The Fight For Equality In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

The Handmaid’s Tale has explored the disempowerment of individual power that is implemented by the society. Margaret Atwood demonstrates this through the main ‘protagonist’ of the story, Offred, with her minimal amount of visible power in society. Individual power can catalyse minor change but lacks the strength to impact upon large scale power regimes. While confined behind the “white wings of the Handmaids”, Offred and Ofglen “learned to whisper almost without a sound” to share information they had heard “through the grapevine” about what is withheld from them. Although the government has immeasurable power driven by fear of being taken away in the “black van”, they battle for what little individual power they can get.

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

It is necessary for the government to impose a certain amount of power and control of its citizens in order for a society to function properly. However, too much power and control in a society eliminates the freedom of the residents, forbidding them to live an ordinary life. In the dystopian futuristic novel, The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood demonstrates the theme of power and control through an oppressive society called the Republic of Gilead. The government established power and control through the use of the wall, military control, the salvaging, the particicution, and gender.

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).

“There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from,” (Atwood 24). The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, is a novel set in the near future where societal roles have severely changed. The most notable change is that concerning women. Whereas, in the past, women have been gaining rights and earning more “freedom to’s”, the women in the society of The Handmaid’s Tale have “freedom froms”. They have the freedom from being abused and having sexist phrases yelled at them by strangers. While this may seem like a safer society, all of the “safeness” comes at a drastic cost. Atwood depicts a dystopia in The Handmaid’s Tale

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood, focuses on the darker interconnections between politics and sex. The characters she creates are representatives mainly portraying characters though thoughts, statements and actions. In the society of Gilead women are forced to comply with the state's rules in order to produce children; these are their stories.

In Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale, the character of Offred is restricted by the severe regulations of her society. The once democratic United States of America with equality for all has been turned into the theocratic and totalitarian Republic of Gilead. When Offred is affected by the strict standards of this society, she responds in audacious, yet furtive ways in order to not attract the attention of the omniscient Eyes who control the society and punish offenders

“I feel thankful to her. She has died that I may live. I will mourn later” (Atwood 286). Many sacrifices and hard decisions are made by unorthodox people to keep what they believe in alive. There would be no rebellions and no change without these nonconforming people. Offred, the main character and a Handmaiden, would have faced eminent death in her strictly orthodox world had it not been for the rebelliousness of those who died before her wanting change. The Republic of Gilead, previously known as the United States, is a theocracy. Environmental events and population decline prompt changes. A caste system is created, and each caste performs specific duties. They are punished if the laws are not followed. The Eyes are at the top of the caste system; they make sure the laws are obeyed. Next are the Commanders and their Wives. The Handmaiden’s main task is to produce a child with their Commander. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, some unorthodox characters challenge the theocracy such as Offred, Ofglen, and Nick.

The Handmaid's Tale, a science-fiction novel written by Margaret Atwood, focuses on women's rights and what could happen to them in the future. This novel was later made into a movie in 1990. As with most cases of books made into movies, there are some similarities and differences between the novel and the film. Overall the film tends to stay on the same track as the book with a few minor details changed, and only two major differences.

Offred is a Handmaid in what used to be the United States, now the theocratic Republic of Gilead. In order to create Gilead's idea of a more perfect society, they have reverted to taking the Book of Genesis at its word. Women no longer have any privileges; they cannot work, have their own bank accounts, or own anything. The also are not allowed to read or even chose who they want to marry. Women are taught that they should be subservient to men and should only be concerned with bearing children. Margaret Atwood writes The Handmaid's Tale (1986) as to create a dystopia. A dystopia is an imaginary place where the condition of life is extremely bad, from deprivation, oppression, or

Depending on the class in society, the women have certain freedoms towards sex. The Handmaids are only allowed to have sex with the Commanders. Not only are the Commanders the only ones with whom they are allowed to have sex with, but they also have to have sex with them because it is their job. The Handmaids are forced to have sex with the Commanders solely for the purpose of reproducing. If the Handmaids do not reproduce, it means failure. “Each month I watch for blood, fearfully, for when it comes it means failure”(84). It is not stated if the Marthas are able to have sex or not. The Marthas fall into their place because they are unable to reproduce; therefore they are not forced to have sex like the Handmaids. The Wives are allowed to have sex with their husbands. The wives have no restrictions placed on them saying they can have sex with their husbands. The wives can do this because they have a significant amount more power than the other women in the society. The wives have this

How one is perceived heavily determines how one will be treated by society. In the novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” written by Margaret Atwood, identity and how one appears heavily determines the extent to which one is confined and how much freedom one has. This idea is developed throughout the novel through various characters and the symbolism of colours seen in the clothing worn by them. The degree to which identity decides freedom is illustrated mainly through the female characters in the book. Furthermore, the extent to which one is restricted is revealed through the lives of the Handmaids.

In the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, life in the newly formed dystopian society of Gilead is partial to the rights of women. Once the college town of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gilead has produced laws that prohibit women from writing, reading, conversing in a casual manner, having jobs, purchasing items, and even forming intimate and meaningful relationships. They are brought down to just a means of reproduction. Those who reproduce are called Handmaids and one such Handmaid is Offred. Her way of adapting to such a drastic change of lifestyle is to separate her mind from her body, to dissociate herself from what’s happening around her and to her. Pollock, the author of The Brain in Defense Mode, cites a definition of dissociation

In a society where women are completely oppressed they have two choices: To conform and survive, or to rebel and risk execution. Conformity would entail suppressing their morals and their personal rights to adapt to Gilead’s social standards. Would one choose self-inflicted isolation by disassociating oneself as a human being to survive, or gain more rights and disregard all morals by working for the government? This society is represented in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale. The novel is set in the Republic of Gilead, a dictatorship, formerly known as the United States of America. The government controls all aspects of the lives’ of its citizens, with its harshest regulations directly affecting women.

Cultural criticism is a broad technique that puts emphasis on the culture that contributed to the production of a work. This approach is an eclectic, interdisciplinary study that utilizes a wide range of topics to analyze literature. Cultural criticism considers a variety of perspectives and branches of knowledge to discover the compilation of beliefs and customs that characterize a group of people. For a cultural reading of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, a cultural critic would consider the historical background paired with theories such as Marxism and feminism to make assumptions about what culture engendered the creation of this novel. (104 words)