The Handmaid 's Tale By Margaret Atwood

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.

This dystopian tale is told by Offred who is a handmaid to her commander. She is just there to buy groceries, play scrabble and get pregnant.

The Handmaids Tale, written by Margaret Attwood, goes on to explore the consequences that come to be from the reversal of womens rights in a society called Gilead. It is what one can consider a cautionary tale. In the new world of Gilead, a group of conservative religious extremists have taken power, and have turned the sexual revolution upside down. The society of Gilead is founded on what is to be considered a return to traditional values, gender roles and the subjugation of women by men, and the Bible is used as the guiding principle. It differs completely from the society, which was once the place in which Feminists argued for liberation from the traditional gender roles. What women had worked hard for in the

The Republic of Gilead is a dictatorship in which men are the superior sex. Men are often in charge, much like the Commander, and are assigned women, one of these being the main character, Offred. Offred is a Handmaid, meaning her goal is to become pregnant, since if she is unable to she could be killed or sent off to the colonies and become what is called an Unwoman, this is yet another sign of power. Furthermore, women are constantly being watched and are often isolated from others due to the lack of freedom, this in turn makes women feel more inferior.

The Handmaid’s Tale Analysis Unorthodox outlooks exist in the population of every society and culture. Some individuals are willing to speak out against regimes, and others rebel in stealthy ways. In Margret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, a new theocracy style of government has taken over the United States of America. The newly formed administration is known as the Republic of Gilead and entails a strictly structured caste system. The narrator, Offred, has chosen to be a Handmaid.

Although the misogynistic society tries to make the Handmaids feel worthless and unimportant, they are the opposite. Offred and all the other Handmaids are beautiful and precious. Being able to create a life and carry that life inside of one is riveting and miraculous. It is what the Handmaids do; it is why they are handpicked. They give birth to children which in return, gives life to Gilead.

In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, The theme of gender, sexuality, and desire reigns throughout the novel as it follows the life of Offred and other characters. Attwood begins the novel with Offred, a first person narrator who feels as if she is misplaced when she is describing her sleeping scenery at the decaying school gymnasium. The narrator, Offred, explains how for her job she is assigned to a married Commander’s house where she is obligated to have sex with him on a daily basis, so that she can become pregnant and supply the Commander with a child. In addition, the uniform that Offred along with the other handmaids are required to wear is a red dress, which symbolizes blood. Offred has little to no freedom as she has duties assigned daily making her feel as if she is in prison. When she occasionally leaves the room she is confined to, Offred is always being watched over by someone else so that she is never alone when she is outside of her room. All through the novel, Offred has habitual flashbacks to different parts in her life. For example, she is nostalgic about her relationship and time spent with her mother, daughter, and husband Luke as she compares her new life to how it was before the regime. Furthermore, the regime denies public access towards acquiring new knowledge and language, limiting Offred’s potential. The Gileadean regime’s primary focus is rule over gender, sexuality, and desire.

In the novel due to low reproductive rates, fertile females known as Handmaid’s are assigned to households where couples are having trouble conceiving a child. Offred who is a Handmaid is assigned to the household of The Commander; who is at the near top of Gilead’s hierarchical society. It is the very Commander who initiates a forbidden hidden relationship that violates the rules of the society, with Offred in the novel. The Commander at the very start of Offred’s placement is able to use his power to intimidate her before the

wanted. Because of this, Offred lost her identity as married, educated, and free women. Because of the works of her mother, she is now seen as a women with viable ovaries, and can no longer live the wonderful life she used to have. Aunt Lydia is another character, who unlike the other characters, affects Offred with anti feminism. Offred introduces Aunt Lydia as one of the mentors at the Red Center, who prepares the handmaid’s to be sent out to the home of the elite to produce a child.

The Handmaid's Tale. New York: Anchor Books, a division of Penguin Random House LLC, 1998. Print.

The Women's Rights movement in America has been a consistent struggle since its founding in the early twentieth century. The social revolution received its greatest opposition in the nineteen sixties to the late nineteen eighties. It was during this time Margaret Atwood published her novel The Handmaid's Tale, the story tells of a futuristic utopian society in America, religiously based, that has effectively taken all human rights from women to accomplish their goal. In the now country of Gilead, the feminist American movement has been reversed completely.

The Handmaid’s Tale is one of the most prestigious books of Margaret Atwood, and many readers believe that this is a feminist novel. Also, like the author, Margaret Atwood, indicated in the preamble of the book: “If you mean a novel in which women are human beings- with all the variety of character and behavior that implies- and are also interesting and important…then yes. In this case, many books are feminist.” Actually, her words were accepted by many people, the Handmaid tale is a feminist book because the book is described from the side of the women and shows the discrepancies of women, the book demonstrates how women suffer the cruel state actions of Gilead, and the book reveals a series of stereotypes on women as well.

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is the story of Offred in the new country of Gilead. Gilead is the country that replaces the United States after a group of religious extremists who overthrow the existing government replace it with a patriarchal form of government; women are subservient and aren’t allowed to learn, have jobs, or do anything that could establish their own independence. In this story, Offred is not a heroine, but instead, she is a woman trying to stay alive in this brutal society.

The Handmaid's Tale is written by Margaret Atwood and was originally published by McClelland and Stewart in 1985. The novel is set in Cambridge, Massachusetts. The Handmaid's Tale explores themes of a new totalitarian theocratic state society that is terrifying and horrific. Its main concentration is on the subjugation of women in Gilead, and it also explores the plethora of means by which the state and agencies gain control and domination against every aspect of these women's lives. Restrictive dress codes also play an important factor as a means of social order and control in this new society.