Women In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

The Republic of Gilead is led by a totalitarian regime that is portrayed by Margaret Atwood, in The Handmaid’s Tale. Sometime in the future, the United States is taken over by conservative Christians, who establish a dictatorship. Most women in Gilead are infertile after repeated exposure to pesticides, nuclear waste, or leakage from chemical weapons. The Republic of Gilead’s main goal is to restore the terrifyingly decreased birthrate by gaining control over reproduction. Women are divided into different roles, visibly separated through the colour of their clothes. The few fertile women left in the society are called handmaids, who are taken to the Red center and are trained to be handmaidens. Handmaidens serves as a birth mother for

The Handmaids are the only fertile women in the society, however they are heavily oppressed and viewed as the lowest of the whole Gilead. This is the kind of touch they like: folk art, archaic, made by women, in their spare time…Why do I want?” In this quote, Atwood compared the handmaids to art, she portrayed the message that these women are leftover that have been used up. Yet, Atwood cunningly plays with the word "want," reminding the reader why handmaids aren't the same as a useless art object. Furthermore, Atwood represents handmaids to lifeless and worthless, significant only because of their reproductive capacity, “We are two-legged wombs, that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices.” Offred’s statement not only degrade the Handmaids, but it also detaches them from their own bodies. These situations shows, how oppressed and mistreated these women in Gilead feels as they are just seen as sexual objects. Therefore, they begin to accept the prejudice since they are no longer seen as human beings, but only as wombs. One major example of oppression is found when Offred tried to remember her old-self, she vaguely (no mirror) describes how she looked like before The Republic of Gilead, and indicates how she survived because she is fertile. “I am thirty-three years old. I have brown hair...I have viable ovaries. I have one more chance". The reason why Offred was being so distant and

For example, when Offred explains the Handmaid’s dress code, “everything except the wings around my face is red; the color of blood, which defines us”. Offred describes how the red colour defines the handmaids, it’s their only identity in the society thus by following the rules of Gilead, the handmaids are falling to oppression. As Atwood portrays this scenario, she uses short phrases show Offred’s acceptance of her place in the Gilead society. She begins with the color red, then compares it to blood and finishes the sentence describing how both the color and blood define the Handmaids. The handmaids are forbidden to use their real names, because their worth and roles are brief by the names they are given. Handmaids names begins with “Of”, plus their commanders’ names, such as Offred and Ofwarren. They are represented as if they do not have an identity and status in the society, “the new one, and Ofglen, wherever she is, is no longer Ofglen… in a sea of names. It wouldn't be easy to find her, now.” This demonstrations how the narrator, known as Offred does not have an identity too because there was another Offred before her and maybe another one in future. In The Republic of Gilead, handmaids no longer have a states, they have become objects and items that belongs to