The Handmaid's Tale Men Essay

Gileadean women are divided into seven classes based on hierarchy and identified by the color of their clothing. However, “They are not divided into functions. They have to do everything; if they can” (Atwood 24). The commanders’ wives wear blue. Their responsibilities are to bear children, and if they are not able to reproduce, they are to take on a handmaid and stay loyal to their husband. Aunts wear brown clothing, they work for Gilead, enforcing, teaching, and supervising the handmaids; urging them to accept their new way of life. The Marthas clothe themselves in green dresses and aprons. They are the household servants, in charge of the cooking and cleaning. Handmaids wear red, symbolizing their fertility. Their sole responsibility is to bear the Commanders’

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 women who have become sterile are fit into other classes within Gilead’s society and are differentiated by the color of their dress.. The women who are high on the class list are the wives (Blue Dress) who are married to the commanders. In this case the wife of the commander is Serena Joy, who is unable to bear any children. She was able to escape the oppressive chains of the Republic due to her devotion to serving God and spreading the word of God prior to the collapse of the U.S. However, her life is no more joyous than that of a Martha or a Handmaid as she must watch the handmaid's enter her home to attempt to bare her husband's children. The next on the list are the Aunts, they are staff members who blend the prim role of academy schoolmarms with the sadism of prison matrons. These women ‘teach’ the Handmaid’s about the role they have had the privilege of their positions within the new Republic of Gilead. The Martha's (Green Dress) women who are older or sterile and have the task of being the commander’s housekeepers. The Econowives (Striped Dress)who are working-class women who lack maid service and thus must "do everything." The Unwomen (Dress color never specified) are females that were remanded to the Colonies to serve in clean-up crews removing toxic wastes. Both the class and dress code of the women symbolizes that they are no longer individuals; they

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.

   As the saying goes, 'history repeats itself.' If one of the goals of Margaret Atwood was to prove this particular point, she certainly succeeded in her novel A Handmaid's Tale. In her Note to the Reader, she writes, " The thing to remember is that there is nothing new about the society depicted in The Handmaiden's Tale except the time and place. All of the things I have written about ...have been done before, more than once..." (316). Atwood seems to choose only the most threatening, frightening, and atrocious events in history to parallel her book by--specifically the enslavement of African Americans in the United States. She traces the development of this institution, but from the

To begin, the Republic of Gilead outfits women based on their function to strip them of their individuality. The process starts by colour coding women into easily identifiable class groups. This is seen when Offred makes her way to town, narrating the scene and drawing attention to the other women by saying, “There are other women with baskets, some in red, some in the dull green of the Marthas” (Atwood 27). Women in Gilead have been colour coded to be easily identifiable and known under their respective colours, completely erasing their identities. Furthermore, the colours they wear identify their sole purposes to society. When Offred first introduces Econowives she notes that “...the striped dresses, red and blue and green… Econowives, they're called. These women are not divided into functions. They have to do everything…” (Atwood 27). The Econowives are the wives or the poorer men, wearing the medley of all three colours to

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.

Offred, within the novel, is seen as being in one of the lowest classes within the hierarchy of women only putting her above the women who are sent to the colonies. Unlike the handmaids, the Martha, who are helping ladies to the Wives, talk about Offred like she is not in their present but viewed her as “a household chore,one among many”(Atwood 48). Although the Martha are women too, they have more control than Offred. By viewing Offred as a household chore conveys that Offred is an inconvenience but still a necessary part of Gilead. Speaking about Offred like this emphasizes that she is below them in the status of society and they are not seen as equals. In addition, Offred, being a handmaid, wasn’t allow to talk to the Wives in a direct manner (Atwood 14-15). By Offred not being allowed to talk to the Wives illustrates that the Wives authority over the handmaids. Furthermore, the handmaid’s are viewed as less and “[reduced]... to the slavery status of being mere ‘breeders’” (Malak). By conveying the handmaids are slaves shows are they force without consent to have sex with men and that the handmaid focus is to breed, unlike the Martha, aunts, and Wives. Moreover, the class system within the female hierarchy of Gilead is utilized as a political tool thus adding to the assumption

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.

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

Offred can see herself in the mirror like a distorted shadow, a parody of something, some fairy-tale figure in a red cloak, descending towards a moment of carelessness that is in the same as danger. A Sister, dipped in blood."(8). In Cliff Notes, Mary Ellen Snodgrass wrote, "The persistent color motif suggesting menstruation and the female cycle in the blatant scarlet color of the Handmaid's uniform"(31). For that reason, it seems appropriate the color used to represent the Handmaids is red. Their job is to deliver a child for Commanders and their wives; therefore, the menstruation cycle has a strong meaning. Giving birth is another representation. Red could be associated with the bleeding and afterbirth that is part of childbirth. The mode of transportation to travel to the birth of a fellow Handmaid is the Birthmobile. The bench seats, curtains, and floor, as well as the Birthmobile itself, is red. The place where all of the of Handmaids are trained as potential breeders is named "Red Center." That is where they are taught how to act and present themselves proudly. The Red Center is also where the Handmaids are told everything they cannot do anymore, such as read, because they are women. In today's society, we associate "Red Light Districts" with prostitution. Several examples in the novel show how little the other women in the Republic think of the function of the Handmaids. Perhaps they look at the Handmaids lives as a form of

The central social hierarchy within the novel is the gender hierarchy, placing men in a position of extreme power. This is evident in every aspect of the book, as the entire Gilead society is male dominated. The Commander is at the top of the hierarchy and is involved with designing and establishing the current society taking control of a nation of women, and exploiting their power by controlling what is taught, what they can teach themselves and the words that they can use. Soon all of the women will become brainwashed, simply because it is made nearly impossible to defy the rules

In The Handmaid’s Tale, red is a distinct color used to represents Handmaids. The color relates itself with the feeling of shame and is also a symbol for fertility as it is associated with the blood of the menstruation cycle. The clothes which Handmaids dress in are also red. This can be noted from a description Offred says: “Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood, which defines us.” (Atwood, 1986, p.8). Furthermore, the accessories which Handmaids are given are also red: