Handmaids Tale Analysis

In the novel, “The Handmaid 's Tale”, the author Margret Atwood introduces a dystopian America where everything that once was is no more. In this society there is a change in the state 's entire structure, it has returned to its traditional ways or in other words a religious trap; both women and men are sorted into categories, and each plays their part. Men can be Angles, Commanders or Guardians. Angles are unknown but they are the ones who run society, commanders are slightly lower in rank with wives, and the guardians are guards of the city and make sure the woman do not step out of line. The woman can either be Wives of commanders, Martha’s, who are domestic workers, and Handmaids who are the most fertile of women. In this developing

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale explores the theocratic dystopia of the Republic of Gilead, a society founded on ultra-religious, misogynistic and patriarchal principles. Dwindling birth rates spearheaded the totalitarian usurp of a once democratic nation. Overall, society transformed from one which embraced gender equality to one which devalued women and stripped them of their basic rights. These power mongers successfully manipulated the citizens of Gilead by employing three key tactics, among others: by collectively convincing the population that females were the scapegoats for the biggest crises, by pitting women against women, and lastly by sacrificing traitors in the particuicution ritual.

In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, women are oppressed by the Patriarchal society of Gilead. However, I put forward the claim that women play a greater role than men, in acting out the oppression of other women. I propose to show that the oppression of women by women took place in Atwood’s dystopian world of Gilead, but also in the pre-dystopian society that Gilead took over.

​Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale is set in the unspecified future in the Republic of Gilead, which is ruled by a totalitarian theocracy. In Gilead, individuals are segregated and separated into categories that can be identified from one another by something as simple as their dress uniform/code. The narrator of this story, Offred (or June), belongs to the category of a Handmaid, which exists under the umbrella category of “legitimate women” along with Wives, Daughters, Aunts, Marthas and Econowives. Despite the already subordinate ranking of women in this society—just before the Republic was established, all women’s rights were taken from them— there is further separation and, thus, tension within the different groups of women

Throughout history, women have been recognized for their central role in perpetuating life. During The Journey Inward, Campbell claims, “They represent life. Man doesn't enter life except by woman” (55). Although women nurture and carry life in their bodies before birth, both men and women are needed to create new life. Therefore, men and women both hold responsibility for forming offspring. The society described by Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale is the patriarchal Republic of Gilead. In Gilead, they take the idea that women solely “represent life” to the extreme: forcing fertile women to live a life focused on reproduction and blaming all that goes wrong with conception and birth on women. Throughout her novel, Atwood implies that women should have more varied roles in society than simply reproducing.

In a world where women are used merely as instruments of reproduction, ‘freedom of expression’ is punishable by death, and politics are claimed to be founded on religious beliefs, there doesn’t appear to be much similarity between the Handmaid’s Tale milieu of Gilead and our predominantly feminist and secular society. Despite this, the novel focuses on themes that have caused great controversy and debate. As a result, these concepts have become familiar to us and help connect with the story and characters despite the tremendous difference in context. The Handmaid’s Tale portrays and develops the themes of feminism/gender roles, political and religious views, oppression and sexuality to the extent that the reader in a modern-day setting is

Ages ago, when the giants were numerous on the earth, there lived a big fellow named Antigonus. That was not what his mother had called him, but some one told him of a Greek general of that name; so he took this for his own. He was rough and cruel. His castle was on the Scheldt River, where the city of Antwerp now stands. Many ships sailed out of France and Holland, down this stream. They were loaded with timber, flax, iron, cheese, fish, bread, linen, and other things made in the country. It was by this trade that many merchants grew rich, and their children had plenty of toys to play with. The river was very grand, deep, and wide. The captains of the ships liked to sail on it, because there was no danger from rocks, and the country through which it flowed was so pretty.

The Handmaid’s Tale was published in 1986 by Margaret Atwood. Known as a dystopian novel, I’m given insight to a warped United States, which is now the Republic of Gilead. The narrator Offred reminisced of the “president being shot and congress being machine-gunned” (Atwood 206). Gilead has decided to take action due to the structure of the states and the dramatic decrease in Caucasian birthrates. Gilead has created a government, new life style, and vocabulary, for residents. The most drastic change would be that women no longer have rights. No longer able to read, write, work, or decide day to day activities. Men were positioned

Oppressive societies gain power through the member's faith in the system. When there is a challenge to the system and faith is shaken, the society could fall apart. Parts of these societies are normalized through systemic transformation such as removing women’s rights to own money then transitioning into assigning certain women as surrogate child bearers. In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, the controversial aspects of the totalitarian Gilead are explored in Offred's first person narrative to reveal the idea that even with a loss of faith in a compromising situation, one must cling to hope.

In this review from Mary McCarthy she explains surprised recognition of seeing a distorting mirror of how society will play out if we continue with current trends much like ''Nineteen Eighty-Four,'' ''Brave New World'' and, ''A Clockwork Orange.'' However did not see this effect in Margaret Atwood's Novel “A Handmaid’s Tale.” McCarthy states” It is an effect, for me, almost strikingly missing from Margaret Atwood's very readable book.” Shen then goes on to summarize the book dumbing it down for readers who may not have read it explaining the separate sectors, of wives, breeders, servants and so forth, each clothed in the appropriate uniform. Explaining each character and their role in this dystopia. McCarthy makes clear that this novel is

In The Handmaids Tale, Offred is a thirty-three year old woman living in the Republic of “Gilead [which has] return[ed] to the Old Testament in a reaction against abortion, sterilization and what they consider to be dangerous kinds of freedom of the modern welfare state”(Sweets & Zeitlinger 455). The women of Gilead are now forced to play secondary roles to that of the men in the community, and wear specific colored dresses to represent the role that has been assigned to them, or “In other words, the new rulers equate the value of something and someone solely with validity, usefulness, functionality, economic profit” (Sweets & Zeitlinger 457). Commanders are rich men who are the head of the household. Each Commander has a Wife who wears blue

The story demonstrates exactly how people are involved in the circle of life. For each generation is another replication of the cycle and goes through the same basic experiences that every single generation previously has. In the tale, people recognize the formation of the latest generation. The dreamer cautiously shapes this adolescence into being via a procedure of experimental approach. For the adolescence to wake up, the father have to come to an agreement to send the youth over the other side. The Fire god has demanded this in order for the cycle to begin all over again. As soon as the dreamer learns that he is invulnerable to fire, and thus he too is a mere image and was dreamt by another, he became embarrassed. It is certain that the

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood tells the story of a woman living in a society run by extremist misogynistic Christians through different points in her life, the past, the present and the time in-between during the beginning of the revolution. She is a handmaid, which is basically a reproductive slave and we know her only by her slave name Offred. Although the characters are easy to relate to and the plot is easy enough to understand, I still felt like I was missing key details as to what is really going in the Republic of Gilead, we are only given bits and pieces throughout the novel. The only truly clear thing in this story is Atwood’s stance on the relationship between church and

The Handmaid's Tale is a distopian novel of tightly wound truths and links to our society today. It is so tightly wound, like a thorn bush, that gaining any meaning from it at all proves to be a very arduous task indeed for those who are not predisposed to do so. Nevertheless, some meaning did present itself during the text, as follows.

I grew up in a bubble, not literally, but metaphorically. The village of Sewickley was established by the elite of the Steel industry to escape the intense smog of Pittsburgh. Mansions grace boulevards flanked by enormous trees. Luckily, I had the opportunity to attend an ethnically diverse Scottish boarding school. Everyone came from different places: England, South Africa, Germany, Ukraine, Holland, China. The curriculum was created to bring students together through learning. In Literature, we read The Handmaid’s Tale, and the instructors exhorted us to have exhilarating and sometimes contentious debates about the themes of Margaret Atwood's novel. I had never experienced the variety of ideas and the way our dissimilar cultures affected