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The handmaid's tale literary analysis feminism
Handmaids tale literary analysis
The handmaid's tale margaret atwood essay
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“[W]e are not slaves in name, and cannot be carried to market and sold as somebody else 's legal chattels, we are free only within narrow limits. For all our talk about liberation and personal autonomy, there are few choices that we are free to make” (Berry). In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood the protagonist Offred lives through a changing of society, in which is described by Aunt Lydia in the new society as the difference of freedom to and freedom from. The complexities of freedom are examined through social norms, relationships, and safety in society. As Offred notices the differences between her old life and her life now readers, especially North American readers, see how much freedom they take advantage of as a society. Social …show more content…
Marriage, friendships, and families are all controlled by government restriction. Gilead deems it acceptable to arrange marriages between a Guardian and a girl who has just started her menstrual cycle, because “arranged marriages have always worked out just as well, if not better” than falling in love (Atwood 254). However, in pre-Gilead falling in love, friendships, casual sexual relationships, and not having a significant other were all accepted. Gilead gives the freedom from having to choose, but pre-Gilead gives you the choice of what you want to do with your life. Just the same with having friends, Gilead does not accept friends because with friends comes gossip and other illegal actions. In contrast, in pre-Gilead everyone has the freedom to befriend whoever they want and can choose not to be friends with someone if they so choose. Having a family is an important concept in pre-Gilead, Offred and Luke would spend a lot of time together with their daughter, they ate meals together and spent quality time together, whether it be going on vacation, having a picnic or to the park. However, in Gilead family is extremely controlled especially in a Commander’s family, they co-exist in the same house. The Handmaid eats in her room while the Commander and his wife eating the dining room the Marthas would presumably eat after everyone is finished. During the day everyone goes their separate ways, the wife gets control over the garden, the commander is out potentiality working, the Guardian helps out with small tasks directly for the Wife and Commander, and the Marthas cook and clean all day. The Handmaid will go for a walk to the market for food the Marthas tell her to get and does nothing the rest of the day except think about everything and nothing at the same time. Gilead gives you the freedom from having to find a spouse and having to settle down with one person, as a Handmaid would switch families if a child
There are various moments in this book where the personal discovery of the Handmaid, Offred, is displayed. In almost every chapter there is a moment where she recognizes the everyday changes that have happened in her life. Gilead changed the lives of many different people. From having all the freedom one could ever want to having to obey the government’s every order; most people were not happy with this change. Offred was one victim in particular who did not like the new changes. It split her family apart. Her husband Luke was either taken to an unknown place or killed, her daughter was given to a different mother, and she was put to use as a Handmaid. Offred’s life was changed in many detrimental ways. Her job is to now be placed in the home of a Commander and his infertile Wifeand be a “two-legged womb(s), that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices” until they give birth to a child (Atwood 136). After they give birth to the child, they are allowed to stay for a short while to nurse the child. They are then moved into the next home of a Commander to rep...
In the gilead society, women are placed in a social hierarchy in which they are defined by their role. The wives are the elite members. The handmaids are the people who produced babies. Marthas are the house servants. Aunts are a prestigious group of people who trained handmaids. Econowives are low class women. However, none of the women are defined as people with their own personalities and interests. Instead, Women are seen as objects that belong to men. Econowives belong to the Guardians. The wives, marthas,
Food has many meanings in the novel, nourishment, fertility, and luxury; however, this paper will focus on food as a control mechanism of Gilead's government. First, page 11 in the novel introduces tokens,î which are the method of payment for food in Gilead. Tokens do not have any writing on them at all, only basic pictures. Here it is important to recognize that handmaids, and all respectable women, in Gilead are not allowed to read. Gilead has biblical mandate for this rule, without doubt, yet the most significant aspect of the rule is its use as a control mechanism. Women are denied the power of knowledge, and hopefully, from the government's perspective, women will eventually lose all ability to gain any knowledge that is not fed to them. We see this same idea expressed on pages 25 and 27 when Offred described the storefronts. All the stores, but specifically the food markets, no longer have written names and signs. The names of these stores are all expressed using rudimentary pictures. As an example, a wooden sign with three eggs, a bee, and a cow indicates Milk and Honey. There is further significance of the tokens mentioned above. Because handmaids must use these tokens to purchase food, they have no choice or free will regarding food at this stage. The food they pick up at the store will be based purely on the tokens that have been given to them, they will hand these tokens to a man behind the counter, and he will hand her the food. It is very simple and extremely passive.
“We learned to whisper almost without sound. In the semidarkness we would stretch out our arms, when the Aunts weren’t looking, and touch each other’s hands across space. We learned to lip-read, our heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, watching each other’s mouths.” (Atwood, p4) The handmaids whisper to each other to exchange information. They engage in this conversation to keep alive the nature of relationships between people. It is very lonely for these women, for they cannot say what is on their mind, they are only allowed pre-approved phrases from Gilead’s authorities Without this contact it would be impossible for the women to reminisce and be comforted. Another way of keeping the past real to Offred is to remember old stories from before the revolution. She spends a lot of her time thinking about her husband Luke and how the city used to look before, “Lilies used to be a movie theater here, before. Students went there a lot; every spring they had a Humphrey Bogart festival with Lauren Bacall or Katherine Hepburn, women on their own, making up their own minds” (Atwood, 25). These small rebellions that Offred and other handmaids participate in are very significant. The simple fact that they choose to engage in these insurgences shows that they still cling on to their more just and free past. They still have a notion of truth and are keeping it alive. Having these passions and feelings causes the structure of Gilead to truly not work, and will probably (The Handmaid’s Tale was left open ended) lead to its demise.
The women in this book are forced to believe that “there is no such thing as a sterile man anymore” and it is the law that “there are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren” (Atwood 61). The town of Gilead refers back “to the Old Testament in a reaction against abortion, sterilization, and what they consider to be dangerous kinds of freedom of the modern welfare state” (Staels 455). This is a perfect example of one of Gilead’s twisted ways of thinking. The people of the Republic of Gilead make only women feel responsible for their ability to reproduce or not reproduce when in fact men are just as important when trying to conceive a baby. The Aunts, who train the handmaids, along with everyone else in Gilead, make the women feel self-conscious about themselves. If they cannot produce babies, they are sent away to be killed. The women of Gilead go thr...
The Gilead Society has segregated women into different caste systems. There are six main categories in the caste system. The first are the Wives, who wear blue dresses and are at the top of the female hierarchy. Their main purpose is reproduce with their husbands, if they are unable then Handmaids are used. Then there are Daughters, either the natural or adopted children of the ruling class. They tend to wear white until marriage. The next are the Handmaids, fertile women whose sole purpose is to reproduce children for the wives. Handmaids wear a full red dress outfit with red gloves, red shoes, and...
Callaway 50 -. The Handmaids have one thing that all the women in Gilead want – fertility. Their fertility makes them important because without them Gilead would not be able to go on.... ... middle of paper ... ... Gender oppression happens more frequently than is seen.
Before the war handmaids had their own lives, families, and jobs but that’s all gone now; They have all been separated from their families and assigned to A Commander and his wife to have their child. Handmaids did not choose this life but it was forced upon them. 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
Also, religion is the basis for most of the gruesome laws that Gilead has such as the Handmaid’s job. Their only job is to reproduce which comes from the story of Rachel and Leah where servants can have relationships with their owners in order to give the infertile wives a family. “Humanity is so adaptable, my mother would say. Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.” (283). This illustrates that people can adapt to anything even just a job at reproducing which, in itself, is a gruesome way to live. In addition, before the ceremony where the Commander and Handmaid have intercourse the Commander reads from Genesis the story of Rachel and
Control dominates all aspects of Gileadian society, from minor, seemingly petty normalities such as the clothes allowed, all the way up to how and who to have sexual relations with. Unimaginable in this day, Atwood represents modern society gone sour, something which is chillingly close enough to reality to get worried about.
The Handmaids and other women of the Gilead Regime are not allowed to express who they are, not in mind or body. They are used as an item to create new life and aren’t appreciated for who they really
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.
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
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
The epigraph in The Handmaid’s Tale amplifies the importance of fertility in Gilead. The quotation at the beginning of the book ‘‘And when Rachel saw the she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said unto Jacob, Give me children or else I die...And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees,that I may also have children by her.’’ makes it seem that Gilead wants to go back to traditional values, thus manipulates its citizens that their ideology is correct since it corresponds with what the Bible says. Consequently, this state is telling its citizens that a woman’s worthiness only depends if she is able to produce or not. In fact women who are barren, and are not of a high class are sent to the colonies. The handmaids’s only purpose is further amplified through the rights Gilead abolishes; they can not communicate with others, in fact Offred says, ‘How I used to despise such talk. Now I long for it’ and are no longer able to go outside alone or without being spied...