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In Margaret Atwood’s novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” the birth rate in the Republic of Gilead had dropped significantly, and women had lost their basic rights. Offred, a handmaid, adapted her new life but she still have to undergo the challenges that the society is giving her. She had to face the lost of freedom, not able to see her family, and forced to comply with new rules. After experiencing all those hardships, Offred successfully overcoming the obstacle of living in a dystopian society.
In a world where women have no freedom, it is essential to discover one’s self. Margaret Atwood portrays this idea in The Handmaid’s Tale. The protagonist, Offred, is an imprisoned Handmaid in this new world of the Republic of Gilead and has to rediscover her own past for the benefit of finding herself. There are various moments in this book when Offred is reminded of her past. When this happens, it helps her discover herself a little more.
Although Offred is the heroine of this story, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the hero’s journey can be found in many characters in the story as well. This story is breaking into shambles between the past and the present, however, through the story, readers can still see the signs of the hero’s journey that Joseph Campbell has studied. Offred, being a handmaid, has been thrown into a world where women are powerless and stripped away of their rights to read and write. Atwood illustrates a dystopian world where equality is a part of history, not in the present day Gilead. However, Offred is one of the main characters who ceased to live in a degrading world and find means to escape. Thus, Offred begins on her Hero’s Journey, which occurs
In The Handmaid 's Tale by Margaret Atwood, readers are introduced to Offred, who is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. As this novel is
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
The Handmaids Tale is a poetic tale of a woman's survival as a Handmaid in the male dominated Republic of Gilead. Offred portrayed the struggle living as a Handmaid, essentially becoming a walking womb and a slave to mankind. Women throughout Gilead are oppressed because they are seen as "potentially threatening and subversive and therefore require strict control" (Callaway 48). The fear of women rebelling and taking control of society is stopped through acts such as the caste system, the ceremony and the creation of the Handmaids. The Republic of Gilead is surrounded by people being oppressed.
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
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.
Aside from abandoning the women’s freedom to be literate, restricting the civil rights of the handmaids plays an equivalent role in limiting the women’s freedom. Ever since Gilead, a totalitarian society came into existence, the handmaids have lost the right of freely being able to interact with each other. When the handmaids were at the Red Center, they were declared to obey ground rules and listen to Aunts. The handmaids were bound to make any connection with others yet they “learned to whisper almost without sound…learned to lip read,” with their “heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other’s mouths. In this way [they] exchanged names: Alma. Janine. Dolores. Moira. June” (Atwood, 4). The government is able to keep control
that they are forced to keep to. They are not given the freedom to do
In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale the protagonist, Offred, is living in a dystopian society where the key to survival is subdued acquiescence. Offred stays submissive throughout the book. With an internal monologue that uses a scattered sense of time and the softening rebellion within Offred, the reader can feel the inward movement of the conformity within Offred. Offred’s memories fill the book, the details of the society are only dictated through Offred’s eyes; she references her own complacency with disdain while nevertheless obeying every rule in front of her. The strength of of her inward questioning fades as the tension between her rebellion and her outside conformity grows.
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
In The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood, the Republic of Gilead follows the Biblical rules determining the chain of statutes; this use of a religious constitution hugely restricts such fundamental personal freedoms of the citizens of Gilead. These essential freedoms may be expressed as the freedom of belief and freedom of choice which impacts both the religious beliefs and the lifestyle of the citizens. Today, most Muslim-majority countries adopt numerous aspects of Sharia law, a legal code derived from Quran and Hadith, which circumscribes many personal freedoms. In both situations, the restriction of freedom may cause the establishment of chaos and citizens to have inner conflicts.
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.
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
However, as Margaret Atwood warns in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale our reality is a dangerous one in which our complacency can result in the loss of every single one of these freedoms. Offred’s journey gives us a glimpse into what lies ahead for this country if we don’t take action. Her rights have been stolen from her and her family is taken away from her all as she is pushed into the role of a sex slave for the Gilead. Such a grisly depiction of the future is closer to the truth than what meets the eye. The inability to take a stand against this adversity is what is allowing it to begin with. Collectively, we must not stop the fight for actual justice for the oppressed of this country until we see them come to fruition. Inaction now will result in our own