Handmaid's Tale Feminist 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.

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.

Today i'm going to be comparing and contrasting the texts “ A Simple Act” by Tyler Jackson and the text “ An Invisible Thread” by Laura Schroff and Alex Tresniowski. Also i'm going to talk about this because i want the reader to know that these two text are based on a true story. Also i want the reader to know how these text are very similar but also very different to each other.

Novel and Film Analytical Paper: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood Thelma & Louise by Ridley Scott Sexism and gender roles have divided societies for centuries while the great feminist movement has impacted everybody. How women from the past and from the present struggle to managed their position in society as gender roles define their lives. Analyzing the novel The Handmaid’s Tales and the movie Thelma & Louise, I will evaluate, compare and contrast the advantages and drawbacks of the feminist movement. With completely different settings and scenarios, these two stories will have a struggle that will defined their ends. Analyzing these diverse turnouts; from a handmaid that wishes to get pregnant so her life has a meaning as a women,

Moreover, in Gilead women were restricted and banned from reading, writing, and communicating with others to limit the knowledge of the handmaids and prevent them from having a voice, so they can’t rebel against the republic. Throughout the novel, Offred’s commander Waterford called her to his office and played scrabble with her, which was a big privilege because it was forbidden. As Offred explained, “Now of course it’s something different. Now it’s forbidden, for us. Now it’s dangerous.

Philip Zimbardo, an American psychologist said, “Bullies may be the perpetrators of evil, but it is the evil of passivity of all those who know what is happening and never intervene that perpetuates such abuse,” (“Philip Zimbardo Quotes”). In Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, a pair Handmaid’s called Offred and Ofglen, and a wife named Serena Joy, clearly exhibit contrasting examples of complacency and passivity in their dystopia. Taking place in what used to be the United States, the Republic of Gilead begins their overthrow first with a massacre of the previous government, followed by the Republic effectively stripping women

      The Handmaids Tale, by Margaret Atwood, can be classified as a distopic novel. The Republic of Gilead in The Handmaids Tale is characteristic of a distopia in that it is not intended as a prediction of the future of our society, but rather as a commentary on current social trends. Atwood has created this nation by isolating what she might consider the disturbing aspects of two diametrically opposed factions of our society (namely the religious right and radical feminism) as a theory as to what would happen if these ideals were taken to an extreme. Because she points out similarities in the thoughts and actions of the extreme religious right and certain parts of the feminist movement,

Q.U.E.S.T Literary Analysis of The Handmaid’s Tale In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian society emerges. The USA has been overrun and reformed into the Republic of Gilead. Offred, the narrator and main character is in a category of women known as Handmaids; women who wear red and are valued only for their ovaries. The story follows Offred as she’s in service to her third Commander, and continues until her “arrest”.

In both novels, the government uses their power to change history to sway it in their favor, leaving only the memory of what once was. The party controlled all information to make themselves all powerful. They rewrite anything that could go against their views no matter when it happened, "...the past, starting from yesterday, has been actually abolished. If it survives anywhere, it's in a few solid objects with no words attached to them..." (p. 162). To the party any piece of information from any point in the past can be rewritten to help them control how anything is viewed. This point of view allows the party to omit of add whatever they feel necessary in their quest of being seen right in the public's eye. Eventually everything has been

Lack of Difference from Women in The Handmaid’s Tale and Women in Modern Day Society

Upon reading The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, one notices the tragedy of women losing rights. Imagine the feelings of losing all rights and freedoms; how hard the transition would be from an American society, centered on freedoms, to the society where Offred lives in The Handmaid’s Tale. Thankfully for all Americans, Atwood’s prediction of what society would become in the future was inaccurate. But, not all countries enjoy the same freedoms and luxuries as America does; the treatment of women in Middle Eastern societies, more specifically Iran, is similar to that of The Handmaid’s Tale. Although the current situation in Iran and The Handmaid’s Tale might seem quite different, as one is a futuristic dystopian novel and the other is

As I read the book, The Handmaid’s Tale, I also thought of our previous lecture on “The Problem with No Name.” Friedan states that women in the past valued their life as being a good wife and mother, sharing power with her husband at home. According to her, most women had ignored the problem that had no name other than one’s wife or one’s mother, but became no longer possible to ignore their desire to find their true self outside of their house. The ignorance of their “name” and the desire to find their identities are aligned with the life of Offred and other handmaids. The Handmaid cannot have their real name which they were given from their parents. Instead, they should take their husband’s name. Because the name of Offred’s commander Fred,

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 does not 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 us connect to the story and characters despite the tremendous difference in context. The Handmaid’s Tale portrays and develops the themes of feminism, political and religious views, oppression, and relationships to the extent that the reader in a modern-day setting is able to

    Feminism as we know it began in the mid 1960's as the Women's Liberation Movement. Among its chief tenants is the idea of women's empowerment, the idea that women are capable of doing and should be allowed to do anything men can do. Feminists believe that neither sex is naturally superior. They stand behind the idea that women are inherently just as strong and intelligent as the so-called stronger sex. Many writers have taken up the cause of feminism in their work. One of the most well known writers to deal with feminist themes is Margaret Atwood. Her work is clearly influenced by the movement and many literary critics, as well as Atwood herself, have identified her as a feminist writer.

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.