Repression In The Handmaid's Tale

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Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaid’s Tale explores through the portrayal of dystopian state, the shocking notion that the choice to take or abandon action in the present can transform the future. Dystopias portray an idealised world and paradigm of social excellence, which once scrutinised exposes an artifice of oppressive societal control reflecting the imperfections of social mechanisms and the simultaneous inadequacies of the human condition. Through her depiction of a chauvinistic totalitarian state, Atwood investigates the appalling complications and consequences of the dystopian construct, specifically through repression, the loss of personal choice in shaping one's future, and the consequent loss of identity. A conceptual centrepiece …show more content…

Developing from a fear of authority, Offred is increasingly uncertain of her surroundings, becoming repressed and unable to act against the predetermination of her fate by Gilean society with independent thought. Such behaviour can be observed in her rhetoric response towards the questioning of her happiness ‘Yes, we are very happy I murmur. I have to say something. What else can I say?’ where despite denoting her apprehension towards society’s oppressive totalitarian regime, she chooses to submit externally as ‘it’s as dangerous not to speak’. A similar situation is depicted where Offred is once again forced to choose between the risk of deviating from the standard and repression. ‘She was gang-raped at fourteen and had an abortion...But whose fault was it? … Her fault, her fault, her fault, we chant in unison. Who led them on? ... She did, she did, she did.’ The repetition of the feminine pronouns in ‘her fault’ and ‘she did’ emphasises Offred’s choice to submit to the chauvinistic values of Gilead and, by extension, the future enforced upon her by society. This idea is reinforced by Offred’s words ‘I would not be able to stand it, I know that…I’ll say anything they like, I’ll incriminate anyone… I’ll confess to any crime, I’ll end up hanging from a hook on the Wall’ in which a literary allusion to George Orwell’s 1984 depicts the capitulation of the protagonist to dystopian authority. As is demonstrated by these examples, the repression of independent thought can result in the devastating inability of the dystopian protagonist to act against their fate as determined by

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