Abraham Maslow was a psychologist who created a pyramid that outlined a hierarchy of human needs. According to him, people will become more motivated when one of their deficiency needs is unmet. Therefore, the longer someone goes without meeting one of these needs, the stronger their desire will be to get the need fulfilled. A few of these basic needs are individuality, love, and expression. When a person is deprived of one or more of these needs, he or she will not be able to reach the top of the pyramid, which means being aware of one’s fullest potential. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the human need for individuality is shown when Offred refuses to share her real name in order to protect her old identity, for love when Offred continuously sneaks …show more content…
During this regime, handmaids are not allowed to express themselves in any way. The only words they are able to say are the ones that are deemed legal. Therefore, all conversation between handmaids follows a script. On one day, when Offred and Ofglen are looking inside soul scrolls, Ofglen breaks away from this script and tries to start up a normal conversation. When Offred finds out that she can finally express herself, very cautiously, in front of Ofglen, she says to the reader, “I’m so excited I can barely breathe, but I keep a steady pace. Now more than ever I must avoid drawing attention to myself”(168). This comment shows the result of what happens when a person is not allowed to show any expression. Offred has been forced to hold all of her emotions in since the day she was sent to the Red Center. Now, she finds out that there is a group of handmaids, called Mayday, that secretly works together to help each other out during this repression. While Offred must still be careful so she is not caught by a spy or anyone else outside of Mayday, she has officially regained hope that the regime will end. She looks forward to her shopping trips with Ofglen from this point on because she can say anything without Ofglen turning her in for breaking the law. Later on, though, she is told that Ofglen hung herself because she was found out. Offred is with a new partner who she realizes is not part of Mayday, and she says, “Now that Ofglen is gone I am alert again, my sluggishness has fallen away, my body is no longer for pleasure only but senses its jeopardy”(284). This comment shows that Offred had become careless in a way whenever she was with Ofglen. Now that Ofglen is gone, Offred is not able to express herself anymore. She feels that she must be very careful now or else she will be taken away and most likely
Gender inequality has existed all around the world for many centuries. Women were seen as property of men and their purpose of existence was to provide for the men in their lives. Men would play the role of being the breadwinners, whereas women played the role of being the caregiver of the family and household and must obey the men around her. The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood portrays how women in society are controlled and demeaned by men, and how men feel they are more superior over women.
Offred is a handmaid, in the novel The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood, who no longer desired to rebel against the government of Gilead after they separated her from her family. When Offred was taken away from her family the Government of Gilead placed her in an institution known as the Red Center where they trained her along with other women unwillingly to be handmaids. The handmaid’s task was to repopulate the society because of the dramatic decrease in population form lack of childbirth. Handmaids are women who are put into the homes of the commanders who were unable to have kids with their own wives. The Handmaids had very little freedom and were not allowed to do simple tasks by themselves or without supervision like taking baths or going to the store. There was an uprising against the government of Gilead and many people who lived in this society including some handmaids looked for a way to escape to get their freedom back which was taken away from them and to reunited with their families which they lost contact with. Offred was one of the handmaids who was against the government of Gilead before she was put in the Red Center, but she joined the uprising after she became a
Before the war handmaids had their own lives, families, and jobs but that’s all gone now; They have all been separated from their families and assigned to A Commander and his wife to have their child. Handmaids did not choose this life but it was forced upon them. The society which Offred is forced to live in shaped her in many ways. In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood uses cultural and geographical surroundings to shape Offred's psychological and moral traits as she tries to survive the society that she is forced to live, in hopes that she can rebel and make
Feminism as we know it began in the mid 1960's as the Women's Liberation Movement. Among its chief tenants is the idea of women's empowerment, the idea that women are capable of doing and should be allowed to do anything men can do. Feminists believe that neither sex is naturally superior. They stand behind the idea that women are inherently just as strong and intelligent as the so-called stronger sex. Many writers have taken up the cause of feminism in their work. One of the most well known writers to deal with feminist themes is Margaret Atwood. Her work is clearly influenced by the movement and many literary critics, as well as Atwood herself, have identified her as a feminist writer. However, one of Atwood's most successful books, The Handmaid's Tale, stands in stark contrast to the ideas of feminism. In fact, the female characters in the novel are portrayed in such a way that they directly conflict with the idea of women's empowerment.
Imagine living in a society where child births are low, the constitution gets suspended, and slow changes begin to occur, such as women get stripped of many things. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood creates a whole dystopian image that does not favor the women or men, but it doesn’t work against the men as much as the women. The process creates a society where the women get stripped of their name and their rights leaving them powerless and vulnerable. In this literature piece there are many points of views that can be argued, but we will focus on the absence of identity. As shown through the different ranks in the society and the daily lives of the women, the absence of identity leads to groups of women assigned to a certain role and each group working against each other.
“We learned to whisper almost without sound. In the semidarkness we would stretch out our arms, when the Aunts weren’t looking, and touch each other’s hands across space. We learned to lip-read, our heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other’s mouths.” (Atwood, p4) The handmaids whisper to each other to exchange information. They engage in this conversation to keep alive the nature of relationships between people. It is very lonely for these women, for they cannot say what is on their mind, they are only allowed pre-approved phrases from Gilead’s authorities Without this contact it would be impossible for the women to reminisce and be comforted. Another way of keeping the past real to Offred is to remember old stories from before the revolution. She spends a lot of her time thinking about her husband Luke and how the city used to look before, “Lilies used to be a movie theater here, before. Students went there a lot; every spring they had a Humphrey Bogart festival with Lauren Bacall or Katherine Hepburn, women on their own, making up their own minds” (Atwood, 25). These small rebellions that Offred and other handmaids participate in are very significant. The simple fact that they choose to engage in these insurgences shows that they still cling on to their more just and free past. They still have a notion of truth and are keeping it alive. Having these passions and feelings causes the structure of Gilead to truly not work, and will probably (The Handmaid’s Tale was left open ended) lead to its demise.
In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, social turmoil after a staged terrorist attack has led to a totalitarian Christian regime. In this dystopian future, the roles of men and women are much different than in today’s society. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are unequal because they have no choice about their bodies, their dress, or their relationships.
The Handmaid’s Tale shows acts of rebellion throughout, but when we as an audience first see a sort of rebellion push through the strict control of Gileadean society is when the Commander and Offred have their first evening together. Offred’s metaphor “If I press my eye to it, this weakness of his, I may be able to see myself clear.” is a foreshadowing of the idea that maybe through these evenings with the Commander she may be able to ease her way out of Gileadean society. “It’s like a small crack in the wall, before now impenetrable.” Use of simile in her language gives the audience a glimpse into the hope she feels, that maybe she may be able to escape, maybe she has another chance at a normal life. Offred’s first time seeing the Commander’s
In Some societies extreme religious laws and rules is followed as a solution to problems. Allowing religious fundamentalists to run a regime can lead to injustice, for certain people in the regime. In the Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaids tale such things like these take place where freedom is revoked and nightmares are reality for the women of Gilead. The novel presents as a totalitarian society where there is a governing system in which a ruling command holds all power and controls everything in the society. The regime takes it laws very strict because these laws are said to be of god and by disobeying the government the people are disobeying God. The narrator reminds us that there are freedom but
Margaret Atwood’s book “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Offred ( The main Character) struggles with expressing Individualism among a society that constrains a woman by labelling her for her duties and worth. Offred is a “Handmaid” which is a group of women who are used for reproduction, being a “Handmaid” is considered to be very degrading because these women are seen for only their bodies to provide children and nothing more. An article previously read, written by “Frieda Fordham” discusses Jungian Archetypes and one that best correlates with the book is “The Persona”. The Persona is defined as “A collective phenomenon, a facet of the personality that might equally well belong to somebody else, but it is often mistaken for
As you read through the handmaid’s tale you see the relationships of the characters develop and the fight for power, however small that glimpse of power may be. The images of power can be seen through out the novel, but there are major parts that stand out to the reader from the aunt’s in the training centre to the secret meetings between the Commander and Offred.
Throughout The Handmaid’s Tale, the author Margaret Atwood gives the reader an understanding of what life would be like in a theocratic society that controls women’s lives. The narrator, Offred, gives the reader her perspective on the many injustices she faces as a handmaid. Offred is a woman who lived before this society was established and when she undergoes the transition to her new status she has a hard time coping with the new laws she must follow. There are many laws in this government that degrade women and give men the authority to own their household. All women are placed in each household for a reason and if they do not follow their duties they are sent away or killed.
Rather than fighting to be a part of 'Mayday' and help with the resistance, she decided to succumb to the ways of Gilead and accept that life was not so bad the way it was. "Dear God, I think, I will do anything you like. Now that you've let me off, I'll obliterate myself, if that is what you really want; I'll empty myself, truly, become a chalice. I'll give up Nick, I'll forget about the others, I'll stop complaining. I'll accept my lot. I'll sacrifice. I'll repent. I'll abdicate. I'll renounce." (Atwood p.286) Everything that she had been engrained into her and the other handmaids at the red center has finally taken hold of her. Offred decided she would comply and do whatever she had to in order to stay alive with or without the hope of an end to being a
“[W]e are not slaves in name, and cannot be carried to market and sold as somebody else 's legal chattels, we are free only within narrow limits. For all our talk about liberation and personal autonomy, there are few choices that we are free to make” (Berry). In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood the protagonist Offred lives through a changing of society, in which is described by Aunt Lydia in the new society as the difference of freedom to and freedom from. The complexities of freedom are examined through social norms, relationships, and safety in society. As Offred notices the differences between her old life and her life now readers, especially North American readers, see how much freedom they take advantage of as a society.
What exactly is your identity, and where does it lie? What makes you, you and what does it mean to be yourself? These are many questions that come up when discussing and questioning one’s identity. Most answers come up include gender, preferences, beliefs, etc. In The Handmaid’s Tale, the identities of all women were stripped away and given new identities, beliefs, dress code, and rules to follow. The author of The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood used Offred’s character to show the theme of individual’s loss of identity in the Gileadean society. Atwood was able to plant this image in the reader's mind with every detail explaining the conditions of Gilead. Having to lose an identity is like being brainwashed. The people of Gilead are brainwashed