Power And Corruption In Things Fall Apart And The Handmaid's Tale

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 OPPRESSION OF WOMEN IN ATWOOD’S THE HANDMAID’S TALE AND THEIR WAYS OF RESISTING THE REGIME

The Handmaid's Tale is set in the early twentieth century in the futuristic Republic of Gilead, formerly the United States of America. The Republic has been founded by a Christian response to declining birthrates. The government rules using biblical teachings that have been distorted to justify the inhumane practices. In Gilead, women are categorized by their age, marital status and fertility. Men are categorised by their age. Women all have separate roles in society, and although these roles are different, they all share the same theme: Every woman is confined to the home and has a domestic duty. Marthas are cooks and housekeepers, and handmaids have one duty, which is to reproduce, growing and giving birth to babies to the childless

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.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is set in a future time period where the United States is under the control of the Gileadean regime. A terrorist attack leads to the collapse of Congress, the suspension of the Constitution, and the establishment of a theocratic totalitarian government. Men and women are given roles within society; they are Commanders, Eyes, Handmaids, and Marthas. In this novel, Atwood explores a prominent social issue, feminism. The suppression and power of women are examined through the setting and characterization of the novel to help understand the meaning of the novel as a whole.

In Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood writes about a dystopia society. Atwood used situations that were happening during the time she began writing her novel, for example, women’s rights, politics, and in religious aspects. Atwood’s novel is relevant to contemporary society. There are similarities between Atwood’s novel and our society today, which lends to the possibility that our modern society might be headed to a less intense version of this dystopia society.

Margaret Atwood is author that is most famously known for her use of feminism in her literary works. The Handmaid’s Tale is among one of the most well known books for its critique of feminism. Feminism is described as the advocating for women's rights for equality to men on all levels, including social, political, and economical. Atwood’s novel centers around a dystopian culture in which women’s rights are disregarded by the state, men, and fellow women. After the birth rate started to decline, the state decided to take control by creating a new society in which reproduction was the main focus. The men did not lose their right when the new society was formed, creating a patriarchal society. A disunity was created within the various rankings of women in

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is a disturbing novel that displays the presence and manipulation of power. This is displayed throughout the novel and is represented significantly in three ways. As the book takes place in the republic of Gilead, the elite in society are placed above every other individual who are not included in their level. Secondly, men are placed at the top of the chain and they significantly overpower women in the society (elite or not). Finally the individuals within the elite society also overpower each other and have their own separate roles. This can be interpreted as a chain. Men of the elite are placed at the top, the men who less elite

In The Handmaid’s Tale, the author, Margaret Atwood, creates a dystopian society that is under theocratic rule. From this theocracy, each individual’s freedom is, for the most part, taken away. The Handmaid’s Tale creates a dystopia by placing restrictions on the individual’s freedom, using propaganda to control its citizens, and by having citizens of Gilead live in dehumanized ways. Furthermore, the creation of a hierarchal system in Gilead caused its citizens to lose the ability to feel empathy towards one another. In the search to create a perfect society, Gilead caused more harm and problems than expected which created a dystopia rather than a utopia.

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

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

In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood explores the role that women play in society and the consequences of a countryís value system. She reveals that values held in the United States are a threat to the livelihood and status of women. As one critic writes, “the author has concluded that present social trends are dangerous to individual welfare” (Prescott 151).

The setting of The Handmaid’s Tale – known as Gilead – is a totalitarian government, originally based on Old Testament patriarchy. This structure forbids rival loyalties or parties, so all loyalty must be for the group of men that