In “The Handmaid's Tale,” Margaret Atwood describes a society where a theocratical and totalitarian authority has taken complete control of the United States of America during the 1980s. In this dystopia, the new patriarchal government, named the Republic of Gilead, had subdued females by abolishing the rights females held prior to the annexation, which ranged from material rights, such as the right to possess money, to essential rights, such as the right to self-autonomy. In the misogynistic regime, women of all rank lose the privileges they had prior to the coup that had destroyed democracy in the United States of America. Margaret Atwood's “The Handmaid's Tale” presents an extreme outlook on the lack of women's rights and the consequences of being without women's rights. The deterioration of women's rights in the novel are presented through the withdrawal of women's original rights, the new restrictions placed on women, and women's complacency regarding their lost rights.
Firstly, the deterioration of women's rights are presented through the withdrawal of women's original rights. Women are forced to forfeit the right to earn their own salary. As evidence, Offred reminisces about the past and contemplates, “All those women having jobs: hard to imagine now, but thousands of them had jobs, millions. It was considered the normal thing” (224). In addition, evidence to women's inability to earn their salary is shown in Offred's flashback, as her former employer stated “You can't work her anymore, it's the law” (228). As women lost their right to earn a salary, women began to feel domesticated and helpless, as Offred states “I feel as if somebody cut me off my feet … I had to think about them, my family, him and her” (232-233). As t...
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... In conclusion, Margaret Atwood's “A Handmaid's Tale” presents an extreme outlook on the lack of women's rights and the consequences to the lack of women's rights. The deterioration of women's rights in the novel are presented through the withdrawal of women's original rights, the new restrictions placed on women, and women's complacency regarding their lost rights. Through “A Handmaid's Tale,” Margaret Atwood encourages women to fight for their rights so that they will not suffer the same fate as the women under the Gilead regime. She displays the loss of rights and the consequences to the loss of rights in order to inspire women to fight for their basic rights and fight for more rights instead of becoming complacent like the main characters in the novel. Meanwhile, “A Handmaid's Tale” presents more compelling themes and motifs that others should be able to discuss.
The novel “The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood shows the way of life for women in the
Every human being needs certain rights to survive. There are the fundamental ones; food, water, air, shelter, but there are also other ones that are equally important to survive: love, communication, compassion, freedom. In many dystopian societies one of these fundamental needs are missing because the society is afraid that they will break the control that they have over the people. In the novel The Handmaid’s tale by Margaret Atwood the society is no different. Narrated by a woman named Offred who once was happy who had a family and a job, she shows the reader that to keep people quiet the society takes away people 's freedom, their ability to choose, their ability to be with and talk to who they want, even their ability to read and write,
Both Atwood and Butler are in agreement that women should be employed as to avoid feeling useless and spending their days at home accomplishing nothing. In The Handmaid’s Tale Offred enjoyed her job and the stability it provided her. Upon losing her job, Offred returns home and is restless almost immediately. She “couldn’t seem to sit still” and “wandered through the house from room to room” (177). Atwood is showing us the restlessness that sets in almost immediately after a woman looses her job. She emphasizes this restlessness by placing importance on the fact that Offred “couldn’t seem to sit still.” Offred begins to seem childlike as she “wandered though the house.” This passage invokes feelings in readers of a child who skipped school and doesn’t know what to do while they sit at home all day. Offerd comes off as helpless. Atwood is showing the negative effects that unemployed women face. Through the women’s bank accounts closing, Atwood later goes on to show that not only do unemployed women have to deal with boredom, but they also have to rely on their husbands or others financially and feel as if they are a burden. This again, Atwood drives home the idea of unemployed women being helpless and unable to fend for themselves. In Kindred we see a similar instance with Margret. “Margret in her boredom, simply rushed around and made a nuisance of herself” (94). Making a “nuisance” of
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.
Religion and the manipulation of history are the most important steps in creating a totalitarian state. In the novels discussed the reader comes to understand true oppression results when hope and power are removed in their totality. Katherine Burdekin’s novel, Swastika Night, portrays women who are degraded and removed, stripped of identity, femininity, and important self-efficacy as societal role-players. However, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale presents a more inclusive and historically aware society, though still defined by the separation of citizens into a strict, sexist, man-made hierarchy and ruled by religious authority. The participation allowed to women leaves opportunity for women to shape their own environment, through underground movements, and influencing the men around them. Though society and religion can affect the Handmaids, Aunts, and other levels of women as it crowds out and vilifies the memories of a longed for past, the wounds of disenfranchisement are too fresh for history to be truly erased. The distinctive and definitive difference between the two dystopian societies discussed is the active presence of women, and through women, hope.
Thesis: In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood characterizes Handmaids, as women with expectations to obey the society’s hierarchy, as reproducers, symbolizing how inferior the Handmaid class is to others within Gilead; the class marginalization of Handmaids reveals the use of hierarchical control exerted to eliminate societal flaws among citizens.
In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood explores the role that women play in society and the consequences of a countryís value system. She reveals that values held in the United States are a threat to the livelihood and status of women. As one critic writes, “the author has concluded that present social trends are dangerous to individual welfare” (Prescott 151).
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel in which Atwood creates a world which seems absurd and near impossible. Women being kept in slavery only to create babies, cult like religious control over the population, and the deportation of an entire race, these things all seem like fiction. However Atwood's novel is closer to fact than fiction; all the events which take place in the story have a base in the real world as well as a historical precedent. Atwood establishes the world of Gilead on historical events as well as the social and political trends which were taking place during her life time in the 1980's. Atwood shows her audience through political and historical reference that Gilead was and is closer than most people realize.
In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, social turmoil after a staged terrorist attack has led to a totalitarian Christian regime. In this dystopian future, the roles of men and women are much different than in today’s society. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are unequal because they have no choice about their bodies, their dress, or their relationships.
The Handmaid's Tale presents an extreme example of sexism and misogyny by featuring the complete objectification of women in the society of Gilead. Yet by also highlighting the mistreatment of women in the cultures that precede and follow the Gileadean era, Margaret Atwood is suggesting that sexism and misogyny are deeply embedded in any society and that serious and deliberate attention must be given to these forms of discrimination in order to eliminate them.
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
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
Indeed, The Handmaid’s Tale is all about the struggle of living and the oppression the Handmaids go through in their daily lives. The Handmaid’s tale demonstrates feminist theory because the novel showcases Oppression, Objectification and Patriarchy towards females which are all evident themes. Margaret Atwood presents this ideology through many situations which include but, not limited to the following; The inability to voice out the opinion, the dominance of men in the household, and the objectification of women where they are seen only as means for
Offred doesn’t have freedom when she’s a handmaid. She can only leave the house for shopping trips. While she’s in her room, the door can’t be closed. Gilead has a secret police force called the Eyes. They watch the handmaids all the time while they’re in public. Offred goes on shopping trips with Ofglen. She is another handmaid. Offred has to go to the doctor often. They check for any kind of sickness, diseases, or other problems. When the doctor realizes that Offred hasn’t gotten pregnant yet, he thinks the Commander could be infertile. The doctor tells Offred that he could get her pregnant and she could just say it is the Commander’s baby. Offred turns down the