It all started with the following words: “April 5th, 1984” (Orwell 7). What, you might think, do these words signify? And what might the word “faith” written on a pillow signify (Atwood 57)? These words are harmless, only a date and a religious word, you might say. However, these words are much more than harmless. They are the start of a rebellion. Rebellions occur all the time in dystopian novels, but there is a certain pattern to these occurrences. This pattern is that the individuals who start rebelling are usually from the middle or lower classes and never from the upper classes. One such example is the Russian Revolution, in which a great number of peasants rebelled against their oppressive king. Another example, this time in United States, …show more content…
As a result of this fact, a very important question comes to mind which is: how does low social class or standing contribute to a character's willingness to become a dystopian rebel? The short and sweet answer to this question is demonstrated by Winston Smith and Offred from the dystopian novels Nineteen Eighty-Four by George Orwell and A Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. The lives of Winston and Offred reveal that the lower and middle classes tend to rebel because of many reasons, some of which include love, fear/lack of rights, and surveillance. One reason that the middle and lower class rebel is love. But how what does love have anything to do with rebellion? Winston Smith, a member of what is considered the “middle class” of Oceania, is in love, but because of the laws in Oceania, he is unable to get his love. Julia, a woman who works in the Party, is whom Winston falls in love with. The question now becomes, why? Rachel Stauffer, who wrote the article “Dystopia as Protest: Zamyatin's We and Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four", …show more content…
In this novel, Offred also rebels because of her love for someone. However, Offred’s situation is a little different from Winston’s in that in Winston’s case, Winston and Julia fall in love with each other when feelings like love for someone or something other than the Party are illegal. In Offred’s case, she already loves many people even before Gilead forms. She loves Luke, who is her husband, and her daughter. She also loves, as a friend, Moira. However, Offred gets separated from all three, and thus, now that she is a handmaid and has no love, strives for any kind of love that she can find, as evidenced by the incident in which Offred was helping make some bread, she thought that the bread feels “so much like flesh,” and as a result, she “[hungers] to touch something, other than cloth or wood. [She hungers] to commit the act of touch” (Atwood 11). But why does Offred want love so much? Stauffer answers that “this [situation] aligns perfectly with the definition of protest literature as a medium that ‘taps into an ideological vein of dissent and announces to its people that they are not alone in their frustrations’” (Stauffer 209). Hence, even though Offred is agitated at how society is, she is unable to share her frustrations with anyone else, and as a result, she is looking for someone to love and as a result, share her frustrations with. Unfortunately for Offred, she continues to remember Luke and misses him
Offred has not portrayed any heroic characteristics in The Handmaid’s Tale, through her actions of weakness, fear, and self-centredness. This novel by Margaret Atwood discusses about the group take over the government and control the Gilead’s society. In this society, all women has no power to become the leader, commander like men do. Offred is one of them, she has to be a handmaid for Serena and the Commander, Fred. Offred wants to get out of this society, that way she has to do something about it. There wasn’t any performances from her changing the society.
Offred from The Handmaid's Tale uses different tactics to cope with her situation. She is trapped within a distopian society comprised of a community riddled by despair. Though she is not physically tortured, the overwhelming and ridiculously powerful government mentally enslaves her. Offred lives in a horrific society, which prevents her from being freed. Essentially, the government enslaves her because she is a female and she is fertile. Offred memories about the way life used to be with her husband, Luke, her daughter, and her best friend Moira provides her with temporary relief from her binding situation. Also, Offred befriends the Commander's aide, Nick. Offred longs to be with her husband and she feels that she can find his love by being with Nick. She risks her life several times just to be with Nick. Feeling loved by Nick gives her a window of hope in her otherwise miserable life.
Offred is one of the Handmaid’s in the Republic of Gilead. This used to be known as the United States of America but now it is Gilead, a theocratic state. Because of an issue that occurred, women lost all of their money and rights. Handmaid’s were then assigned to higher class couples that were unable to have children, that was the new job for the Handmaid’s. Offred was assigned to the Commander and Serena Joy, his wife. Offred was once married to a man named Luke and they had a baby girl together. When this issue started occurring and Offred lost her rights, her, Luke and their daughter tried to escape to Canada but were caught. Offred has not seen Luke or her daughter since that incident. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the most unorthodox characters are Offred, Serena Joy, and The Commander.
There are two possible events that can occur with Offred's arrest and readers have the ability to open the book to new possibilities. If Offred is arrested, she will likely be tried for treason and killed. However, if she escapes into freedom, she will have a new lifestyle away from Gilead. She is different from Winston as she only wants to survive and survives because of her memories of her past Conclusion:
Offred is consistently cautious when it comes to interacting with the Commander. She feels as though she has to present herself in a way that will allow her to gain his trust and utilize it in her favor. Offred says, “The Commander likes it when I distinguish myself, show precocity, like an attentive pet, prick-eared and eager to perform” (Atwood 183). When Offred poses herself in the way that the Commander expects, it shows how his power influences Offred’s actions. The connection of Offred to that of “an attentive pet” also shows how the Gilead Society has taken away her humanity. Without her humanity, Offred loses her sense of self-worth which leaves her vulnerable to the Commander’s power. Along with this constant fear of portraying herself in a manner that would upset the Commander, Offred is also afraid to give away too much information about herself which could potentially end with the Commander ceasing their private meetings together. Offred expresses, “And if I talk to him I’ll say something wrong, give something away. I can feel it coming, a
Offred is a Handmaid, who is thought of as the most and least important people in the caste system; "they rank among the most powerful female agents of the patriarchal order." (Callaway 50). The Handmaids have one thing that all the women in Gilead want – fertility. Their fertility ma...
Throughout the majority of the novel, Offred recounts on her mother’s character, whom she thinks is dead. She was a single mother and a proud feminist. In the first quarter, Offred recounts on a flashback of her mother burning porn magazines, claiming that they are degrading to women. However, towards the end of the novel, Offred learns that she is in fact alive, yet is living in the Colonies. Moira had seen her in a video about women living the Colonies, which is completely contrasted from the beginning, when Offred viewed her mother in a documentary protesting. This shows how Gilead has significantly changed her as a person. Living in the Colonies is just as bad as death because although she is alive she is required to do menial and even dangerous labour like cleaning radioactive waste. Earlier in the book, during Offred’s flashbacks, her mother was always a strong female character. She was always speaking and acting on behalf of women’s rights, yet now she has not fulfilled these expectations. She has been subjugated and indifferent like the rest of the women, not at all optimistic and energetic like she was in her previous life. Her complicity shows the reader how oppressive the society is and how even the toughest characters become
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.
Offred had been though many mixed feelings throughout this entire book. She has been able to feel, experience and thinks thoughts that she had not ever imagined that she would have. Offred can not escape the fact that in spite of the treatment from Serena Joy and the commander, that they both will have if not already have an impact on her life. Not to mention Nick also. Nick gave her the comfort and the security that she wanted, and at the end nothing done to her by the commander or his wife mattered to her. Living in the Republic of Gilead will always be a memory that she will probably try to forget.
George Orwell’s intent in the novel 1984 is to warn society about the results of a controlling and manipulative government by employing mood, conflict, and imagery.
They have to come round in their own time.” Montag simply is willing to listen to before everybody else is; he goes a step further than Clarisse by seeking answers to his questions. In the Handmaid’s Tale however, Offred, though certainly more rebellious than her counterparts therefore in this sense a nonconformist, is not necessarily a rebellious character. Inside her lies an internal struggle against the totalitarian regime, which she quietly defies through small acts such as reading or glancing at Nick when she shouldn’t. Offred, is not fully indoctrinated by Gilead’s regime, unlike the character of Janine, who she refers to as “one of Aunt Lydia 's pets,” the use of the word ‘pet’ indicating her bitterness towards the system.
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.
In this manner, Atwood’s characterization of Offred through her individuality and defiant nature, ultimately allow her to present just how societal expectations go hand in hand with gender roles as Offred challenges them just to retain the most basic parts of her identity as a female.
Offred’s journey is a prime example of the appalling effects of idly standing by and allowing herself to become a part of the Gilead’s corrupt system. This woman is a Handmaid which was recently placed within a new
... is only alive in her dreams, she aches for her and fears that her child will not remember or even she is dead. Atwood writes about motherhood, and the irony lies in the fact that Offred did not have an ideal relationship with her mother even though Gilead’s system was not established, yet Offred who is separated for her daughter shows affection towards her child by constantly thinking and dreaming about her. Even though Offred felt pressured from her mother, she still misses her, ‘I want her back’ and she even reminisces about when she used to visit her and Luke.