Real World Letter To Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau The book Handmaid’s Tale reveals through a totalitarian theocratic regime called Gilead, that when a certain group of people have ultimate power, this power corrupts those people and the person’s in which they control. A example of human corruption through power is the ‘aunts’ that the Gilead society employs to help with the institutionalized brutal breeding program; the architects of the society have manipulated the women, ‘aunts’, to their bidding. “In the case of Gilead, there were many women willing to serve as Aunts, either because of a genuine belief in what they called “traditional values,” or for the benefits they might thereby acquire” (Artword 209). The quote shows that …show more content…
Divergent takes place in a post apocalyptic world where there are five factions based off of societal needs (Amity, Dauntless, Erudite, Abnegation and Candor). The anti establishment fictional protagonist heroine, Tris goes against the social norms of the society, by using her unique characteristic of being a Divergent; a person who is a part of all the factions. A relatable society is seen through modern day India. India has a rapidly growing population, with a population of over a billion people; however, the status quo ante system of class established by the the British colonization of India still exists in the society today (this system has weakened recently). There are four castes classes in Indian society: the Brahmin, the educated class who works typically in academia, the Kshatriya, the public administration or government class, the Vaishya, the business class and the lowest class, the Shudra, the laboring class. This class system has put boundaries on opportunities for the majority of Indians, which are apart of the Shudra; however, in recent years due to university education expansion, new economic development and social programs this class system is dissolving. To conclude, both the Divergent faction system and the Indian caste system are similar in that these societies put people into preset boundaries; however, human nature took over the Divergent system and is taking over the Indian caste system to make barriers of individuality
Gender inequality has existed all around the world for many centuries. Women were seen as property of men and their purpose of existence was to provide for the men in their lives. Men would play the role of being the breadwinners, whereas women played the role of being the caregiver of the family and household and must obey the men around her. The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood portrays how women in society are controlled and demeaned by men, and how men feel they are more superior over women.
The Handmaid's Tale This is a futuristic novel that takes place in the northern part of the USA sometime in the beginning of the twenty-first century, in the oppressive and totalitarian Republic of Gilead. The regime demands high moral retribution and a virtuous lifestyle. The Bible is the guiding principle. As a result of the sexual freedom, free abortion and high increase of venereal diseases at the end of the twentieth century, many women, (and men also, but that is forbidden to say), are sterile. The women who are still fertile are recruited as Handmaids, and their only mission in life is to give birth to the offspring of their Commander, whose wife is infertile.
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 the Historical Notes, Professor Pieixoto notes that Judd, one of the creators of Gilead, “was of the opinion from the outset that the best and the most cost-effective way to control women for reproductive and other purposes was through women themselves. (308)” This idea created the Aunts, whose role was to control and “re-educate” the women who were to become Handmaids. This is similar to the female envoys who were sent to set up Hanan’s second marriage. Hanan notes that, “they were authoritative, abrupt, and unsympathetic, and seemed to have no qualms about the role they were playing.” The Islamic State employed these women to control and recruit brides for ISIS fighters, just like how the Aunts control and teach the Handmaids to prepare them for a household posting. This
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.
Margaret Atwood's renowned science fiction novel, The Handmaid's Tale, was written in 1986 during the rise of the opposition to the feminist movement. Atwood, a Native American, was a vigorous supporter of this movement. The battle that existed between both sides of the women's rights issue inspired her to write this work. Because it was not clear just what the end result of the feminist movement would be, the author begins at the outset to prod her reader to consider where the story will end. Her purpose in writing this serious satire is to warn women of what the female gender stands to lose if the feminist movement were to fail. Atwood envisions a society of extreme changes in governmental, social, and mental oppression to make her point.
n Handmaid’s tale novel we can discuss about women’s role. The key to the whole program is using other women to train and control them. It is hard to go against your own kind, when Son’s of Jacob took over, they knew that if they use male, it would not be workable because women could easily seduce the males to get their own way. "Something could be exchanged... We still had our bodies."(p. 4). By using other women as known as the Aunts, they could tell the women that they understood and knew what it was like, and that all this was for their own good, to keep them safe and make their world a better place. Aunts usually were very strict; they could use force to Handmaids. According to Offred “they had eclectic cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts”. (p.4). In addition, there are many of these training facilities such as Red centers, where the women trains by Aunts to be handmaidens. In other words, to be thought to bear children for wives who were no longer capable of childbirth. Older
The Handmaid's Dystopia The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian tale about a world where unrealistic things take place. The events in the novel could never actually take place in our reality." This is what most people think and assume, but they"re wrong. Look at the world today and in the recent past, and there are not only many situations that have ALMOST become a Gilead, but places that have been and ARE Gileadean societies. We're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy! Even today, there are places in the world where there is a startling similarity to this fictitious dystopia.
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
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.
"For beggary a man is not chased out of human society with a stick, he is swept out with a broom" Pg. 10
that they are forced to keep to. They are not given the freedom to do
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
Language, the way we speak and in what situations, is what gives us individuality, even if we’re from the same country. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, we’re presented with a character who’s supposed to be stripped of her individuality in order to serve her purpose with her only way of coping with the world her being the way she uses language to keep herself composed. This is highlighted by the world Atwood crafts around our main character Offred, a world devoid of any actual human interaction and and communication and actively frowns upon and punishes its people for ever thinking they could.
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is one of many novels that are often considered part of a genre known as: Dystopian Fiction. Dystopian novels are often characterized by an extensive use of propaganda to control the populace, separation of society into multiple different castes and the presence of a unified, totalitarian government system that has complete control over the society. These characteristics are often used in dystopian novels in order to “make a criticism about a current trend, societal norm, or political system” (Dystopias: Definition and Characteristics). Other works that could be characterized as dystopian fiction include, but are not limited to: We by Yevgeny Zamyatin, 1984 by George Orwell, and Brave New World by Aldous Huxley. All of these novels share the common