Handmaid Character Analysis

In today’s news we see many disruptions and inconsistencies in society, and, according to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, humankind might be headed in that direction. The deterioration of society is a concept often explored biologically in novels, but less common, is the effect on everyday social constructs such as the position of women as a item that can be distributed and traded-in for a ‘better’ product. The Handmaid’s Tale elaborates the concept that, as societal discrimination towards women intensifies, gender equality deteriorates and certain aspects of societal freedoms are lost. Offred’s experience with serving Gilead demonstrates a victim’s perspective and shows how the occurring changes develope the Republic.

In Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale she explores the concept of a not-so-distant future where toxic chemicals and abuses to the body have left many men and women alike sterile. The main character, Offred, gives the reader a first person account about her submissive life as a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. A republic that was formed after a coup against the U.S. government. She and her fellow handmaids are fertile women that the commanders of Gilead ‘enslave’ to ensure their power and to repopulate their ‘society’. While the laws that govern the people of Gilead seem outlandish and oppressive, they are merely

Paula Hawkins, a well-known British author, once said, “I have lost control over everything, even the places in my head.” In Margaret Atwood’s futuristic dystopia The Handmaid’s Tale, a woman named Offred feels she is losing control over everything in her life. Offred lives in the Republic of Gilead. A group of fundamentalists create the Republic of Gilead after they murder the President of the United States and members of Congress. The fundamentalists use the power to their advantage and restrict women’s freedom. As a result, each woman is assigned a specific duty to perform in society. Offred’s husband and child are taken away from her and she is now forced to live her life as a Handmaid. Offred’s role in society is to produce a child

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

The Handmaid's Tale, a film based on Margaret Atwood’s book depicts a dystopia, where pollution and radiation have rendered innumerable women sterile, and the birthrates of North America have plummeted to dangerously low levels. To make matters worse, the nation’s plummeting birth rates are blamed on its women. The United States, now renamed the Republic of Gilead, retains power the use of piousness, purges, and violence. A Puritan theocracy, the Republic of Gilead, with its religious trappings and rigid class, gender, and racial castes is built around the singular desire to control reproduction. Despite this, the republic is inhabited by characters who would not seem out of place in today's society. They plant flowers in the yard, live in suburban houses, drink whiskey in the den and follow a far off a war on the television. The film leaves the conditions of the war and the society vague, but this is not a political tale, like Fahrenheit 451, but rather a feminist one. As such, the film, isolates, exaggerates and dramatizes the systems in which women are the 'handmaidens' of today's society in general and men in particular.

Throughout the course of world history on Earth, humans have always worked harder and harder in order to improve society and make it more perfect, although it still hasn’t been done quite yet, because it is merely impossible to achieve perfection in a world with close to seven billion people. There is a very distinct difference between a utopia, which can also be known as perfection, and a dystopia, which can also be known as a tragedy; and the outcomes normally generate from the people in charge or the authority that sets up the foundation, the rules, and the regulations for a society. In the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Republic of Gilead is created by a powerful authority group called the Eyes after a huge government take over and the assassination of the US president. It’s very strict rules and goals are set up to protect women, to increase childbirth, and to keep all violence, men, and powerful social media under control. The novel is set in a first person point of view and the narrator, Offred, tells her story to us readers about her experiences as a handmaid and how her life was completely turned upside down. Throughout the course of the novel Offred reveals many sides of herself; although her thoughts do not remain consistent, her personality and opinion tends to change revealing, that she is hesitant and strong because she learns to make the best of what she has and silently overcome the system of the Republic of Gilead.

Margaret Atwood describes her after her escape as being to the other handmaidens "like an elevator with open sides" (P143). In this simile I believe she is showing that Moira is able to take risks. She doesn't need the security that the others need, she is frightening to them, as she doesn't have the same fears. Another example of Moira's character that shows her nonconformist nature, is in that she made a political decision to become a lesbian.

In Park Chan-wook's 2016 film The Handmaiden, the story follows that of Sook-hee, a Korean pickpocket from a con artist family, and lady Hideko, the beautiful and mysterious Japanese heiress whose fortune kickstarts the plot. Sook-hee is recruited by a Korean con artist who calls himself Count Fujiwara in a plot to steal Hideko's inheritance. She will pose as a handmaiden, and Fujiwara will seduce Hideko into marriage. Sook-hee will eavesdrop and encourage Hideko to pursue Fujiwara, and once they have been married, Fujiwara will commit Hideko to an asylum and take her fortune to be shared with Sook-hee. What Sook-hee doesn't know, however, is that Fujiwara has made a similar deal with Hideko. Abused by her uncle and forced to read and

Gilead is a society not far from the present and it based around one central idea, control of reproduction by using women’s bodies as political instruments. Handmaids are women who the state took complete control of through their political subjugation. They are not allowed to vote, hold property, read or do anything that can make them independent from their husband and the state. These handmaids are reduced to their fertility and treated like nothing more than a set of ovaries and a womb. They lose their identity and become an object of the state. The narrator of The Handmaids Tale is a handmaid by the name of Offred. The novel takes place in first person point of view and this allows the readers to see how she is treated and all the events that take place for her. First person point of view allows the reader a closer view as to how a central theme develops by giving the reader a firsthand experience from the mind of the narrator.

Moira has been an unorthodox woman her whole life. She has always been a fighter and a strong leader. She is openly lesbian in her pre-Gilleadean days, which shows her tenacious and proud personality. Moira and Offred were friends before Gillead took control. Moira is close with Offred’s family; however, the novel never mentions that Offred knows Moira’s family very well. Moira and Offred were an unstoppable team before their lives changed forever when they were forced away from their previous lives and identities. Moira isn’t only a rebellious woman; she also is a voice of reason for many people including Offred and Janine. Offred even says in the novel, “Moira was more logical than [she was]” (Atwood 171). As Moira’s life continues it becomes harder for her to stay true to her nonconformist values.

In “The Handmaid's’ Tale” (Margaret, Atwood), neologisms are sprinkled throughout the story's characters and it’s deeper meaning. Neologisms (being words that have a different meaning than their current uses) show how certain characters or terms are viewed in Gilead’s society. Salvagings refer to the executions that take action against those that do not abide by the Gilead Republic's laws such as the doctors who practiced abortions before the war. Another neologism is the view of freedom. Offred and the other Handmaids are not given any freedom. Similar to a regiment, the women are given orders and tasks and they must follow suit while the other roles are in this same regime, just with different tasks such as the Martha's who clean and

The Handmaids Tale is a poetic tale of a woman's survival as a Handmaid in the male dominated Republic of Gilead. Offred portrayed the struggle living as a Handmaid, essentially becoming a walking womb and a slave to mankind. Women throughout Gilead are oppressed because they are seen as "potentially threatening and subversive and therefore require strict control" (Callaway 48). The fear of women rebelling and taking control of society is stopped through acts such as the caste system, the ceremony and the creation of the Handmaids. The Republic of Gilead is surrounded with people being oppressed. In order for the Republic to continue running the way it is, a sense of control needs to be felt by the government. Without control Gilead will

The Handmaid’s Tale is a distillation of the real-world events that were happening before the book was published. In this novel, she talks about a handmaid living in the Gilead Republic, newly formed republic that is controlled by a theocratic dictatorship government. Theocratic dictatorship is a type of government in which laws are based on a particular religion. One leader, a dictator, rules the government, and there is neither power nor person above the leader. In the Gilead Republic, the system forces its citizens to obey its laws, and follow its agendas absolutely. Thus, the theocratic dictatorship changed the ordinary ways of life because it forced its people to live with in a patriarchal system

Handmaids wish to have. Moira’s key role was to give the reader and the characters

In both texts, ones flaws of being innocent, tragically leads to them being taken advantage of through the antagonist in the play/novel, hence, rattling the ethics of society. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women’s punishment is one of the main causes of why violence ensues. Moira, an innocent, courageous individual, who due to her high willed and rebellious nature tends to devise escape plans in order to liberate from the norms of The Republic of Gilead. When Moira attempts to escape for the first time by deceiving an aunt by faking an illness; hoping to bribe the men with sex and is unsuccessful in her scheme; she is penalized for her behavior. At the dinner hall where all the handmaids are present, Offered sees “two aunts [come] out of the building, hauling Moira out and [taking] her to the Science Lab. Afterwards she could not walk for a week, her feet would not fit in her shoes, they were too swollen” (Atwood 91) When rules are imposed amongst an individual it is only human instinct to rebel against them. As a result, Moira mistreatment for a mistake that is not based intellectually but purely from the heart, blinding her from the consequences is unjust. The unfair rules of Gilead limit women from fundamental rights as well as “reducing circumstances”, which is as