preview

Handmaids

Decent Essays
Open Document

‘The true measure of a text’s value lies in its ability to provoke the reader into awareness of its language and construction, not just its content’
The conceptual understanding of a good text revolves not only around its content, but also its language and construction. This notion articulates profoundly within Margaret Atwood’s novel A Handmaid’s Tale as it is, after all, the author’s manipulation of the language and construction which enacts as vehicles towards the reader’s understanding of the content.
A Handmaid’s Tale is a confrontational post-modern work of feminist dystopian fiction; it depicts a protagonist’s struggle to adapt to a totalitarian and theocratic state where language has become corrupted.

Without any doubt, …show more content…

Therefore, The Handmaid’s Tale is an example of a good text as it provokes the reader into awareness of the construction of the novel as well as successfully putting forward the point the author tries to make without making it appear too apparent.

The content, like the construction and language, is an essential device in which put forth the author’s intention of the novel, but in a more direct manner. The main themes held within the content of The Handmaid’s Tale comprise of not just the overall story itself, but also the character and the idea.

The narrator, Offred, is unquestionably the most noteworthy character in the novel where the reader experiences the world of the Gilead through her eyes. However, the reader is not given an in-depth understanding of what Offred truly is like, as her only description of herself is being “thirty-three years old”, “have brown hair” and “stand five seven without shoes”. Through Offred’s vague description of herself, as well as by mentioning that she has “trouble” remembering what she “look like”, suggests the idea of feminism in which Atwood tries to convey. This is evident through Offred’s depiction on the corruption of language and the non-linear construction of her narrative which evokes the restrictions placed on women, and thus, a perceptible clue which outlines the author’s concern to the rights and identity of women.
Hence, although the content of the novel is easier

Get Access