Atwood

In the “science fiction” novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood describes a distinct view of the future in which a new totalitarian regime has taken over the government of the United States. The novel focuses on the experience of Offred, a handmaid, as she retells events of her past life, and provides readers an insight on the extremity of control that the Republic of Gilead has over citizens. Atwood conforms to and deviates from the conventions of science fiction by using different narrative

Margaret Eleanor Atwood was the second child of Carl Edmund Atwood and Margaret Dorothy Killam. She was born on November 18, 1939, in Ottawa. An academic entomologist is her farther profession, which caused the family to move and raise Margaret in Ottawa, Sault Ste Marie, and Toronto due to her father's research. From the age of sixteen, Margaret has had the attention of pursuing writing as her lifetime career. Her growth in Toronto continued, and after studying at Victoria University in Toronto

In Margaret Atwood’s book The Handmaid’s Tale all of the women, in a new society called Gilead, are stripped from their everyday way of living. Their freedom, and most importantly their identity, is taken from them, and it is as if America has gone back in time to where there are no women’s rights. Now the women cannot think freely, read, or do as they please. The women cannot even wear their own clothes. They are all assigned to wear a certain color of robe all with a different meaning. The Wives

Essay #1 The Handmaid’s Tale, by prolific author Margaret Atwood, is a dystopian novel that brings to light the darker aspects of American politics in the 1980s. Modern themes and trends are twisted and stretched throughout the work, weaving an intricate web of topics that many authors tend to avoid. The novel frequently details main character Offred’s sexual experiences, both in her flashbacks and in her reality as a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. Many times the descriptions of intercourse

Defining her world as ‘social science fiction,’ Margaret Atwood brings clarity to a situation most deem unimaginable. Regarding the articles in the newspaper, Offred says that “we were the people who were not in the papers. We lived in the blank white spaces at the edge of print.” The characters see the news story as existing separate from the reality they view as their own. When the main character refers to herself and her friend as “…the people not in the papers” (57), she acknowledges that

a high-ranking Commander and his wife. Atwood’s explanation of the novel in her ‘Introduction’ categorizes The Handmaid’s Tale as a “feminist novel” (xv). Through Offred’s struggle to rationalize her transgressions, which lead to her imprisonment, Atwood challenges feminists’ conceptions of idealistic worlds. Feminists believe that women have both the right to control their bodies and to control if and when they have children, which is critical to their freedom of choice surrounding procreation and

Margaret Atwood Margaret Atwood is a well-known poet and novelist, but also renowned for other positions such as literary critic, essayist, inventor, teacher and environmental activist. She was born on 18 November 1939 in Ottawa, Toronto, Canada. Until now, she published more than 40 literary works, which of those are 16 novels, 8 short fictions, 17 poems among many more. Atwood graduated in English with minors in Philosophy and French at the University of Toronto and soon established a reputation

"The Handmaid's Tale" written by Margaret Atwood paints a realistic picture of a what a government ruled by a Christian theocracy would look like. In this country, men are the ones with power and women have virtually no rights. In the country of Gilead, there are many possible positions in society that a woman may be assigned. Furthermore, one of the lowest positions in society is the handmaid; their sole purpose is to bear children for their Commander. One such handmaid, is the narrator of the novel

belief is that birthrates in Gilead are declining due to the women and their infertility. In Gilead, “There is no such thing as a sterile man anymore, not officially. There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that’s the law” (Atwood 61). Expressing feminist views is forbidden in this society. Women do not get basic human rights, power, or freedom. The common theme throughout this tale is women’s bodies are used as political instruments; every aspect of women’s lives is controlled

for the accomplishment of my will,” (Atwood 73). Before she saw her body as different but since everything in Gilead changed, Offred no longer really cares which causes her to feel like an object. The idea that the handmaid’s are the ones that are used for getting them pregnant makes mainly Offred feel that she is in control. Offred states, “It makes me feel more in control, as if there is a choice, a decision that could be made one way or the other,” (Atwood 269). Offred describes the control of