Oppression In The Handmaid's Tale

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"To make an omelet you need not only those broken eggs but someone 'oppressed' to beat them..." (Joan Didion, The Women's Movement). Oppression is everywhere in the world, including the worlds hidden in novels. In the book The Handmaid’s tale, a government take over the country because fertility rates have drastically declined. Thinking their new laws help the decline of fertility, they stabilized population, but their idea is a double edge sword. The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel, written by Margaret Atwood, about Offred’s experience in an oppressive government and how she deals with it. Atwood expresses her thought on the possible oppression brought by a government through generic dystopian conventions. The Handmaid’s Tale conforms …show more content…

Men are at the top of the chain, with women being split up more depending how much status they have. Moreover, Offred observes that “There are several umbrellas in [a stand]: black, for the Commander, blue, for the Commander's wife, and the one assigned to me, which is red" (Atwood 9). Their status is color coded to show importance and status. Red is for Handmaids who serve as breeders, black is for men who own the area while blue is for their wife which hold similar power as they dictate women in their plot of land. Dull green is for Marthas or just basic servants. Each class are given certain privileges. Regardless of the privileges Offred receives, she compares herself to a pet. For example, Offred is “... washed, brushed, fed, like a prize pig” (Atwood 69). She is fed and given a private room yet she is treated as property. Women in the new society are “useless” if they are not performing their tasks. Similar to other novels, there is a section of useless people. In the Handmaid's Tale, there are those who are discarded. For example, women who break the law belong “ with the Unwomen, and starve to death" (Atwood 10). Women who cannot follow the rules and complete their duties are outcasts or punished. The Hunger Games trilogy is similar to The Handmaid’s Tale because district 12 has outcasts like Katniss and Gale as they are part of the low income community. Just like the Unwomen in The Handmaid’s Tale, the citizens in District 12 are left to starve and survive by

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