The Handmaid's Short Story: The Hunger Games

Serena Joy is the most powerful female presence in the hierarchy of Gileadean women; she is the central character in the dystopian novel, signifying the foundation for the Gileadean regime. Atwood uses Serena Joy as a symbol for the present dystopian society, justifying why the society of Gilead arose and how its oppression had infiltrated the lives of unsuspecting people.

“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

The first part when he was brave and really standing up, was when he really even said yes to all this. He could have been home not having fun and being boring.But he made his choice and I think it was the right choice .But the reason he said yes is because he felt bad so many people had lost all their home and he wanted to help them. He made his choice and helped

Parents typically don’t want their children reading in depth books about sex; however, The Handmaid’s Tale offers great fictional examples that teach sexism and the mistreatment of women, yet these examples can lead some in the wrong way. Therefore depending on the view in society, The Handmaid’s tale should be banned or kept to certain areas of the world because of the unfair treatment of women.

Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, follows the story of Offred, the protagonist and narrator, living in a dystopian New England set in a near future America. The overthrown totalitarian government called the Republic of Gilead now concentrates on women, depriving them from their rights and ranking them by class, and returning to a more primitive time period. The handmaids, a position that Offred has been assigned to, now must serve for reproductive purposes for the barren elite ruling class. Atwood uses the female body as a theme throughout her book as a way to _.

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.

As the narrator walks around the church, they happened to approach the wall. They stopped at the wall and notice dead bodies. The narrator mentions, “ beside the main gateway there are six bodies hanging, by the necks, their hands tied in front of them…” (Atwood 32). These bodies were hanged on the wall for committing a crime. Their hands were tied in front of them and people were able to witness their body being hang on the wall. Sometimes their body would be there for days until there is a new batch. The men bodies were covered in blood and the people who saw them were suppose to feel some kind of hatred and scorn over the dead bodies. However, Offered did not feel that. She stated “what I feel towards them is blankness” (Atwood 33).

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.

An American journalist, Theodore White, once said, “power in America is control of the means of communication.” This holds true not only for America, but in many environments, including The Gileadean government in Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. There are two linguistic elements employed throughout the novel which bolster the totalitarian regime of the Gileadean government. The religious terminology and speech and the sexist language and symbols highlight the repression of free speech and contribute to the oppressive behavior of the Gileadean administration by utilizing speech as a form of power that enables the government to control its citizens. By skimming over and failing to notice the occurrence of oppressive language, readers prove that people will readily accept sexist and domineering speech; analyzing these elements are important to regain control of the power of one’s own words, as well as the words of others.

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 Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel, The Handmaids Tale, religion is presented as a controlling influence, which takes away freedom of individuals. In the 1980s, this was a time of social change, where extreme right-winged fascist regimes such as Moral Majority and Conservative Revival merged religion and politics into a binding precedent. Consequently, Atwood wrote The Handmaids Tale in order to show the male fundamentalist leaders use women as submissive sexual objects under the guidance of religious scripture as justification and created a bleak futuristic society if anyone of these cults became successful. Primarily in the epigraph, Atwood opens with three distinct references to introduce the rules in the society of

Notorious rapper Chris Brown has been recorded saying, “My mother taught me to treat a lady respectfully” (BrainyQuote). As much as irony as is contained in that statement, there is even more when it is applied to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian society so rife with the poisoning effects of radiation and so desperate for children that it treats fertile women as reproductive objects, with no care or concern about how this may affect their mental state. Analyzing this novel through the feminist and psychoanalytical theoretical lenses allows for a link between the way Offred was treated and her state of depression and resulting thoughts of suicide. The feminist theory is built on a male-dominated point-of-view that implies the weakness of women by portraying them as inferior,

Today I woke up with a hectic day ahead of me, my duties stopped me from spending time with my family. As I woke up at dawn the weather outside is wild as I dressed into my finest robe. I eat a small breakfast and then go outside doing my duties. I go outside and I speak to the lord about an trouble that had happened on my land. I then make my way down to the peasants, touching the sick and healing them. After this i would go back into my castle and the lords would give me taxes from the people who have been on my land, also they would report anything they saw in the distance and on the land. Some nobles then came running into the castle, complaining that the peasants and the surf aren't growing enough crops to provide them for there food, I then had to go speak

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 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.