According to Bella DePaulo, a psychologist at the University Of Virginia, most people lie to someone else at least once or twice a day. The question this brings about is how does one differentiate the truth from falsehood? In Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaid’s Tale Offred, one of the many characters who is facing oppression in the society of Gilead is struggling to know if her story is true or false. The lack of confidence that Offred has makes the readers question whether or not to believe her story. The readers are given information about the Republic Of Gilead through Offred. The readers see and interpret Gilead the same way Offred sees and interprets it. All sources of information about the republic are gained through the tidbits and stories Offered gives the readers. The readers have to trust that the information given to them is true. However, Offered makes it difficult for the readers to trust her when she begins to doubt herself and say things like “I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling” (Attwood 39). …show more content…
She has proved on multiple occasions that she is not to be trusted. The readers have gotten to the point where they no longer can trust her. However, their minds are quickly changed when Offred shares the damaging effect that sharing her story has on her. She says, “Nevertheless it hurts me to tell it over, over again. Once was enough: wasn’t once enough for me at the time? But I keep on going with this sad and hungry and sordid, this limping and mutilated story, because after all I want you to hear it” (Attwood 267-268). Telling the horrific story over and over is very damaging on Offred so changing it up brings light to the dark story, making it more tolerable to tell. Although the story she is telling is almost accurate she must change bits and pieces of it so she can feel like she has control over something in her
In The Handmaid’s Tale, much use is made of imagery; to enable the reader to create a more detailed mental picture of the novel’s action and also to intensify the emotive language used. In particular, Atwood uses many images involving flowers and plants.
For me” (89). Offred admires Moira’s irreverence, but not when it leaves her behind, so instead of supporting her friend’s fight, she suppresses it because she is unwilling to take a risk. Moira is perfect to reminisce about because she softens the dread of the day, but when she takes an opportunity to act out against Gilead, Offred can only think about her own discomfort, and not the change Moira is
She shows us that there are possibilities for Offred. The reason why Margaret Atwood chooses to continuously show the positive and subdued attitude of Offred, is to show the reader that in Gilead there are ways out and ways of breaking the laws however, there are also ways in which Gilead represses you and its up to the individual in this society to choose whether not to take the risks. The Jezebel sequence on the whole is highly significant to the novel. We many different insights into Gilead in jezebels in contrast to the rest of the novel, which makes it one of the most important sections in the novel of “The Handmaids Tale”.
In The Handmaid 's Tale by Margaret Atwood, readers are introduced to Offred, who is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. As this novel is
The Handmaid’s tale is a story in which throughout the text, the readers witness the events that occurred in Offred’s life in the past or the present. However, for this reason, there is uncertainty that the narrator is telling the truth. “If it 's a story I 'm telling, then I have control over the ending...But if it 's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don 't tell a story only to yourself. There 's always someone else. Even when there is no one.” (Atwood 39-40) This quotation is significant because the readers know that the irony of her telling that this is a story is evident that she has control because the reader is limited to the knowledge of the narrator. Overall, The Handmaid’s tale focuses on many topics, but the main idea of the story is that the actions of what society does, foreshadows their future. When there is no one to lean on after the physically present superior model is gone, people will learn to turn to and have faith in an unseen
... the past, Offred continues to hope that her husband, Luke, is still alive. She reveals this as she observes the bodies hanging at the wall and comments that she feels relief because, "Luke wasn't a doctor. Isn't" (44). Not only does she defy the system be refusing to accept this society as the end of all things, but she also persists in hoping that she will someday awaken from this nightmare and things will be the way they used to be.
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, an impact on her life. Not to mention Nick also. Nick gave her the comfort and the security that she wanted, and in 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. & nbsp;
Offred finds herself believing that she failed as a mother, seeing the photograph of her daughter, Offred realizes that she would be just as good as dead and considers herself as “erased”, this could lead to changes in her character by her thinking it’s futile to keep being suppressed by Gilead’s laws and try to challenge them. In the following chapter Offred is noticed taking a risk by accepting a request from the commander, she finds her life dull and boring even if she does communicate with the commander. In the novel Offred reaches her breaking point, “ I know without being told that what he’s proposing is risky, for him but especially for me; but I want to go anyway. I want anything that breaks the monotony, subverts the perceived respectable order of things” (Atwood 231). Offred decides to go on a date with the commander because she is tired of living an isolated, dull life, and all of this is caused by her believing she doesn’t have anything to live for since she lost connections with everyone in her past.
...t create a feeling of disorientation towards the reader. Atwood does this to enable us to understand just how disjointed life is in Gilead. Offred continuously involves the reader, she directly addresses us and anticipates our response and even feels she has to justify some of her actions, she is a self-conscious narrator. Atwood is also preparing us for the revelation in the Historical notes that Offred is recounting her story into a tape recorder. The story is open ended; we are not told what exactly happened to Offred, Atwood does this in order to have more of an impact on the reader.
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.
This is the way Atwood gets across her feelings about the future world that Offred lives in. She forms a close relationship with the reader and the character, and then shows the reader Offred’s feelings about different aspects of the world. This is not to say that everyone reading the book will get the exact same thing from it.
While Offred acknowledges that there is a significant desecration of a woman’s natural rights within Gilead, she suggests that maybe not all is lost and maybe the woman’s fertileness can still save her. This possibility of hope, as it is accessed via the space the garden provides, is mentioned again and again: “I pray where I am, sitting by the window, looking out through the curtain at the empty garden. I don’t even close my eyes. Out there or inside my head, it’s an equal darkness. Or light”.
I talk too much. I tell him about Moira, about Ofglen not about Luke, though.” Even though Offred found real pleasure when she was being with Nick. But at the same time, she kept thinking about Luke and felt guilty, which was awful because she might consider Nick as a substitution for her old husband instead she truly fall in love with him. Offred’s act reflected Gilead as whole that Gilead’s acts of banning sex relationship turn out to be having a completely opposite result that people treated each other as sex machines in order to content their lust.
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