Patriarchal Society In The Handmaid's Tale

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Throughout time women have been oppressed. The journey women have had has been a long one. Women were oppressed from choosing whom to love, speaking against her husband or any male, getting jobs outside household duties, voting, etc. Women were looked at as the weaker sex. The oppression in Gilead is no different. These women are oppressed by the patriarchy. In Gilead women are valuable, but not all are treated as such. Handmaids play a role for the greater good, but the Wives are treated above the Handmaids, even though the Handmaids, such as the narrator Offred, are the ones giving society a chance. The patriarchal society set in place makes all of the decisions over the greater women populations. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale examines the overall effect of a patriarchal society on …show more content…

The women hunger to be touched (Atwood 11). Offred expresses her hope to be loved stating, “As long as we do this, butter our skin to keep it soft, we can believe that we will some day get out, that we will be touched again, in love or desire” (Atwood 96-97). The patriarchal society makes sex as just that, sex, a way to make a baby. The emotional relationship between the Handmaid and the Commander is obsolete. The Handmaids are resorting to using butter as moisturizer to maintain their beauty. All the while grasping to the thin thread of hope that is left. The Handmaids want sex to not just be sex, but to be making love with passion and desire. For some the hope fleets and they end it all because it is easier than facing reality. Feuer has to say, “Atwood's point is that the truth of human individuality and (only through this individuality) human connectedness is absolute, inviolable” (4). Meaning nothing is more powerful than being connected through individuality. The Handmaids are deprived of making true connections, which causes them to yearn more for

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