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The handmaid's tale literary analysis feminism
The handmaid's tale essay on the portrayal of genders
The handmaid's tale essay on the portrayal of genders
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Purpose
Margaret Atwood’s purpose in writing The Handmaid’s Tale is to show different perceptions of freedom. At one point she mentions two different kind of freedom: “Freedom to and freedom from.” Freedom to is the liberty to do what you want within the limits of society; whereas, freedom from is being kept from certain things, whether that be for good or bad. In writing The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood wanted to make her reader realize that everyone has different views on life, not just freedom.
Allusion
“Give me children, or else I die.” -Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale, pages 61 and 88
This quote is an allusion to Genesis 30:1 in the Bible. In the context of this novel, Offred is saying that she must bear children or be sent to the
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Colonies which is practically death. This shows how seriously the people of Gilead took the Bible’s words. It also demonstrates Offred’s want and need for a child. She must bear a child in order to survive in this society yet her Commander is most likely infertile. That fact makes her want to become pregnant unreachable. People always want what they can’t have. “Some of you will fall on dry ground or thorns. Some of you are shallow rooted… Think of yourselves as seeds.” -Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale, page 18 This is also an allusion to the Bible.
It is referencing Matthew 13 which tells of a farmer who spread seeds but only a few took root and grew into healthy plants. Here we see the handmaids being compared to to seeds that will hopefully take deep root. The handmaids are the “seeds” of Gilead and the weight of the next generation being healthy and substantial fall on their shoulders. There is an enormous pressure for the handmaids to bear children hangs over their heads every second of their lives and some of them, through no fault of their own, will fail in having healthy children. This ties into societal pressure to perform well in every aspect of …show more content…
life. Irony The Commander’s wife, Serena Joy. Serena is an example of irony because she, before the government was overthrown, spoke out against feminism and helped create Gilead and yet she is incredibly unhappy in her new life.
She loathes Offred and her own position. She even ends up going against her own morals and beliefs by advising Offered to have sex with Nick since the Commander was most likely infertile. This shows hypocrisy in this new society and even a slight change in beliefs. In life people’s opinions and beliefs are often subject to change and can be swayed based on the circumstances.
The Commander
The Commander is, at first, seen as this strong, powerful, dominant, and daunting character. He seems to be everything Gilead expects of men. He shows irony because he, like his wife, helped to build this new society, yet breaks the rules he helped to create. He invites Offred to play Scrabble- which is breaking two rules- and takes her outside the house to places neither of them really should be. He is also partially unhappy in this new society even though he finds hope in it. This ties into the fact that even the best intentions can sometimes fall short.
Motif-
Flowers “[Serena is] in one of her best dresses, sky blue with embroidery in white along the edges of the veil: flowers and fretwork. Even at her age she still feels the urge to wreathe herself in flowers.” -Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale, page 81 Serena wears and decorates her home with flowers. Flowers represent fertility since the flower is the part of a plant that holds the reproductive organs. Serena feels the need to hid behind the flowers to cover her infertility; she uses them as a cover for her unhappiness as well. Flowers are often used to cover up or hid things that are considered undesirable. This ties into the theme of people always wanting what they can not have. “A print of flowers, blue irises, watercolor. Flowers are still allowed.” -Margaret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale, page 7 In Gilead flowers are not on the list of forbidden objects and actions. In this, flowers still represent fertility, which is not only allow but extremely encouraged and coveted. As I mentioned with the previous example, the wife uses flowers to cover her infertility. The print mentioned in the quote is in Serena’s home. She surrounds herself with flowers, whether dried on the mantel, in her garden, on her clothes, or on her bed. This is yet another example of people coveting what they can’t have.
The novel “The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood shows the way of life for women in the
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.
The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood is a novel about a totalitarian state called Republic of Gilead that has replaced the United States in which the women of society have been taken away from their families and forced to be
...es these experiences to remind herself that she is no longer alone. Offred does not have a living friend or companion beside her, but instead the companion is inside her. It is herself who is guiding her in the life she is now living. In the end it is clear to Offred that she is still the same woman as she once was, the changes with the new government did not change her the same way it changed other individuals. A discovery was made, she was no longer Offred the Handmaid; she was June.
In The Handmaid’s Tale Atwood shows the negative consequences of a society where women have no role in government and politics.
In the gilead society, women are placed in a social hierarchy in which they are defined by their role. The wives are the elite members. The handmaids are the people who produced babies. Marthas are the house servants. Aunts are a prestigious group of people who trained handmaids. Econowives are low class women. However, none of the women are defined as people with their own personalities and interests. Instead, Women are seen as objects that belong to men. Econowives belong to the Guardians. The wives, marthas,
In life, people don’t always stand up for what they believe in in order to avoid exclusion – this is called apathy. In specific situations, people will blindly follow a primitive ideology without any regard for morality. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is an excellent example of how apathy can affect an entire population. This novel is by and large a feminist novel that addresses the ignorance in imperialistic and religious ideologies, but also addresses the issue of human apathy. In this novel, Atwood offers a disturbing look into what could be. The alterior motive of the society is to purify and improve the country as a whole. However, it is not only nationalism and imperialism
Within freedom should come security. Within security should come freedom. But in Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood, it seems as though there is no in between. Atwood searches throughout the novel for a medium between the two, but in my eyes fails to give justice to a woman’s body image. Today's society has created a fear of beauty and sexuality in this image. It is as though a beautiful woman can be just that, but if at the same time, if she is intelligent and motivated within acting as a sexual being, she is thought of as exploiting herself and her body. Atwood looks for a solution to this problem, but in my eyes fails to do so.
Many texts that were published from different authors have introduced topics that can be related in today’s society, but Margaret Atwood’s creation called, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, gives voice to the thoughts and revolves around the narrator Offred, a woman whose rights have been deprived due to political issues. However, the information shared by Offred to the reader to the text is not reliable for the reason that she only touches upon her own perspective. Through the text, Atwood depicted what the United States of America would be in the future based on the actions of humanity during 1980’s. The text is set up in an androcentric and totalitarian country called Gilead, where the government attempts to create a utopian society. Thus, in order to attain this society, the authorities generated their legislation from the teachings of the Holy Bible in an attempt to control humanity. The governing
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...
Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale": A Contextual Dystopia, David Ketterer, Science Fiction Studies, Vol. 16, No. 2 (Jul., 1989), pp. 209-217
There are two kinds of freedom, “freedom from and freedom to” (31) throughout Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. Freedom from is a negative liberty that involves external restriction to a person’s actions. On the other hand there is freedom to, a positive liberty the one can act upon their own free will. The two different categories of freedom are discussed and debated through a feminist view point. We explore and try to understand the way in which the difference between “freedom from” and “freedom to” is applied to females in society. This novel gives us two contrasting ways of liberal thinking. You are free if no one is stopping you from doing whatever you might want to. The story appears, in this sense, to be free. On the other hand, one can
Offred is a Handmaid. Offred is the main character in The Handmaid’s Tale. Offred never plays by the rules, especially when it comes to relationships. Offred is always going after what she cannot have. She is going after
As The Handmaid’s Tale is considered an allegory of the social injustice women face against traditional expectations of their role in society, the symbolism of the Handmaids and other women as a whole for repressed feminine liberty and sexuality allows Atwood to connect her work to the theme between gender and expectations in her society. As Handmaids in the Republic of Gilead, females are stripped of their previous identity and are defined as a tool of reproduction for the men who is assigned them. At its core, these females are forced against their will to be mere tools, experiencing unwanted sex at least once a month, which Gilead names “The Ceremony”, hiding its true nature as a form of rape. Offred
The epigraph in The Handmaid’s Tale amplifies the importance of fertility in Gilead. The quotation at the beginning of the book ‘‘And when Rachel saw the she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said unto Jacob, Give me children or else I die...And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees,that I may also have children by her.’’ makes it seem that Gilead wants to go back to traditional values, thus manipulates its citizens that their ideology is correct since it corresponds with what the Bible says. Consequently, this state is telling its citizens that a woman’s worthiness only depends if she is able to produce or not. In fact women who are barren, and are not of a high class are sent to the colonies. The handmaids’s only purpose is further amplified through the rights Gilead abolishes; they can not communicate with others, in fact Offred says, ‘How I used to despise such talk. Now I long for it’ and are no longer able to go outside alone or without being spied...