Comparing Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid Offred And The Talk

In a society where women are completely oppressed they have two choices: To conform and survive, or to rebel and risk execution. Conformity would entail suppressing their morals and their personal rights to adapt to Gilead’s social standards. Would one choose self-inflicted isolation by disassociating oneself as a human being to survive, or gain more rights and disregard all morals by working for the government? This society is represented in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale. The novel is set in the Republic of Gilead, a dictatorship, formerly known as the United States of America. The government controls all aspects of the lives’ of its citizens, with its harshest regulations directly affecting women.

Cultural criticism is a broad technique that puts emphasis on the culture that contributed to the production of a work. This approach is an eclectic, interdisciplinary study that utilizes a wide range of topics to analyze literature. Cultural criticism considers a variety of perspectives and branches of knowledge to discover the compilation of beliefs and customs that characterize a group of people. For a cultural reading of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, a cultural critic would consider the historical background paired with theories such as Marxism and feminism to make assumptions about what culture engendered the creation of this novel. (104 words)

From the outset of 'The Handmaids Tale' the reader is placed in an unknown world, where the rights and freedom of women have been taken away. We follow the narrative journey of a handmaid, named Offred.

“The first thing you must realise is that power is collective. The individual only has power in so far as he ceases to be an individual.” (Orwell).

Essay Prompt: Discuss Atwood’s use of language throughout the novel. How is it a form of power? How is it a means of escape? How does Offred, in particular, use language as a tool to escape the plight of her existence?

It is necessary for the government to impose a certain amount of power and control of its citizens in order for a society to function properly. However, too much power and control in a society eliminates the freedom of the residents, forbidding them to live an ordinary life. In the dystopian futuristic novel, The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood demonstrates the theme of power and control through an oppressive society called the Republic of Gilead. The government established power and control through the use of the wall, military control, the salvaging, the particicution, and gender.

Both the novels '1984' and 'The Handmaids Tale' provide warnings of how each author sees certain problems in society leading to dystopian states. Dystopian genres exist in both novels, but arise for different reasons. Resulting from Atwood's concerns about political groups and aspects of feminism; 'The Handmaids Tale' illustrates how declining birth rates could lead to a state where women are forced into bearing children. In contrast, '1984' depicts a terror state where poverty is rife and tyrannical leaders force citizens to live by their rules. Although both novels share such themes as surveillance, deprivation and loss of identity, they describe two very different dystopian worlds, often by using identical literary techniques but also

Margaret Atwood’s harrowing novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, follows the story of a woman marginalized by the theocratic oligarchy she lives in; in the Republic of Gilead, this woman has been reduced to a reproductive object who has her body used to bear children to the upper class. From the perspective of the modern reader, the act of blatant mistreatment of women is obvious and disturbing; however, current life is not without its own shocking abuses. Just as the Gileadian handmaid was subject to varied kinds of abuse, many modern women too face varied kinds of abuses that include psychological, sexual, and financial abuse.

Characters are one of the main elements in literature that lead the story and deliver the message from the author to the readers. The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, is a unique feminist novel which takes place in a dystopian world where fertile women are forced to produce babies for the good of the society. In this novel, Atwood purposefully creates different characters in order to enhance the delivery of the theme regarding power and passivity. This makes the readers actively evaluate the situation and emotionally engage with the story. Through Offred, the narrator and the protagonist of the novel, Atwood shows how a powerless individual is affected by those in power and the state in a dystopian world.

Rebellion of an individual occurs when there is a difference of opinion. This conventional trait among society allows diverse ideas to be suggested and added upon for a better future and eventually an all around Utopia. Rebellious attitude is depicted throughout George Orwell’s novel 1984 and Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale in a subtle, yet powerful way. The faint, disobedient remarks made by their characters suggest their hope in the future generations opposed to the present one. When a rebellious mindset comes in contact with an oppressed society with strict rules and regulations, the outcome suggests a better future through the realization of mistakes and unity for a common goal.

Psychological criticism has roots as far back as the fourth century BC, when Aristotle “commented on the effects of tragedy on an audience, saying hat by evoking pity and fear, tragedy creates a cathartic of those emotions” (Dobie 54). More recently, however, psychological criticism has been shaped and influenced by the work of Sigmund Freud. He developed theories concerning “the workings of the human psyche, its formations, its organization, and its maladies” that, while further refined by other theorists, are still the basis of the modern approach to literary criticism (Dobie 54). Freud’s theory of the tripartite psyche is used to classify and define the conscious and unconscious mind into the id, ego, and superego. When examined using this theory, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian novel about a patriarchal totalitarian government that has replaced the United States of America, is particularly interesting.

The Handmaid's Tale, a science-fiction novel written by Margaret Atwood, focuses on women's rights and what could happen to them in the future. This novel was later made into a movie in 1990. As with most cases of books made into movies, there are some similarities and differences between the novel and the film. Overall the film tends to stay on the same track as the book with a few minor details changed, and only two major differences.

Atwood's Attention to Words in The Handmaid's Tale The Handmaids Tale illustrates that dictatorship can be established by creating a state of fear once language controls are instituted. As a tradition to dystopian novels, Atwood has drawn much attention to the meaning of words and the significance of names, as well as the prohibition for women to read or write, in order to portray Gilead as a successful totalitarian state. Atwood is trying to make the point that in a dystopian world, language can be the power.

In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood explores the role that women play in society and the consequences of a countryís value system. She reveals that values held in the United States are a threat to the livelihood and status of women. As one critic writes, “the author has concluded that present social trends are dangerous to individual welfare” (Prescott 151).

Offred is a Handmaid in what used to be the United States, now the theocratic Republic of Gilead. In order to create Gilead's idea of a more perfect society, they have reverted to taking the Book of Genesis at its word. Women no longer have any privileges; they cannot work, have their own bank accounts, or own anything. The also are not allowed to read or even chose who they want to marry. Women are taught that they should be subservient to men and should only be concerned with bearing children. Margaret Atwood writes The Handmaid's Tale (1986) as to create a dystopia. A dystopia is an imaginary place where the condition of life is extremely bad, from deprivation, oppression, or