The Handmaid's Tale Rebellious Women Essay

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Rebellious Women
Before the women’s movement of the 1960s and ‘70s, “compared with men, women were seen as irrational, emotional, unintelligent, and morally immature”(Meyers) This inspired women, and they soon took action. Parts of these actions are told of in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, and William Shakespeare’s Macbeth, where women rebel by using their sexuality, being violent, and going against social norms.
In both The Handmaid’s Tale and Macbeth, women rebel by using their sexuality. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred, when walking past the two young guards, shakes her hips at them to “...enjoy the power;”(Atwood 28) she gets from this “...defiance of rule…” (26). By doing this, Offred shows that, even though the government has taken nearly everything from her, she still has power. However small or temporary, this gives her hope. And hope is what keeps her alive. The woman that rebels with her sexuality in Macbeth is Lady Macbeth. When Macbeth questions his ability and reason to murder Duncan, Lady Macbeth blackmails her husband with her love. This works wonderfully as Macbeth truly …show more content…

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Moira rebels against the Aunts by using a toilet pipe as a weapon to try and escape the center. Later in the novel Offred starts thinking violently because she has had enough of the government trying to control her. She thinks repeatedly of hanging herself, which is in itself an act of rebellion as the government is in dire need of fertile handmaids. In Macbeth, the witches act violently because they want to and because they just can. When a sailor’s wife refuses to give a witch chestnuts, the witch puts a curse on the sailor. She plans to “…drain him dry as hay…” (Shakespeare I.iii.18), and to let him “… live a man forbid.” (Shakespeare I.iii.21). Moira, Offred and the witches all provide an example to women as to how to rebel usingdick violent thoughts, which sometimes turn into

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