women in the United States, also known as Offred, to paint the picture of the futuristic, or dare I say historical, times. “[Offred] is simply a warm, intelligent, ordinary woman who had taken for granted the freedoms she...
Words: 2487 - Pages: 10
...Written texts often have the ability to remove a reader to a different world and escape their own reality. Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaids Tale presents the reader with specific ideas to present a dystopia in which the reader can migrate to. Atwood communicates multiple ideas to the reader, which cause recurring thought and a need to prevent our world from becoming one like Gilead. Atwood communicates the objectification of women as well as the power of language use. Atwood also employs the effect a loss of identity has on a person. Finally, Atwood conveys ideas of each gender having a certain role and being required to live up to this goal. These ideas have been successfully communicated through use of common written conventions such...
Words: 1970 - Pages: 8
...How does Atwood’s portrayal of control on pages 22-23 typify Atwood’s treatment of women in the rest of the novel? In Margaret Atwood’s novel ‘The Handmaids Tale ‘women are objectified and live under an oppressive regime. In this essay I will be exploring Atwood’s presentation of women and women’s purpose in society. In ‘The Handmaids Tale ‘phallic imagery is used to distinguish women’s position in society. “The commander’s wife directs, pointing with her stick.” Serena Joy’s stick can be seen as phallic imagery; throughout the novel phallic imagery is used to represent the hierarchy amongst the women. At the red centre the aunts carried cattle prods and this solidified their superiority. Serena Joy also carries a stick and this can be seen as the transition of power from the aunts to Serena Joy, the aunts previously had control over Offred however now Offred is Serena Joy’s handmaid the power over her has been bestowed upon Serena Joy. Atwood also presents Serena Joy as ‘The commanders wife ‘, by not calling Serena Joy by her name we are able to understand how powerless women are in the Gilead regime as they are not referred to by their own name but by their husbands title. This then suggests that women are nothing without their husbands and their only duty is to be wives. In Simone de Beauvoir’s novel ‘ The second sex ‘ she focuses on the concept of ‘ the other ‘ , this concept refers to the treatment of women as the ‘ other ‘ in relation to men. I believe this concept...
Words: 772 - Pages: 4
...An Alarming Aggregate Successful satires display a logical and relatable society and suggest a need for modifications. Often satire employs humor, irony, and blatant mockery, which clarifies the broken state of society it is written to parallel. With inspiration from Aldous Huxley, Margaret Atwood writes The Handmaid’s Tale using these tactics to warn the society in which she lives. She creates a negative utopia informing Americans of the possible implications of their actions and ideals. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale displays the horrifying results of a society that oppresses women, feuds over Religious differences, and does not equally represent citizens to indicate American society’s harmful trends and suggests the need for urgent change. Margaret Atwood displays women’s oppression in current society through the Republic of Gilead, a negative utopia which bases its governing law in the Old Testament of the Bible. The conservative society lays under “the Eyes of God” (Atwood 193) and gives little rights to women of...
Words: 763 - Pages: 4
...Feminism in a Shell Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale along with Mamoru Oshii’s Ghost in the Shell both share feminist views. Together Atwood’s novel and Oshii’s film are part of the science fiction genre, which is set into the future. Both the novel and film share feminist views although the second wave of feminism in the novel The Handmaids Tale portrays a world where females with no rights and have been taken over for breeding, in contrast to the third wave of feminism in the film Ghost in a Shell where heteronormativity is separated by the blurring of boundaries between both males and females. Atwood’s award winning novel demonstrates the second wave of feminism through the power structure of Gilead where women had roles. Consequentially,...
Words: 902 - Pages: 4
...The way one behaves varies for several reasons, and where the individual in the situation can be a big factor. In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred is forcefully placed in the Republic of Gilead where the development of her character changes. Additionally, in Hamlet, written by William Shakespeare, Hamlet behaves a certain way to get attention off his scheme of murdering his uncle, Claudius due to his ungrateful decision of killing his father, King Hamlet. In The Handmaid’s tale, Offred’s character forcefully changes due to where she has to live. Offred is taken away from her family, and she now lives in the Republic of Gilead where everything is tidy and in good shape; such as pictures in the magazine, gardens, absence of...
Words: 760 - Pages: 4
... The truth may not always be as black and white as it seems. In Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace, the main character is immediately judged and harboured as a criminal. The book is about a woman, who, at the age of sixteen is tried in the court as an accomplice to a double murder. It is a true story that happened in Canada in the 1850`s. A lot of mystery surrounds the role she actually played in the murders because some of the facts do not add up. There are competing versions of the story, and Grace herself has no memory of the event. She confesses, but the story quickly reveals that her lawyer coerced her into giving the version of the story that he liked best. Meanwhile, Grace is prone to mental fits that no one understands, so countless doctors and clergymen examine her and come to differing conclusions; some are convinced that she is guilty, and others are convinced that she is innocent. One of the only things keeping Grace strong is her ability to connect with certain characters that are introduced into her life. The use of her qualities and strengths as a woman allows Grace the ability to hold onto certain relationships longer than others. Grace not only has the ability to draw people into her life, like Doctor Simon Jordan and Mary Whitney, but she is able to entice the reader in ways that others cannot and bring them in as her fascinated audience. To begin with, one of the main characters in Atwood’s novel, Alias Grace, is Doctor Simon Jordan. Doctor Jordan specializes...
Words: 1524 - Pages: 7
...While studying the life of Christine de Pizan for this week’s outline, shades of Margret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale came to mind while I considered the time in which Christine lived and the types of concerns she voiced with regard to women’s rights. During the Renaissance, a woman’s place in society was so limited and seemed to revolve almost entirely around subservience to her husband. As the most well-known female writer of her time, Christine was not afraid to question some of the stereotypes about and injustices against women in society. The Handmaid’s Tale is a painful glimpse into a not so distant totalitarian dystopia where women have been stripped of their rights and are being forced into servitude for men. Oddly enough, I see similarities in both the...
Words: 726 - Pages: 3
...“I do not wish [women] to have power over men; but over themselves” (Wollstonecraft, Poston). This quote, which Mary Wollstonecraft eloquently stated in A Vindication of the Rights 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
...Dystopia in The Handmade’s Tale by Margaret Atwood The Handmaid’s Tale is a novel widely recognized and beloved by people all across the globe. It was written by Margaret Atwood, a Canadian author, and originally published in 1985. This novel falls into the anti-utopian or dystopian genre of literature. Dystopias are like utopias in the sense that both are imaginary worlds or societies; However, instead of possessing the same “perfect” state as utopias, dystopias create the complete opposite environment which are places made up of extremely undesirable and negative aspects. In dystopian novels, the unpleasant societies are often made up of dark political and social structures. These societies can also be prone to having extremely repressive...
Words: 556 - Pages: 3
...Atwood’s and Orwell’s novels share the fundamental idea that control of language and thought are crucial to dystopian novel. George Orwell’s ‘1984’ was written after World War Two building on people’s fear of the political stability of the world. His novel includes the all-powerful Big Brother, which monitors and controls Oceania, where the novel is set. Margaret Atwood’s delve into control of thought and language is through religion. Her novel set in the near future religious state, Gilead, in North America. The inspiration for the two dystopian novels comes from the election of conservative power, Thatcher and Regan, in the western world, and the general fears that civilisation had in the 1980’s about declining birth rates and the dangers...
Words: 926 - Pages: 4
...In her short story “Happy Endings”, Margaret Atwood uses different literary techniques that can alter the interpretation of the story’s theme. The story starts off with a generic “fairy tale” ending in which a husband and a wife live a happy life together and eventually die. However, as the story progresses, Atwood’s style and tone of the alternate scenarios of John and Mary give off a sense of uncertainty of what main ideas she is trying to convey. Atwood displays her feelings about not only the art of creative writing, but also the equally artistic act of living one's life to the fullest. The unique manner the story is structure, a mixed-up summary of events, begins by saying, "If you want a happy ending, try A," Atwood seemingly gives the reader a choice. It is implied that Story A is the “happy ending and ahead await endings that are much more sinister. Following the first version of the “ending” are various endings, all of which seem to be quite depressing, but nevertheless end with "everything continues as in A." What is the meaning? There are five different adaptations of the “end”; however, all of the characters eventually end up at Story A. This shows Atwood’s cynical attitude about the insignificance of life and is evident in the third story when she explains that the reason John purchased a handgun is "the thin part of the plot and can be explained later" (396). Atwood does not place impact on the events leading to death but instead concentrates on the "happy...
Words: 569 - Pages: 3
