Throughout her novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, Margret Atwood repeatedly draws attention to the problems that women have suffered. The Handmaids tale is a dystopia based on a patriarchal theocracy. One central theme of the novel is the abuse and oppression of women. As the title suggest, the story centers around, Offred, a handmaid in the republic of Gilead. Which brings me to the first little hint of oppression. Most women in the novel lost a since of self-identity due to the fact that they were no longer allowed to be called by their birth name. “Offred” Literally means of Fred. Fred being her commander. As the reader, we never find out what Offred’s real name was. Furthermore, women were seen merely as property. Due to low birth rates and infertility of the time in which the story was based, handmaids specifically were property used to bear children with. Offred says, we are two-legged wombs, that’s all: …show more content…
sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices (Page136).” Although it is not called rape in the story, Offred as well as other handmaids were subjected to a ceremony where they were told to lie on their backs while their commander had sex with their still unresponsive bodies.
They do not call it rape because technically one chooses to be a handmaid. I say technically because handmaids had one of three options. Option one was to become a handmaid. Option two was Death. Option three was to be sent to the colonies which one was unlikely to survive. In this passage, Offered recalls the night of the ceremony, “nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for (Page 94).” Offred justifies the abuse she went through with the notion that she chose that path. However, Offred simply chose to survive. In fact Margret Atwood frames the novel with an epigraph that reads, “In the desert there is no sign that says, Thou shalt not eat stones." Meaning one does what the need to do to survive. Anyway, the only hope to get out of this
for the handmaids, was to become pregnant with their commanders child. A child that they would carry to term just to have it ripped away from them. For in this society, the child in not the handmaid’s that gave birth, but it is the commander’s and his wife’s child. Women were subject to other forms of oppression as well the marthas were also looked upon as property as well. They did not go by their real names and their sole purpose was to cook, to clean, and to obey orders.
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
Offred is a Handmaid in the republic of Gilead and while she seems unhappy about this, she is confused about her identity and even starts to accept the role that has been imposed upon her. It seems strange that one might accept such radical changes so easily. Offred has been manipulated into believing that this sinister system was designed for her own good. Peter S. Prescott says: " Offred at first accepts assurance that the new order is for her protection." (151) She must lie on her back once a month and hope that commander makes her pregnant because her sole purpose is to act as a vessel. She even starts to measure her self-worth by the viability of her ovaries and this negatively affects her self-image. This is how Offred characterizes the deploring act : "The commander is fucking. What he is fucking is the lower part of my body. I don't say making love because that's not what he is doing. Copulating too would be inaccurate because it would imply two people,when there is only one. Nor does rape cover it. Nothing was going on here that I haven't signed up for. There wasn't a lot of choice, but there was some and this is what I chose." (Atwood,121) This statement is very dangerous. It shows how Offred has convinced herself that this deploring act is not so bad. It also shows how she is beginning to embrace the system and justify the violations that are being commited against her. By calling it a choice she has shifted the blame from her oppressors to herself and labeled the blatant crime as a mere ritual.
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
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 other handmaids are given.
The book the handmaid’s tale written by Margaret Atwood, written in 1985 tells the story about a totalitarian society in which women are forced out of jobs and property. The architects of Gilead use religion as a way of controlling the people and use fear to keep that control. The main features of Gilead are strict discipline and national security through the use of religion. The story follows the life of a handmaid, Offred and what she had to do to escape Gilead.
Throughout the novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, she portrays how Offred and other characters desperately use desire, gender, and sexuality in the novel to convey the theme. She begins with the first-person narrator, Offred, by describing the old school gymnasium where she sleeps, and how she feels like she is lost in the atmosphere. She works in a house that is run by a married Commander, and the narrator has to have sex with the commander regularly everyday, in a standard Ceremony, by attempting to become pregnant and also provide the household with a child. She has a uniform that is a red dress because it represents blood and all the handmaids wear red. She has assigned tasks and very little freedom because she is basically in a prison. She is confined to her room except when she goes out, while she is being supervised and watched while she is shopping or going to prescribed events. Throughout the beginning chapters, she has frequent flashbacks to various times in her life. She reminisces about her husband Luke and compares how life is now from before, their daughter, and her mother. Offred has desperate desires towards knowledge and language that she is being denied by the regime. The main focus of the Gileadean regime is the control of sexuality, sex, and gender.
By present day, she has accepted the systematic oppression. Yet, in the past, women were free to wear what they wish, and do, to some extent, what they wished. In the “little time [it took] to change [the women’s] minds” (pp 36) the Republic of Gilead forced a new norm onto society. The impregnation ceremony, for example, Offred is forced into having sex with the Commander, and despite the fact that she has no other real choice she thinks, “Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven’t signed up for” (pp 116) What choice did Offred have? Either get pregnant by the Commander, or be send off to the colonies with the other Unwomen, Life or death is not a choice. Offred’s accepting language is unmistakable evidences of society’s new views on women, Handmaids especially, and her despondent attitudes about being a Handmaid. The protagonist’s mind was indoctrinated by Aunts to be accept the internalized oppression, and her
Similarly, the handmaids do not have the right to vote, own property, make money or hold any kind of position. They are reduced to the status of animal since the purpose of their lives in this world is do bear children to the commander’s wife. As Aunt Lydia interprets it, “for [Gilead’s] purposes” the handmaid’s “feet and hands are not essential” (Atwood, 91). As long as the government’s work is being accomplished and the handmaid’s reproductive capacities are functioning, none of their other body parts are obligatory. This strips away the freedom of having the option to have control over their own body since everything is already decided for them prior to the plans. Moreover, when Offred and Ofglen, her shopping partner goes shopping, Offred talks about how she feels comfortable around Ofglen and is adamant that she is one of the subversives. Depending on the situation, there routes vary. Offred says that the authorities do not mind which direction they walk home and invokes “a rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze” (Atwood, 165). The fact that Offred refers herself as a “rat” rather than a human is irrationally absurd. This proves how the government has indoctrinate the women into believing that they are not considered as humans but rather animals whose ultimate goal is to increase the population of Gilead limiting their freedom of having control over themselves. The government has taken away their rights of being eligible of performing normal human activities. Indeed, the handmaids cannot perform a single task without guidance or instructions. Similarly like an animal, the handmaids are supposed to wait for their breakfast to be delivered, wait for orders to be served such as shopping or visiting the Commander. In distinction to, the handmaids are brainwashed
Feminism as we know it began in the mid 1960's as the Women's Liberation Movement. Among its chief tenants is the idea of women's empowerment, the idea that women are capable of doing and should be allowed to do anything men can do. Feminists believe that neither sex is naturally superior. They stand behind the idea that women are inherently just as strong and intelligent as the so-called stronger sex. Many writers have taken up the cause of feminism in their work. One of the most well known writers to deal with feminist themes is Margaret Atwood. Her work is clearly influenced by the movement and many literary critics, as well as Atwood herself, have identified her as a feminist writer. However, one of Atwood's most successful books, The Handmaid's Tale, stands in stark contrast to the ideas of feminism. In fact, the female characters in the novel are portrayed in such a way that they directly conflict with the idea of women's empowerment.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a first person narrative from the view point of Offred, a handmaid in the Gilead Regime. Offred tells the reader about her day-to-day life as a handmaid as well as parts of her past. A handmaid in the Gilead Regime has one job, to procreate a child for her Commander. Offred expresses in the beginning of the novel that no one, in any position, has any sexual freedom; no freedom to marry, no sex unless for procreation, no homosexuality, and no real love. As Offred spends more time in her new world she finds her value, as a person is worthless compared to her value to create a child. In Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale, the role of women in society is as a sexual object no matter what her intelligence
...w Offred’s censorship experience may differ from other handmaids and woman in Gilead. This way her ethos does not contemplate on the point of views of the other woman and reduces her reputation and credibility as a narrator. Overall, in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaids Tale, Offred is constantly being degraded conclusively reducing her ethos as a narrator. Presence of power controls the sexual regimes in Gilead and ultimately limits Offred’s ethos to a certain extent. Misleading natures that affect Offred’s narration are through the acts of systemic coercion and also through censorship. Atwood does not leave the reader with much hope that things will ever change in Gilead, as she portrays a female dystopia with absurd examples of sexual persuasion. Women are displayed as sexual victims in Gilead and are reduced to their sexual capabilities, existing only to serve men.
In The Handmaid’s Tale there are three types of women: handmaids (the breeders), wives (the trophies), and the marthas (servants.) The narrator of the novel is Offred, who is a handmaid. Handmaids are women with viable ovaries. Every two years, handmaids are assigned to a commander; the leader of the household. Weekly, the handmaid and Commander try and conceive a
The Handmaids Tale, by Margaret Atwood, can be classified as a distopic novel. The Republic of Gilead in The Handmaids Tale is characteristic of a distopia in that it is not intended as a prediction of the future of our society, but rather as a commentary on current social trends. Atwood has created this nation by isolating what she might consider the disturbing aspects of two diametrically opposed factions of our society (namely the religious right and radical feminism) as a theory as to what would happen if these ideals were taken to an extreme. Because she points out similarities in the thoughts and actions of the extreme religious right and certain parts of the feminist movement, some critics have labeled The Handmaid's Tale as anti-feminist. I would like to discuss the specific parts of the novel that lead to this opinion, and then discuss whether I believe this novel was intended as or can be seen as an attack on feminism.
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 of each 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. Atwood bases the irrational laws in the Gilead republic on the many
In conclusion, Margaret Atwood's “A Handmaid's Tale” presents an extreme outlook on the lack of women's rights and the consequences to the lack of women's rights. The deterioration of women's rights in the novel are presented through the withdrawal of women's original rights, the new restrictions placed on women, and women's complacency regarding their lost rights. Through “A Handmaid's Tale,” Margaret Atwood encourages women to fight for their rights so that they will not suffer the same fate as the women under the Gilead regime. She displays the loss of rights and the consequences to the loss of rights in order to inspire women to fight for their basic rights and fight for more rights instead of becoming complacent like the main characters in the novel. Meanwhile, “A Handmaid's Tale” presents more compelling themes and motifs that others should be able to discuss.