Margaret Atwood Create A Dystopian Society

In her novel, Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood conceives a dystopian society, set sixteen years from now, in which the United States has become the New Republic of Gilead. This version of the future takes root because of a nuclear and biological war that leaves many women unable to reproduce. Thus, those who are still fertile are treated as illicit liaisons for rich older couples who want a child but cannot. These fertile women are called “handmaids,” a term referring to a story in the Bible, where Rachel sends her handmaid to Jacob to bear him a child in her stead. Although it is arguable that Margaret Atwood fails to create a convincing dystopian society in her novel, it is plausible that today’s current events, laden with war, sexism, and

Older, non-fertile women are sent to radioactive reserves, while fertile women are used as illicit liaisons for the wealthy. But women are not simply baby-making machines. In the novel, feminists protest for their freedom of sexuality and femininity: “The camera moves to the sky, where hundreds of balloons rise, trailing their strings: red balloons, with a circle painted on them, a circle with a stem like the stem of an apple, the stem of a cross” (Chapter 20). Here, the balloons represent freedom and are marked with the female symbol painted on them. Additionally, Atwood correlates the female symbol to the cross, representing that spiritual beings give the same respect to women as they do men. Women now are angered at the lack of freedom for their body and being treated inferior to man. In one instance, Offred compares a the black, burnt pages of a burning magazine to a woman 's body: “I threw the magazine into the flames. It riffled open in the wind of its burning; big flakes of paper came loose, sailed into the air, still on fire, parts of women 's bodies, turning to black ash, in the air, before my eyes” (Chapter 7). Here, Atwood utilizes the magazine to the convey the slow destruction of the female freedom and fertility. Furthermore, Offred describes the magazine burning as happening “before her eyes,” thus separating herself from younger generations of women who did not live in a world before the new “transformation.” In other words, women will continue to fight for their rights and equality just as they do today. Offred’s dystopian world shows the inevitable path if women are to be continually suppressed and denied