Repetition In 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.

Offred struggles with her new life, stating, “I want to be held and told my name. I want to be valued, in ways that I am not; I want to be more than valuable. I repeat my former name; to remind myself of what I once could do, how others saw me” (Atwood 97). Offred is emotionally run down. She misses her husband Luke and the way he made her feel. Offred spends most of her days wondering about her husband Luke, and daughter. She wonders if her husband is dead, made it across the Canadian border, or was captured. Although Offred never finds out Luke’s life status, Serena Joy offers to tell Offred some information regarding her daughter. Consequently, Offred must sleep with Nick and conceive a child in spite of receiving the information. As long as the Commander believes he is the father of Offred 's child, no problems will arise. Offred 's decision is unconventional and risky, both for herself and Nick. If Nick and Offred are caught, they will be executed. However, her unorthodox decision pays off. Serena Joy obtains a photograph of Offred’s daughter and informs Offred that her daughter is now around eight years old and has been adopted by a family loyal to the regime. Offred is informed that her daughter is alive and in safe care. The new information provides Offred with a sense of relief.

In her 1985 dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood has created the fictional Republic of Gilead, in which women are heavily oppressed by the newly installed regime. The new regime values women solely on their fertility, thus objectifying them to no more than a means of reproduction. By confiscating control over the process of and the rights to reproduction, the Gilead regime denies women ‘’any sense of control or independence’’ (Byrne). In this essay, I will argue that, although the female body is the main subject of oppression in Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, it is also the key to resistance for women in the so-called nation of Gilead, and that women hold the ultimate bargaining power, as they have the ‘’final say’’ on what happens to their bodies.

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.

In the Gilead society the handmaids have to cover up their bodies, wear long dresses, and cover their faces with vial’s and wings. These rules for the women are the same if not similar in Afghanistan, India, and some south Asian countries. In Pakistan women can be raped and if no evidence is found to prove it was rape the men could get away with it and the women could be charged with pre-marital sex and sentence to prison. This is similar in The Handmaid’s Tale; the handmaids go through “the ceremony” as they call it. The handmaids had to lay on their backs once a month in hope to become impregnated by the commander. The handmaids are valued only for their womb, ovaries, and reproducing. If their ovaries were no good or if they couldn’t have children for any other reason, then the handmaid was not valued or not needed and was sent to “the club” where all the unclean, no use of handmaids are. The handmaids with valuable ovaries are alive only to serve a purpose which is to reproduce.

One of the many sad aspects of The Handmaid’s Tale is that the women who are subjected to abuse and discrimination soon comply with the roles that have been assigned to them, permitting abuse and exploitation against and amongst themselves. Atwood is not particularly hopeful about women as a means of changing the conditions in which they are living in this society. Even Offred’s eventual escape from the perverted system is more of a luck luck thing than determined will. Paying particular attention to the ending of the novel, this essay will argue that the author wants to call the reader’s attention to the problems that women suffer, but that she offers no solution or hope for change. I will be addressing three different literary devices in this essay; Repetition, Characterization, and Foreshadowing. I hope you enjoy.

While Offred is walking outside one realizes that the women can always be recognized of what they are by what they are wearing. “There are other women with baskets, some in red, some in the dull green of the Marthas, some in the striped dresses, red and blue and green and cheap and skimpy, that mark the women of the poorer men. Econowives, they’re called. These women are not divided into function. They have to do

In her book, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Margaret Atwood describes a dystopian society in which all of the progress in the feminist movement that was made during the twentieth century is reversed and the nation is reverted back to its traditional patriarchal ways. The story is told from the point of view of Offred, a woman who was separated from her husband and child and forced into the life of a handmaid. In this book, Atwood explores the oppression of women through her use of literary tools such as figurative language, symbols, and literary allusions.

Atwood demonstrates a sense of hatred and jealousy within Serena Joy, which is directed towards Offred as she is unintentionally an intruder and is invading Serena Joy’s private life. Eventually, this jealousy enables Serena Joy to try to obliviate Offred by “fixing it up with Nick”. Also, Serena Joy indicates that she is willing to “help” Offred by showing her a “picture”, “something you want”. However, all these actions are a result of Serena Joy’s self-interest and her manipulative personality, “there’s a hint of her former small-screen mannequin’s allure, flickering over her face like momentary static”. Consequently, Atwood highlights Serena Joy’s “roguish” actions caused by jealousy and a desire for revenge upon the very person who has been deprived her of possession of the Commander; she deliberately withheld the news of Offred’s lost daughter and the photograph that Offred has been longing for.

In “The Handmaid's’ Tale” (Margaret, Atwood), neologisms are sprinkled throughout the story's characters and it’s deeper meaning. Neologisms (being words that have a different meaning than their current uses) show how certain characters or terms are viewed in Gilead’s society. Salvagings refer to the executions that take action against those that do not abide by the Gilead Republic's laws such as the doctors who practiced abortions before the war. Another neologism is the view of freedom. Offred and the other Handmaids are not given any freedom. Similar to a regiment, the women are given orders and tasks and they must follow suit while the other roles are in this same regime, just with different tasks such as the Martha's who clean and

In Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaids Tale’, we hear a transcribed account of one womans posting ‘Offred’ in the Republic of Gilead. A society based around Biblical philosophies as a way to validate inhumane state practises. In a society of declining birth rates, fertile women are chosen to become Handmaids, walking incubators, whose role in life is to reproduce for barren wives of commanders. Older women, gay men, and barren Handmaids are sent to the colonies to clean toxic waste.

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

The future lays in past decisions, such as the decision to end segregation, the decision to organize population growth, or the decision to separate blood family. These choices have come from past generations’ failure and future generations’ desires. The Republic of Gilead in Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale must focus on the reproduction of offspring and nothing else. Men and women do not “make love” anymore. They only have sex for reproduction purposes. Every loved one is taken away from them—husbands, children, parents, etc. One right that can never be taken away from them is their opinions. Offred rebels against her government with the use of thought and alliance. She believes she will one day see her husband and daughter again, and while Offred dreams of her family, Aunt Lydia dreams of a world where everyone in the Republic of Gilead “will live in harmony together,” and once rebellion by the suppressed women is stopped and population levels are

A Critical Analysis of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” In this dystopia novel, it reveals a remarkable new world called Gilead. “The Handmaid’s Tale,” by Margaret Atwood, explores all these themes about women who are being subjugated to misogyny to a patriarchal society and had many means by which women tried to gain not only their individualism and their own independence. Her purpose of writing this novel is to warn of the price of an overly zealous religious philosophy, one that places women in such a submissive role in the family. I believe there are also statements about class in there, since the poor woman are being meant to serve the rich families need for a child. As the novel goes along the narrator Offred is going between the past and