Ali Shuger
Mrs. Heim
AP English Literature
15 December 2014
“Summer” Reading Essay: The Handmaid’s Tale and Sex Thomas C. Foster, in his novel, How to Read Literature Like a Professor, gives many examples of sex being shown symbolically in literature. He imparts in the reader an idea that sex is everywhere in a typical novel, and that many details in a work-- most details, even-- are representative of sex: “Tall buildings? Male sexuality. Rolling landscapes? Female sexuality. Stairs? Sexual intercourse. Falling down stairs? Oh my” (Foster 136). And, yes-- sex is truly everywhere in The Handmaid’s Tale. The importance of sex in the dystopian society known as “Gilead” is huge; sex is what the entire Gileadian regime is based around-- reproduction, more specifically. Symbols of fertility
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These flowers serve as a constant reminder of this fertility-- not just to the reader, but also to the handmaids, whose main purpose is to reproduce. They are everywhere in the setting: a “watercolor picture of blue irises” (14) in Offred’s room; a “fanlight of colored glass: flowers red and blue” (15) at the end of the hallway just outside that room; the bathroom, “papered in small blue flowers, forget-me-nots, with curtains to match” (74); on the dining room table, “white cloth, silver, flowers” (78); the “magic flower,” the “withered daffodil” (115) Offred steals from Serena’s Parlor; the “starry canopy of silver flowers” (233) adorning the Commander’s bed. The flowers serve as hidden, almost subconscious reminders of the handmaids’ sole purpose of fertility; they are usually mentioned offhandedly, as miniscule, unimportant, yet ever-present details. However, they are sometimes more directly noted and compared to ideas of fertility, as in the case of Serena Joy’s
In The Handmaids Tale citizens must abide by the new rules, therefore they are in constant fear of punishment which includes death. “Abortion, possibly the key issue of the Christian political movement, also had its federal funding eliminated, even though attempts to limit or outlaw abortion itself were fought successfully on Constitutional grounds.” (Napierkowoski) Many people like to argue that men are also mistreated in the novel. Men, such as the Commander, may desire to experience a true connection, this can be seen between the Commander and Offreds’ secret affair. The difference between the Commander and the Handmaids is that the Commander gets to raise a child unlike the Handmaids which are just seen as sex machines. “My red skirt is hitched up to my waist, though no higher. Below it the Commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I do not say making love, because this is not what he’s doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate, because it would imply two people and only one is involved” (Attwood 94). Shows how they are only used as sex machines…. Gilead believes that women are valuable if they are fertile and can reproduce. It can be seen in history where it is seen as the women’s fault, with Henry the Eighth. He killed his wives because they were unable to give him a son, when in reality Henry the Eighths gene left him unable produce a
The author describes the purpose for masking sex scenes in literature is to make it a more symbolic event. Simply describing two people taking part in intercourse does not reveal as much as “hidden” intercourse. The author states that coded sex scenes are “more intense than literal depictions.” This may be due to the fact that the words needed to describe the event taking place would be the most intense words. The scene needs to have the same air and effect that intercourse does. Writers take ordinary everyday events and intensifies them in order to get to the intimate level of intercourse. Literal intercourse in literature does not have the same effect as coded intercourse because everyone expects the intercourse as it already is describing.
It’s been a great three years of being mentored by you in speech, debate, and finally, AP English Language and Composition. Through those three years of rigorous public speaking and academically challenging work, I can say with sincerity that I am a different person. Now, I know tenfold of what I knew before of high fructose corn syrup, trigger locks, and IRCA. It’s been an unequivocal honor to have met someone with such an intellectual arsenal as you and I have to wonder if I’ll ever meet anyone as knowledgeable even in college. You fended off every single argument that either the Debate Team or the 14 member fifth period AP English coalition threw at you with such ease and class. Wherever you decide to go next, I have no doubt in my mind that you will have the same scintillating impact you had on Suffern High School. Be sure to hoist that Tampa Bay Rays banner proudly for all those poseur Yankee fans to see!
The past of the society in The Handmaid’s Tale is based off of what would happen if the pro-sex side of the feminist wars were to win entirely. Pro-sex feminism revolves around the need for female sexuality to be accepted by society. Feminist Sex Wars enthusiast Andrew McBride notes that “’Pro-sex’ feminism thought
The Handmaid’s Tale contains very questionable sexual subject matter. The victims of the sexual acts that are committed are more or less than approving of the things they have to do with certain characters. Some things that are done are extremely disapproved by the victims and others are consensual. Nevertheless the sexual acts committed in the novel for the most part are wrong.
P.282). The flowers were imagery for fertility, and femininity from the past, which was destroyed by an environmental catastrophe, caused by the new hardheaded masculine regime of
Throughout the history of English literature there has been a distinguished group of outcasts known as the other. The characters who are typically labeled the others are individuals that are perceived by a larger group as not belonging and are flawed in an essential way. The larger group sets the standards for what is normal and what is not. If a character is not up to par with such set forth standards they are labeled the other. The novels presented in AP English IV have contained multiple characters who became known as the others.
Modern civilization is tossed aside in Gilead, a country where fertile women are used to bear children for powerful families as the result of sterility and decreased birth rates. Symbols that are used in 'The Handmaid's Tale' by Margaret Atwood are red capes to depict the concept of conformity based on totalitarian laws, The Eyes to represent that people can not hide any lack of cooperation from the ever-watchful and all-knowing government and nooses to portray death as the consequence of noncompliance. Symbolism is utilized to demonstrate Gilead as a dystopian society that takes away individuality, enforces rules, and displays the outcomes of disobedience. Firstly, the handmaid’s uniforms of red cloaks symbolize the conformity these women are subjected to because of new laws.
Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handsmaid’s Tale is a powerful piece of composition that surfaces the political ideals and social movements during Atwood’s period of life. Though an important primary focus of the tale is the oppressing consequence of patriarchal control of women in Gilead’s society, Atwood, through extensive detailing of Gilead’s power structure, reveal that a deeper and problematic expression of the novel is the disunion that exist amongst the female characters. Such disunity ultimately prevented the females from empowering their own kind and successfully rising against the powers that subjugated them. Atwood’s piece, though perhaps a criticism of her perceived failed feminist movements that occurred during her time is also a prognosticating urging for women in any liberating movements to form soliditary ties among one another.
In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Offred recounts the story of her life and that of others in Gilead, but she does not do so alone. The symbolic meanings found in the dress code of the women, the names/titles of characters, the absence of the mirror, and the smell and hunger imagery aid her in telling of the repugnant conditions in the Republic of Gilead. The symbols speak with a voice of their own and in decibels louder than Offred can ever dare to use. They convey the social structure of Gileadean society and carry the theme of the individual's loss of identity.
Humanity as a race should promote positivity towards all resulting in women who will support each other in need, as opposed to the forced relationships in Gilead. Lastly, pornography is a useful tool in our society which helps promote positive exploration and healthy sexual relationships. Still, The Handmaid’s Tale does remind us that, throughout history, women have been complicit in their own undoing. Like the Aunts in the novel, it was women who bound their granddaughters’ feet, women who turned over their little girls for clitoridectomies, and often even women who denounced their neighbors as witches (Ehrenreich 78). The novel ends with the historical unravelings of Offred’s life, and Western society should heed this warning and take history as a lesson not needing to be
Written in 1986, during the beginning of the feminist movement’s opposition, Margret Atwood wrote The Handmaid’s Tale. This novel, which contemplates on the 1980’s political group, The New Right movement and it’s severe antifeminist messages, provides a bleak future on what might had followed if they had succeeded in getting power: Women getting reduced into being mere objects. Atwood wrote this novel as a warning to warn society about what females stand to lose if feminism was to fail. The masculine authority within The Republic of Gilead, assigns women to various classes and their functions: The Aunts, The Handmaids, The Martha’s, and The Econo-wives.
Throughout the novel The Handmaid’s Tale, a major recurring theme is the loss of identity through the power of sex. Offred once lived in a society that praised sexual pleasure. On the other hand, Gilead is a society without the pleasure and only for the means of reproduction. Offred struggles with this transition because she remembers the times when she had possession of her own mind and body. She could love whoever she wished. Offred compares the loveless sex with the Commander “as one composes a speech… a made thing, not something born” (Atwood 66). Atwood’s rhetorical use of a simile exemplifies the loss of self-identity within the people of the society. Offred makes it clear that she must play a role, hide her thoughts and emotions, and be “made,” allowing her to be “composed” or
The Handmaids Tale’s key themes are Authoritarianism, feminism, and power. Margaret Atwood uses literary techniques to display these themes and the thoughts of the protagonist, Offred, to highlight the loss of freedom, identity and bodily autonomy for women in Gilead. This essay looks at how symbolism, imagery and figurative language are used to portray these ideas, and create a dystopian atmosphere as intended. Atwood’s use of symbolism to display loss of identity, freedom and bodily autonomy is clearly displayed in the lack of individuality of the handmaids. This example of forced identity is shown in the outfits the women wear, which are motifs with symbolic meaning and segregate women to their social group in Gilead.
Symbolism is one of the key components to having a deeper understanding of The Handmaid’s Tale. Each group of people is forced to wear a specific outfit in a specific color that makes it easier to discriminate each group as a whole. For example, Handmaids all looking identical to one another makes it so much easier for Commanders and other authority-figures to make them live the way they do. It totally erases their individuality and makes them seem less like a person. Handmaids, in this novel, are quite literally just an encased womb to everybody, especially the Wives, in the Republic of Gilead. The amount of women objectification in this novel is unbelievable.