Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid 's Tale

Over the past 200 years sexual liberation and freedom have become topics of discussions prevalent within western culture and society. With the recent exploration of sexuality a new concept of sexual and gender identity has emerged and is being analyzed in various fields of study. The ideology behind what defines gender and how society explains sex beyond biology has changed at a rapid pace. In response various attempts to create specific and catch all definitions of growing gender and sexual minorities has been on going. This has resulted in the concept of gender becoming a multi- layered shifting hypothesis to which society is adapting. Since the 19th-century, philosophers and theorists have continued to scrutinize gender beyond biological and social interpretation. Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid 's Tale captures the limitations and social implications forced upon a set gender based on societal expectations. Gender is a social construct that limits the individual to the restrictions and traditions of a society, or if it’s an individually formed self-identification of sex and sexuality that is formed autonomously. Evidence of gender establishment can be seen within literary works and supported by various schools of gender and sexuality theory.

A woman’s power and privileges depend on which societal class she is in. In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale each group of women are each represented in a different way. The three classes of women from the novel are the Handmaids, the Marthas and the Wives. The ways in which the women are portrayed reflect their societal power and their privileges that they bestow.

In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the dystopian society of Gileadean society is described. The role of women and the oppression of women by men cannot be missed while reading the novel. Due to the dropping fertility rates, fertile women are trained to be a Handmaid by the Aunts in the Red Center. The job of the Handmaid is to conceive a baby with the Commander, so the Commander and the Wife can nurture the child. Atwood uses the oppression of women in the Gileadean society to show her thoughts about the danger of historic events and the developments in society nowadays. The novel projects the struggle of Offred, who is a Handmaid herself, against the totalitarian restriction of her society and her desire for happiness and

Atwood uses dehumanisation throughout this extract as a form of control, by reducing someone to something lower than you would imply you had more power over them and could control them. When Offred referred to herself and the other women as ‘wild animals’, a creature that could not think for themselves, would suggest that they would be needed to be controlled. By using animals as a reference to women Atwood was indirectly foretelling Offred’s fate of fundamentally becoming a caged ‘animal’ who serves to breed. Alternatively, because this extract was a flashback it could suggest that men were still able to dehumanise women even before the regime, which therefore suggests that years’ worth of society conditioning men that they had superior power over women led to centuries of women under the control of men. An example of this conditioning would be when the unknown man replaced the ‘usual women’ at the shop, ‘you do that he said indifferently’ his apathetic response suggests he already had control over Offred’s because she could no longer use her card.

In a time when complacency is commonplace; A Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, is an important read. The dangers of not paying attention to the occurrences of injustice are front and center throughout the entire story of a woman suddenly stuck in a world ruled by religious zealots. Offred, as she's known now, speaks of the small signs that everyone ignored, constantly looking the other way on any infractions that didn't personally affect them.

In Margaret Atwood’s book The Handmaid’s Tale all of the women, in a new society called Gilead, are stripped from their everyday way of living. Their freedom, and most importantly their identity, is taken from them, and it is as if America has gone back in time to where there are no women’s rights. Now the women cannot think freely, read, or do as they please. The women cannot even wear their own clothes. They are all assigned to wear a certain color of robe all with a different meaning.

Gilead is ruled by male authority figures using extreme misconstrued Christian beliefs as an excuse to oppress women. These beliefs are displayed by the fact that before the commanders and the handmaids try to conceive a child, they must perform a Ceremony. During the Ceremony, the commander, the commander’s wife, and the handmaid assigned to them, pray to god in hopes of a successful pregnancy of the handmaid. At the Ceremony the Commanders must recite a few

What will the future bring? What will happen as feminists speak out, women work out of home, pornography spreads and is battled, and the desire for children dwindles? Perhaps life on Earth will improve. Maybe women will have the rights they demand, porn will be defeated, and people will respect women’s bodies. Maybe mothers will miraculously have the perfect number of children: just the right amount to keep the population within its limits. Or perhaps a deterioration will occur, as Margaret Atwood predicted in The Handmaid’s Tale. Atwood’s setting is futuristic, compelling, and terrifyingly believable. Her main character relates to the readers as real people. Her themes laced in the plot, from exposition to resolution, stem from conflicts with other characters, inner struggles, and heart wrenching losses. Readers are captivated as Atwood intertwines her literary elements, and warns the audience of a possible reality. Margaret Atwood tells the tale of a handmaid, and Atwood enlightens those partaking of her vision to the potential of such a degenerate future.

Not only does the novel’s absurd political agenda mimic the beliefs of the religious movements of the Reagan Years but also it illuminates the importance of the novel towards further discussing this ideology being practiced and the potential consequences. Aside from the religious political impact the novel has, Atwood’s work aims to showcase the patriarchal society that both exists in the book and subtlety in everyday life. As a part of this political and social commentary, Atwood gives a glimpse into what a misogynistic society and the factors of the political climate of America could potentially give way to; if they ever reached those extremes. The book highlights “the patriarchal abuse” (Staels 46) as it subjugates Offred, and other women throughout the Republic of Gilead to the agenda of those in power. As women are stripped of the power that they have, Atwood provides another glimpse into the second-wave feminist movement by providing an alternative narrative that depicts the extreme results of a failed movement. Besides showing the degradation of women in society and the loss their rights, Atwood shows how a society

I made that up. It didn’t happen that way. Here’s what happened. – p. 301

Margaret Atwood is the author of both Lady Oracle and The Handmaid’s Tale. Both of these novels follow the conventions of the oppression of women. Lady Oracle is the narrative in which Joan Foster, the first-person narrator, tells the story of her life. Spanning the time period of the early 1940s through 1970s, Joan’s story describes her growing up in Toronto, becoming an author of gothic romances, marrying and faking her suicide to escape the complicated turmoil of her life. The Handmaid’s Tale takes place in a city what used to be in the United States, now called the Republic of Gilead. In this alternative future state, the democratic government has been overthrown and replaced by an authoritarian one. In this book, the narrator, Offred, acts as the reader’s eyes and ears. People who have read this novel see Gilead as she sees it; they interpret it as she interprets it; and their only knowledge of it comes from the information she gives to them. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and Lady Oracle both portray the theme of the roles of women in society. This will be discussed by analyzing and contrasting the conflicts that Offred and Joan are faced with, and how they react to these conflicts.

Much like the sexist society during the 70s and 80s, the society that Atwood created in The Handmaid’s Tale mimics the political and social aspects of sexism during the late 1900s. Hence, the patriarchal dystopian society that is created by Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale will influence the reader to realize the close connections between today’s society and the society depicted in The Handmaid’s Tale (The Handmaid’s

From the days of the cavemen to now, societies have systematically oppressed people for various reasons. Oppression has happened to Jews in Germany, slaves during Christopher Columbus’s days, slaves in the early 1900s in America, etc. When people systematically oppress one another, it leads to internal oppression of the oppressed. This is evident in Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale. This dystopian fiction book is about a young girl, Offred, who lives in Gilead, a dystopian society. Radical feminists complained about their old lifestyles, so in Gilead laws and rules are much different. For example, men cannot wink at females, females cannot expose too much, etc. Females are protected from any harassment; however, there are downfalls: the government runs and sees everything. The government decided that Offred’s role in society is to be a handmaid, who is a person that is assigned to have sex for the sole purpose of reproduction. In The Handmaid 's Tale women consistently live in fear because they have a distinct role that is predetermined by a radical form of government, and when people are systematically oppressed, they will be internally oppressed.

Dystopian themes have been displayed throughout time dating back to ancient times, and literature has found its way to make its argument about dystopian society by sending a message to the near future as a warning to what may happen, through creative and exemplary writing the book 1984 gave a great example of what society might in the modern world. The book Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood displayed a dystopian society, focusing on women presenting problems of sexism towards women, fighting alongside feminism. turn into “language and power” occurs a lot in the book, and it is displayed through the government's control, Offred's thoughts. Three main examples are neologisms, biblical language, and language musings. Religious and biblical language

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. However, one of Atwood 's most successful books, The Handmaid 's Tale, stands in stark contrast to the ideas of feminism. In fact, the female characters in the novel are portrayed in such a way that they directly conflict with the idea of women 's empowerment.