...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...
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...“He who cannot resist temptation is not a man”- Horace Mann. Temptation is the leading cause of a person's wrongful actions .Temptation does not simply imply lustful temptation but also temptation to take part in certain actions. In the book “The Handmaid's Tale” by Margaret Atwood, temptation is one of the leading factors on why Offred's life in Gilead had many dangerous points and led to her being able to escape. Offred's actions were tempted and influenced by her surroundings as well as the effect on the outcome of her decisions.”I’m running, with her,holding her hand ...she's only half awake because of the pill I gave her so she wouldn't cry or say anything that would give us away”(Atwood 74). One of the first signs of temptation was...
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...Two off the most recent and impactful examples are Life of Pi by Yann Martel, and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. Let me disclaim this by stating beforehand that I have not read the novels, but the movie of Life of Pi was not the interesting, action packed adventure or even the heartwarming tale of a friendship between man and beast that I’d originally signed up for. The subject matter is very dark as one man and one beast are the two remaining survivors of a tragic accident and how he must come to terms with this while also having to, even if unwillingly, help this tiger who relies on him for survival. Whereas The Handmaid’s Tale is a series that deals with an extreme, if unrealistic, totalitarian society where fertile women are forced into servitude due to declining birth rates. In my opinion, both sharply contrast what we usually see in media today. Both deal with issues and the harsh realities that comes with being human, even if to an extreme extent, that isn’t usually witnessed well or even that often...
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...Today’s society is composed of individuals who possess diverse characteristics and abilities. Our society as a whole, is somewhat special because it is known as being egalitarian, or in the least, it is supposed to be. Although we trust that our governmental constitution ensures that everyone is equal and we all have the same rights, some people believe that is not true in any way. We often are quick to accept this as a fact, but authors like Margaret Atwood show us that this is often an illusion. Through her dystopian novel she effectively explores themes of control and power and hope in a society that is no longer egalitarian. In order to illustrate the true value of equal rights and to show how women, no matter how often they’ve been subjugated, are powerful enough to reassure themselves time and again. Women play a great role in this dystopian city, but as a powerful symbol of less control. The new form of government presented in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale, must leave women without freedom or choice, because in this way they can assure that their city will consist of their commands over woman and therefore, be successfully transformed into a society focused on traditional ideas. The diminutive control women experience in the Republic of Gilead does not make women feel that it distorts their individuality, even...
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...something to talk about, a game for Sundays. Such freedom now seems almost weightless." (Atwood 5.24) “It's strange to remember how we used to think as if everything were available to us as if there were no contingencies, no boundaries; as if we were free to shape and reshape forever the ever-expanding perimeters of our lives. I was like that too, I did that too.” (Atwood 35.227) A distant memory fading into the distance. A whole life prior to this disillusioned madness. To this...
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...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...
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...“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...
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...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...
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...The Handmaid’s Tale: Power and Corruption Governments impose a certain amount of power and control on their citizens in order for societies to function according to plan. In the Handmaid’s Tale, excessive control and power in the Gilead society strips the residents of their freedom, forbidding them to live ordinary lives. Men abuse their control and power over women in order to satisfy their personal needs and women are persecuted to the point of corruption. The Handmaids suffer the most due to the loss of their personal liberties and identities. Inhabitants live in constant fear for their lives, and are subjected to perpetual surveillance. The Gilead society follows a patriarchal law that women must obey their male counterparts. Since they believe that they are powerful, they think that they can get away with what they want. An example of the male abuse that occurs in the Handmaid’s Tale centres on Offred, who is trapped in Gilead as a Handmaid. She is one of the women valued only for her potential as a surrogate mother. Denied all her individual rights and personal identity, she is known only by the patronymic Of-Fred, derived from the name of her current Commander. Offred struggles with this new name with this statement, “My name isn’t Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it's forbidden. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter...
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...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...
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...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...
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...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...
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...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...
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...I recently finished reading a book, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, which was published in 1985. This book is fictional, and it is set in a futuristic time in the United States where women become property of men once again, and have essentially lost all aspects of individual rights. Women are forced to change their names to government regulated, predetermined names, cannot have a career, cannot have their own family, or even speak their opinions. These women are forced to wear a certain color to distinguish between one of the few ‘jobs’ that they are allowed to have. One of these different jobs is to be a handmaid, which is essentially to be the mistress of a commander when his wife cannot conceive a child. These handmaids are expected...
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... October 30th, 2014 The meanings of “Context is all” in The Handmaid’s Tale In this society, people will always have labels on themselves, which will define their personality, their status and their identity. The labels are indispensable and play significant roles in people’s life. Without such labels, they will not define themselves accurately, the words will be explained wrong and their true self will be revealed. As mentioned in The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, “context is all” means that one’s identity will define their act, the background is important in analyzing words or sentences and one always displays persona to delude others. To begin with, “context is all” means that one’s identity defines everything, allowing aristocracy to be more noble or the humbler to become more inferior . For example, Commander’s wife regards Offred as nothing, who cannot even be compared to servants by stating that “Don’t call [the Commander’s wife] ma’am, [Offred] is not a Martha”(Atwood 15) irritably. Offred’s identity as a handmaid constructs her low status and the hatred and despise from the Commander’s wife. Moreover, Atwood indicates that because of Nick’s “low status”( Atwood 18), he is not allowed to “[be] issued a woman, not even one” (Atwood 18). Since “context is all”, Nick has to obey the rules, to be isolated from the society and “lack of connection”( Atwood 18). What’s more, Atwood demonstrates Offred’s low position that even when she has sex with...
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