The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

846 Words2 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Handmaid's tale feminist analysis

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian novel told through the eyes of Offred, the main character. Within the novel, a totalitarian style government called the Republic of Gilead takes over the United States. The new established government restricts the freedom of citizens in many ways. As a result from being oppressed, people within society rebel against the government secretly. It is inevitable for people to want freedom; therefore, people will always find a way to obtain this freedom even if they must keep it hidden. Throughout the novel, Offred shares her experiences which contribute to the ongoing theme of rebellion and secrets. In addition to the government being stringent, the people are suffering from declining fertility …show more content…

The Commanders and Handmaids are supposed to have detached consensual sex with one another. However; Offred’s Commander seems to want more than this. For example, one day Nick tells Offred that the Commander wants to see her in his office late at night. Offred arrives to his office and the Commander asks her to play a game of Scrabble with him. Reading is prohibited for Offred; therefore, this game is another violation on top of being in his office alone with him. The relationship between Offred and the Commander only grows more complex. In the beginning the Commander seems to want a friend and a sympathetic ear. However, after a couple of visits he asks Offred to kiss him like she means it. Offred also tells the reader that during a ceremony night “He reached his hand up as if to touch my face; I moved my head to the side, to warn him away, hoping Serena Joy hadn’t noticed…” (209). The unorthodox interaction between Offred and the Commander helps reveal the Commander’s true desires. Unattached sex isn’t enough for him because he feels it is impersonal. He desires some sort of emotional connection. Offred’s acquaintance named Ofglen makes a remark about Commanders seeing their handmaids in private, “You’d be surprised….how many of them do” (288). Ofglen’s statement suggests the idea that many Commanders deal with similar emotions and go against government

Show More
Related

  • Heros Journey In The Handmaid's Tale

    1388 Words  | 3 Pages

    This is a post united states world and some people, in the story, have seen the changes of from United States of America to Gilead. In their dystopian world, the handmaids wear “Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood, which defines us”(Atwood 8). This is an example of the Ordinary World, female servants are used for reproducing because if the decline birth rate due to sexual diseases. During the call to adventure, the reader can consider Offred going to the call of adventure before Gilead, as well as, after Gilead. Both of them relating to the mistreatment against women. Her friend Moira, before Gilead, showed her a world in which women were fighting for their rights in the 1970’s during the women's liberation movement. Her and Moira went to a rally where “(she) 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”. (Atwood 39). Offred was gaining some of her memory back, pre- gilead days, she knew her mother and Moira were apart of the feminist movement. In addition to the rise of the government, her and Luke needed to leave because she feared the safety of her daughter and her husband. In matter of fact, Offred was a bit precautious of entering a new world because she was scared of

    Read More

  • Analysis Of The Handmaid's Tale

    893 Words  | 2 Pages

    The ability to create life is an amazing thing but being forced to have children for strangers is not so amazing. Offred is a handmaid, handmaid's have children for government officials, such as Commander Waterford. Offred used to be married to Luke and together they had a daughter but then everything changed; Offred was separated from her family and assigned to a family as their handmaid. 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 change.

    Read More

  • Gender Role In The Handmaid's Tale

    1029 Words  | 3 Pages

    Offred, among other women depicted in this novel, tries to overcome this dominion. In her own way, she attempts to do this by ensuring the Commander’s expectations of her behavior which could result in her freedom. Thus, there is a present power struggle between the Commander and Offred throughout The Handmaid’s

    Read More

  • The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood

    1401 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel in which Atwood creates a world which seems absurd and near impossible. Women being kept in slavery only to create babies, cult like religious control over the population, and the deportation of an entire race, these things all seem like fiction. However Atwood's novel is closer to fact than fiction; all the events which take place in the story have a base in the real world as well as a historical precedent. Atwood establishes the world of Gilead on historical events as well as the social and political trends which were taking place during her life time in the 1980's. Atwood shows her audience through political and historical reference that Gilead was and is closer than most people realize.

    Read More

  • Offred In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    1508 Words  | 4 Pages

    The government used to be ran normally but now with the Gilead regime, it’s ruled by the Sons of Jacob, the Eyes, and the Guardians. Offred often questions why things turned out to be what they are now. Why she had to go jobless while Luke worked, why she had to leave everything behind in hopes of starting a new life, why did the Sons of Jacob see that this was a way to create order and power, making fertile women Handmaids? Offred seems to be a firm believer that the whole political and social system is corrupt because of the way they took over and divided their people. She hopes that maybe someday, there would be a Mayday for her and the rest of Gilead’s Handmaids.

    Read More

  • Loyalty In The Handmaid's Tale

    689 Words  | 2 Pages

    Offred has not portrayed any heroic characteristics in The Handmaid’s Tale, through her actions of weakness, fear, and self-centredness. This novel by Margaret Atwood discusses about the group take over the government and control the Gilead’s society. In this society, all women has no power to become the leader, commander like men do. Offred is one of them, she has to be a handmaid for Serena and the Commander, Fred. Offred wants to get out of this society, that way she has to do something about it. There wasn’t any performances from her changing the society.

    Read More

  • The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood Offred

    515 Words  | 2 Pages

    Throughout the novel, Offred describes the various rules that the Handmaid’s have to follow on a daily basis. These rules regulate them from having freedom, as well as forcing them to cooperate with the inhuman actions they undertake by conceiving a child with the commanders they live with. When the novel begins the narrator describes her surroundings by emphasizing to the reader the visualizations of the setting. The ending of the chapter the narrator informs the reader by saying “we aren’t allowed out, except for our walks, the football field is enclosed by a chain link fence topped with barbed wire.” (Atwood 4).

    Read More

  • The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    1828 Words  | 4 Pages

    “Many of [the] reactions [within the text] posit love as a force subverting Gilead’s power” (Miner). One cannot force someone to ignore their longings and pretend that they are not real. In the end it is these longings and these feelings of love and anger that drive the community into rebellious actions. The Commander longed for his loving relationship back with his wife, but when he could not have this, he allowed Offred to be alone with him, for her to read, for her to talk with him, for her to ask for things, and for him to take her out. He did these things in an attempt to create a relationship with Offred and to glimpse back into his past.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In The Handmaid's Tale

    957 Words  | 2 Pages

    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

    Read More

  • Free Handmaid's Tale Essays: The Struggle of Women

    850 Words  | 2 Pages

    Offred from The Handmaid's Tale uses different tactics to cope with her situation. She is trapped within a distopian society comprised of a community riddled by despair. Though she is not physically tortured, the overwhelming and ridiculously powerful government mentally enslaves her. Offred lives in a horrific society, which prevents her from being freed. Essentially, the government enslaves her because she is a female and she is fertile. Offred memories about the way life used to be with her husband, Luke, her daughter, and her best friend Moira provides her with temporary relief from her binding situation. Also, Offred befriends the Commander's aide, Nick. Offred longs to be with her husband and she feels that she can find his love by being with Nick. She risks her life several times just to be with Nick. Feeling loved by Nick gives her a window of hope in her otherwise miserable life.

    Read More

  • The Role Of Women In The Handmaid's Tale

    970 Words  | 2 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • Essay On The Hierarchy Of Women In The Handmaid's Tale

    1162 Words  | 3 Pages

    Offred’s journey is a prime example of the appalling effects of idly standing by and allowing herself to become a part of the Gilead’s corrupt system. This woman is a Handmaid which was recently placed within a new

    Read More

  • The Handmaid’s Tale

    1075 Words  | 3 Pages

    This is the way Atwood gets across her feelings about the future world that Offred lives in. She forms a close relationship with the reader and the character, and then shows the reader Offred’s feelings about different aspects of the world. This is not to say that everyone reading the book will get the exact same thing from it.

    Read More

  • Essay on the Character of Offred in The Handmaid's Tale

    1209 Words  | 3 Pages

    Offred is one of the main characters in The Handmaid's Tale. She was the faithful wife of Luke, mother of an eleven month old child and a working woman, before she entered the Republic of Gilead. She was given the name "Offred", when she entered Gilead. This was to make it known that she was a handmaid. Offred becomes psychologically programmed in Gilead as a handmaid, and the mistress of the commander who is in power of all things. She was used for her ovaries to reproduce a child, because they are living in an age where birth rates are declining. Offred was ordered by Serena Joy, the handmaid's barren wife who develops some jealousy and envy towards her to become the lover of Nick. Nick is the family chauffeur, and Offred becomes deeply in love with him. At the end of all the confusion, mixed emotions, jealousy, envy and chaos towards her, she escapes the Republic of Gilead. Offred is given treatment and advantages by the commander that none of the there handmaids are given. During the times the commander and Offred were seeing each other secretly, he began to develop some feelings for her that he tried to hide. Somewhere along the times when Offred and the commander began having secret meetings with each other, Offred too began to develop some feelings for the commander. Offred is also a special handmaid, because she has actually experienced love, the satisfaction of having a child years before. She knows what it is to feel loved, to be in love and to have someone love you. That is all when she has knowledge, a job, a family and money of her own. That is when her life was complete. Because all of that has been taken away from...

    Read More

  • Feminist Criticism Of The Handmaid's Tale

    1251 Words  | 3 Pages

    In this manner, Atwood’s characterization of Offred through her individuality and defiant nature, ultimately allow her to present just how societal expectations go hand in hand with gender roles as Offred challenges them just to retain the most basic parts of her identity as a female.

    Read More

More about The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

Open Document