The Themes Of Symbolism In The Handmaid's Tale

The deprivation of small necessities like lotion show just how crooked the Republic is structured. Offred is desperate to have even a miniscule amount of beauty to hold on to as apparent by the repulsive description of butter. These motifs and symbols, as small as butter, are commonly used throughout the novel by Atwood to emphasize various themes of hope, isolation, feminism, and resistance in her writing.
The narrator depicts the setting in a forlorn, abandoned way; Offred describes her room in the same way as she looks out the window, questioning the existence of something as big as the moon. The sky is described as being, “full of deadly hardware, but oh God, how beautiful anyway,” and it shows just how much pleasure comes from being able to think of beauty. Offred experiences minor depersonalization and speaks of herself using plural pronouns, as if she is a representative for all the Handmaids of Gilead. She already knows that all of the other women in Gilead also feel the

The irony with the concept of this newly developed government is that the men believe women are less important than men are, only, “two-legged wombs.” However, without the women, the men would not be alive to begin with. Humans are made of the same genetic material, all have chromosomes, all have hearts, and all have minds; yet, in this book filled with controversial topics. In the eyes of the men, women are machines. The treatment of the women by the leaders of Gilead is exasperating to read about. The narrator, Offred, only speaks from her experiences so it is easy to sympathize with her but from her perspective, readers are also aware of the experiences of the other characters like Moira. Each of the characters provides a distinct perspective to the topic of feminism and