Abuse of Religion in The Handmaid’s Tale

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Abuse of Religion in The Handmaid’s Tale Gilead is a society where religion is used to control people. Atwood has included many Biblical references and religious suggestions throughout ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ to demonstrate this. The name ‘Gilead’ is a place in the Old Testament which is named after a mountainous region East of Jordan which means ‘heap of stones’. This links in with patriarch Jacob and the prophet Jeremiah. It was a frontier land and a place where a country was at war so protected its boarders. This can relate to Gilead in the way that it took those ideas and heaped them together. They set up so many boundaries and rules so that they could illuminate the bad things like rape from the time before. However, they abuse this because women in Gilead have lost their freedom and are treated inferior to men. For example, when the handmaid’s were being trained they were shown films of women being raped and murdered to try and convince them that they are better off in Gilead’s regime. But, illuminating these things meant that they would loose their freedom and self respect. The Aunts say things like, “You see what things used to be like? That was what they thought of women, then”. They give the women no other choice into what to believe. Moira, who represents Offred’s guidance and hope tells her the film is probably a fraud so Gilead’s regime is trying to get the handmaid’s to feel as if they are privileged to be in their position because the time before was horrific. However, Atwood shows us how unhappy women are now that Gilead stopped them from having any freedom. For example, the fact that they have so many boundaries and laws is to keep the bad things out from the old society out such as rape and murder. To prevent rape in Gilead women have lost their freedom because in the time before women didn’t feel safe going out at night. However, Gilead is criticising itself because it could be argued that the handmaid’s are mentally forced into sleeping with the

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