What Is The Theme Of Sexuality In The Handmaid's Tale

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The male framed narrative utilised by Atwood effectively uses setting to convey the suppressed female sexuality in a male dominated patriarchal regime. Amin Malik scathingly undermines the power of female sexuality by stating women are ‘mere appendages to those men who exercise sexual mastery over them.’ Malik’s choice of word ‘appendages’ not only diminishes the value of women to just an attachment, but rendering the marginalisation of the female voice futile despite it’s constant ‘clamouring’ to be heard. Offred’s romanticism of Serena Joy’s garden challenges the phallocentric system of Gilead through being a ‘melon on a stem, this liquid ripeness.’ The phallic imagery of the ‘melon’ and stem’ objectifies women and reduces them to a function; a vessel (a common theme seen throughout the novel). …show more content…

It is too simplistic to merely suggest that Offred gains empowerment through sexuality, as from a feminist perspective we could also argue that through ‘wordlessly’ ‘silenced’ and ‘silently’- holds the semantic field of oppression, she is able to ‘clamour’ and fight her way through the patriarchal regime and attempt to fight against the subjugation of women. The sexual revolution of 1960’s influenced by the Thatcher/Reagan era is cleverly used by Atwood to highlight the damning effects of suppressed sexuality as the stream of consciousness renders Offred as slightly delusional through flirtatious and ‘insinuating’ language such as the ‘bricks of the house are softening’ trying to release her suppressed sexuality through any means. Despite this, her sexuality here can be defined as empowering as the ‘bricks’ symbolise a totalitarian Gilead, but she is able to mould the ‘bricks’ to be ‘warm and yielding’ through her defiant sexual

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