What Is The Topic Of The Handmaid's Tale

"It was my folly! I have said it. But up to that epoch of my life, I had lived in vain. The world had been so cheerless! My heart was a habitation large enough for many guests, but lonely and chill and without a household fire. I longed to kindle one!" Chapter 4, 71

The imagery in the poem, specifically natural imagery, helps use the reader’s senses to develop a vivid depiction of the speaker’s connection to nature and dissatisfaction with the surrounding reality. The speaker’s continued use of the “moon” reflects her attribution of feminine identity and idolistic character to the moon. As opposed to referencing herself and her personal insomnia, she uses the imagery of the moon “beyond sleep” to convey her internal struggles with insomnia and her reality. Throughout the poem, the speaker also refers to shining, reflective surfaces, such as “a body of water or a mirror”, to describe the inverted reality in which the speaker experiences reciprocated love. Reflective surfaces often invert the image that is projected into them, seemingly distorting the true nature and reality of the projected image. The speaker’s reference to this reflective imagery highlights her desire to escape the burden of a patriarchal society and assume an independent and free feminine identity. Specifically, the use of natural imagery from the references to the “moon” and “a body of water” convey the speaker’s desire to take refuge within the Earth or in the feminine identity of the Earth, Mother Earth. Feminine identities are often related and associated with aspects of nature due to the natural cycle of the menstrual period and the natural process of procreation. The speaker takes advantage of these connotations to suggest Earth and natural imagery as an escape from the man-made terrors of male dominated society. In the second stanza, the speaker uses extensive imagery to develop metaphors conveying the speaker’s experience of jealousy of the moon

"We have much to speak of to ourselves, and we hope we shall find the words for it in the days to come. Now, we cannot speak, for we cannot understand." (Page 59)

In stanza six, we see the end of visiting hour, and the persona’s loss of control as he is overran with emotion. The phrase, “black figure in her white cave” creates an image of an intruder in her sanctuary. The black and white contrast suggests he is a shadow of his former self and also that he is trying to detach himself. The phrase, “clumsily rises” gives connotations of his state as he is physically affected by his feeling of loss. Furthermore, “swimming waves of a bell” is a metaphor which has connotations of water. This is used to illustrate that he is drowning in the realisation that she is dying. Finally, “fruitless fruits” is an oxymoron used to reinforce that there is no hope or going back, for her.

“If it assume my noble father’s person,/I’ll speak to it though hell itself should gape/And bid me hold my peace.” (1.2.244-245)

The physical human body is a vehicle that allows us to carry out all the desires we keep

Longenecker, Bruce W. The New Testament. The Lost Letters of Pergamum. Orlinda, TN: PhD and Lecturer at the University of St. Andrews. 2002.

“The rain this mourning pours from the gutters and everywhere else it is lost in the trees. You need your glasses what you know is there because doubt is inexorable; you put on your glasses. The trees, their bark, their leaves, even the dead ones, are more vibrant wet. Yes, and it’s raining. Each moment is like this—before it can be known, categorized as similar to another thing and dismissed, it has to be experienced, it has to be seen. What did he just say? Did she really just say that? Did I hear what I think I just heard? Did that just come out of my mouth, his mouth, your mouth? The moment sinks. Still you want to stop looking at the trees. You want to walk out and stand among them. And as light as the rain seems, it still rains down on you.” (page 9)

It began as a sharp whisper in the air,a kind of whisper that pierced the eardrum ceaselessly to foreshadow a harsh rain.It hissed harshly refusing to be ignored,the sky then shook,signaling the monstrous wind to destroy every feeble object in its path.This chaos was eerily beautiful and the sound that it carried was sweet euphoric music to my ears.I rested on a bench completely obscured from view in the Noel backyard.

I also realized, paradoxically, how cut off and removed I was from my body. I knew my body more thoroughly than most men are ever able to, but I had used it and thought of it as a machine, a thing that had to be well-oiled, well-fed, and well-taken-care of, to do a specific job. (Meggyesy, 1970, p. 231)

In a strange way, we may even come to better appreciate the value and significance of our normal bodily presence by exploring such alternatives. Not disembodiment, then, so much as a deeper understanding of why the body matters and of the space of possible bodies and perspectives. Not isolation so much as a wider and less geocentric kind of community. (Clark, 194)

The generalized western opinion of the body is that it is akin to an object. Like a car the body is composed of several diverse aspects. From a medical

For this essay, we focused strictly on critics' reactions to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. For the most part, we found two separate opinions about The Handmaid's Tale, concerning feminism. One opinion is that it is a feminist novel, and the opposing opinion that it is not. Feminism: A doctrine advocating social, political, and economic rights for women equal to those of men as recorded in Webster's Dictionary. This topic is prevalent in the novel The Handmaid's Tale. Margaret Atwood, a Canadian writer, spends most of her time featuring women in her books, novels, and poetry that examine their relationships in society. In the book Atwood centers her novel on a girl whom

“That oppresses, like the Heft of Cathedral Tunes--.” It has a very heavy feeling derived from the word Heft as well as Cathedral Tunes. The Cathedral is considered sacred yet it is such as somber sound that it could easily affect a person’s mood. The use of paradoxes in the poem creates a sense of confusion about the true feelings about the revelation. “Heavenly Hurt” is both wonderful and horrible and suggests that the pain comes from the heavens. This suggestion is support in various situations throughout the poem. “Cathedral Tunes” and “Sent us of the Air” are the prime examples. It shows that this new realization may have been from a divine being therefore the reader is confused on it’s significance because it perhaps a type of gift. “Landscapes Listen Shadows—hold their breathe” is the personification used in the poem. This personification in the work shows that a divine being has arranged for this revelation to occur therefore, all of nature will halt to the being who has been selected to find this new piece of themselves. She also uses a bit of irony as well as parallel structure to set the scene in the poem. The revelation is brought out in the light of an wintery afternoon, this is the parallel yet it oppressive and dark which is ironic because the light brought with it such darkness.

Immediately beginning stanza 2 the “stain” is introduced, which easily relates to male, female, or shared semen. Eroticism is obvious with the “horned branches” which are piecing a smooth purple sky, just how a penis “leans heavily” against a vagina. The sky can is also the barrier between the branches and that beyond the sky, just how it can be taken as the inside of the vagina, it can too be considered the outside, right before penetrating. Saying there is no light puts the situation into an even more suitable location for sex. The honey-thick stain is relevant to the texture of fluids involved in sex and its dripping from leaf to leaf and limb to limb may easily equate leaves to the delicate body of a woman, and limbs to the robust physique of a man. His fourth stanza relates to the events before and during the climax of the man. He has been “buoyed up” and his head-a name that is used to describe the tip of the penis- has knocked against the vagina-relevant “sky”. In the fifth stanza the surrealism and dreamlike dimension covered in the beginning has its attention shifted to the speaker. He wants her to see him, “dripping with nectar” and finally with his arms and hands idle, implying they were once busied up. The last stanza can either be one of true love for this woman, as he asks the question or one of disposal. He might be saying that he is done with her and doubts he’ll love her after this sex-where his connection to her was greatest.