Character Analysis OfThe Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale is a story told in the voice of Offred, who is the character of the “handmaid”, which is described best by women who are being forced and used for reproduction because they can make babies. In the Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood uses symbolism, which is the use of symbols to represent ideas, to show the reader the handmaid’s role in society of Gilead. The handmaids were women who had broken the law of Gilead, and forced into having sex and reproducing for the higher class. They had no rights and were watched constantly so this created a very nervous atmosphere. This horrible way of living is most likely why Offred never fully made the reader aware of the horrible life she was forced to live because

Offred struggles with her new life, stating, “I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. I repeat my former name; to remind myself of what I once could do, how others saw me” (Atwood 97). Offred is emotionally run down. She misses her husband Luke and the way he made her feel. Offred spends most of her days wondering about her husband Luke, and daughter. She wonders if her husband is dead, made it across the Canadian border, or was captured. Although Offred never finds out Luke’s life status, Serena Joy offers to tell Offred some information regarding her daughter. Consequently, Offred must sleep with Nick and conceive a child in spite of receiving the information. As long as the Commander believes he is the father of Offred 's child, no problems will arise. Offred 's decision is unconventional and risky, both for herself and Nick. If Nick and Offred are caught, they will be executed. However, her unorthodox decision pays off. Serena Joy obtains a photograph of Offred’s daughter and informs Offred that her daughter is now around eight years old and has been adopted by a family loyal to the regime. Offred is informed that her daughter is alive and in safe care. The new information provides Offred with a sense of relief.

The author expresses Offred’s lack of personal identity through the use of repetitions. When observing her room, the narrator asks if “each of [the handmaids] has the same print, the same chair [and] the same white curtains.” (12) This line points out the possibility that everything that handmaids use is standardized. The repetition of the word “same” highlights this. It also emphasises that Offred’s individuality is taken away. The government strengthens its control over the handmaids and other

Women in the past were perceived as insignificant because of the society’s inability to embrace and acknowledge women as of equal importance as men and of those who are wealthy. In Margret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, the character by the name of Offred, is a handmaid and tells her perspective of the dystopian life in the community of Gilead. The women of 1985 serve the males and the rich if they are not a wealthy maiden themselves. However, regardless of class, women are always discerned as of lesser significance than men. This is manifested through Offred’s observation that although the women who are a Commander’s wife are entitled of higher authority than the handmaids, they are still seen as insignificant. In order to give them

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood describes the story of Offred, a Handmaid, that is a woman ascribed a breeding function by society, and who is placed with a husband and wife higher up the social ladder who need a child. Through Offred's eyes we explore the rigidity of the theocracy in which she lives, the contradictions in the society they have created, and her attempts to find solace through otherwise trivial things. The heroine is never identified except as Offred, the property of her current Commander, she was a modern woman: college-educated, a wife and a mother when she lost all that due to the change in her society. The novel can be viewed from one perspective as being a feminist depiction of the suppression of a woman, from 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.

In the novel Atwood writes how Offred the main character transitions from her life before to a Handmaid. Offred wasn’t her real name but the name that was given to her when the Gilead society formed. Prior to the Gilead forming Offred lived with her husband and

Offred, within the novel, is seen as being in one of the lowest classes within the hierarchy of women only putting her above the women who are sent to the colonies. Unlike the handmaids, the Martha, who are helping ladies to the Wives, talk about Offred like she is not in their present but viewed her as “a household chore,one among many”(Atwood 48). Although the Martha are women too, they have more control than Offred. By viewing Offred as a household chore conveys that Offred is an inconvenience but still a necessary part of Gilead. Speaking about Offred like this emphasizes that she is below them in the status of society and they are not seen as equals. In addition, Offred, being a handmaid, wasn’t allow to talk to the Wives in a direct manner (Atwood 14-15). By Offred not being allowed to talk to the Wives illustrates that the Wives authority over the handmaids. Furthermore, the handmaid’s are viewed as less and “[reduced]... to the slavery status of being mere ‘breeders’” (Malak). By conveying the handmaids are slaves shows are they force without consent to have sex with men and that the handmaid focus is to breed, unlike the Martha, aunts, and Wives. Moreover, the class system within the female hierarchy of Gilead is utilized as a political tool thus adding to the assumption

The Handmaid’s Tale is about Offered as she shares her thoughts and experiences in a journal-like form and provides some advice. Offred is a lower class female who has been taken from her husband and daughter at 5 years old to be a handmaid for the red commander at the red center. The point of this center is to reproduce with the Commander

In Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaids Tale’, we hear a transcribed account of one womans posting ‘Offred’ in the Republic of Gilead. A society based around Biblical philosophies as a way to validate inhumane state practises. In a society of declining birth rates, fertile women are chosen to become Handmaids, walking incubators, whose role in life is to reproduce for barren wives of commanders. Older women, gay men, and barren Handmaids are sent to the colonies to clean toxic waste.

“Waste not, want not. I am not being wasted. Why do I want?” (Atwood 7). From stealing butter for lotion to playing Scrabble with the Commander, plainly, Offred is unorthodox. The Republic of Gilead controls how much knowledge each caste is allowed; this is one way of controlling people and keeping order. Despite being condemned to this society and commanded not to read, Offred reads anyways. Offred’s actions show her dislike of

Offred's character is required because she gives flashbacks to the time before Gilead, giving the reader an idea of the events leading up to the beginning of the novel. How bad the world before Gilead sounds, the world of Gilead is much worse.

In literature, the color red symbolizes many things, each with its own emotional impact. Red can be associated with violence and bloodshed, or it can be associated with love and intense emotions. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred, chosen to be a “baby-maker” for a couple she was assigned to, desires to escape the dystopian society that she lives in. Thus, Margaret creates a fictional government that uses totalitarianism, violence, and the reoccurring pattern of the color red to illustrate the negative impact it has on women, especially the Handmaids.

Even this is as usual, now. We lived, as usual, by ignoring. Ignoring isn 't the same as ignorance, you have to work at it.”(56) Offred actively defines her passivity, ignoring the fact that the America that she used to know had changed dramatically. She normalizes every event around her like the fact that watching people being hanged on the wall are just daily sightseeing, she avoids the uncomfortable truth of Gilead, intentionally refuse to revolt against the dictatorship regime. Interestingly, there is a quote on ignorance that I 'd like to share “Being ignorant is like being dead, you don’t know that you are dead, only people around you suffer.” Additionally, in chapter 13, Offred was sitting in the bath, visualizing her body while naked ”I used to think of my body as an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of my will . . . Now the flesh arranges itself differently. I’m a cloud, congealed around a central object, the shape of a pear, which is hard and more real than I am and glows red within its translucent wrapping.”( 91) She changed her opinion of her only property-her body from a device, her womb as a “ national resource” to a “central object” ,”glows red” like the sun which surrounded by planets. She glorifies herself because of her ability to bear a child. As well as denying the truth, interpret handmaids as a pivotal class in the society, not oppressed women whose womb are

Offred, not her real name but the name given to her by her occupation, is a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. The Republic of Gilead is a