Satire and Feminism in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale

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In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the mandatory sex roles and blatant disregard of women’s rights in Gilead work as an effective satire, and it is quite possible that they are viewed by none of it’s citizens as a step in the direction of the common good. In many ways it could have once been seen as the common good, because the system in essence will provide for optimal procreation, but the ways in which Gilead carries out this system are deeply flawed. The way Gilead carries out its half baked ideas is, first and foremost, hilariously satirical when described by Atwood through her use of characters, theme, and the idea of feminism, and taken into question by critic Shirley Neuman. Though the story and the society is effectively run by men, we learn about Gilead through Offred’s eyes, a “self described two legged womb”(Neuman 1). This further helps the reader understand perhaps the most ironic and satirical aspect of the novel: that men in this society seem to be portrayed as flawless in the eyes of the government. Men hold the keys to science but they wield it in the wrong way. Instead of using science logically, they choose to let their society become archaic and outdated by wrongly twisting science to their purposes. For example, the ‘overlooked’ possibility that some men will not be able to procreate at all, yet there is no testing for this in the men so the responsibility for flaw falls only on the women, helps to further show that men are not assumed to be flawed at all in this society. Many times throughout the novel, it is touched upon that some of the men might not be able to father a child at all. It is mandatory for handmaids to visit the doctor once a month; on a visit to the doctor, Offred is told that “most o... ... middle of paper ... ...s redeeming qualities, they are not shown in this book. It is a society deeply rooted in what it thinks is the common good, but what is really ironic and satirical in the most painful way. Instead of creating a utopia, the government created a dystopia; a place that took away basic rights using the pretense of improvement. Gilead is the essence of a society that reaches for perfection but never quite gets there before the cracks start to show. Neuman’s critical insights on The Handmaid’s Tale and its relationship with feminism were invaluable in helping us to realize how truly sad this book is, and Atwood succeeded in showing us the satirical shortcomings of Gilead through her use of characters, theme, and feminist ideals. In addition, she showed us that the novel still has relevance, because all societies, no matter how perfect they pretend to be, have their flaws.

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