...Topic 2: Feminism in the 1980s thought that a woman’s culture and society would be one marked by pure sisterhood and equality. Discuss The Handmaid’s Tale as an exploration of the ideas of feminism, the treatment of women, and the control of women’s bodies. Feminism in The Handmaid’s Tale. Women have been treated very poorly through the years and in the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale women have no control of their bodies, the treatment they get from other is terrible and there is no freedom. Offred the main character is presented in the novel has a handmaid who’s only propose in life is to have a baby with the commander. She lives in the Republic of Gilead, a totalitarian state that has replaced the United States of America. She like other women have no freedom and are only allowed to go for shopping trip, but still someone is always watching. Therefore in the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the women have limited rights, limited freedom and limited control of their bodies. The women in Gilead have no rights and have to listen to the rules or the consequences result in death, getting send to the colonies or become a prostitute at Jezebel’s. They don’t really have a choice they can be handmaids to the commander and his wife or become a prostitute at Jezebel’s, but it’s not really a choice thy only have two options. The women in Gilead have to do play their roles in the society and not complain about it. The roles include: Handmaids, Marthas, Econowives and the...
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...Oppression on Women in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale and Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis Persepolis, by Marjane Satrapi, is memoir of a little girl growing in Iran. She refers to a secular pre revolutionary time through contrast, the oppressive characteristics of the fundamentalist government upon women in particular. Her work is a lot similar to Margaret Atwood's, A Handmaid’s Tale, in which the protagonist Offred reflects upon her former life’s freedom, cherishing her former name and in doing so emphasizes the cloistered and enslaved life that she must now endure. Although both Margaret Atwood and Satrapi show how a totalitarian state oppresses women in different ways by taking away the freedom to think and decide for oneself, both accentuating on the ways a woman should dress, which stratified society in Handmaid’s tale and enforced religious modesty in Persepolis. Growing up in the western society, we often think clothing as a means of expressing our individuality, our style, defining who we are. Offred grew up in a similar environment but it was taken away once she became a Handmaid. That was the precise reason why she felt “ fascinated but also repelled” (28) at the same time when she saw the Japanese tourist. She says she “used to dress like that. That was freedom. Westernized they used to call it”(28). She says this because she no longer gets to dress like the tourists any more. In a very little amount of time, the society has forced every individual to change...
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...medium in which the author can bring to light the plight of people who are ostracized or marginalized for any number of reasons. From segregation and racial discrimination to inequality between Genders and the oppression of women, literature has the ability to reach out and usurp the perspective of the reader and provide them with a whole new one to shine a light on what life may be like being subjected to such experiences of “Otherness”. Both The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and Green Grass, Running Water by Thomas King are both books which bring to the fore the plights of two different groups of people: Women and the domination and subjugation of the gender is the basis for The Handmaid’s Tale, while Green Grass, Running Water identifies the attempt of Native Americans to hold onto their culture in the face of a society that disregards their ancestry and subsequently find themselves marginalized, and both books show how each of these groups attempt to speak out and resist despite the odds against them. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a book that explores the oppression and subjugation of women at the hands of a totalitarian regime...
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...The Handmaid’s Tale: Power and Corruption Governments impose a certain amount of power and control on their citizens in order for societies to function according to plan. In the Handmaid’s Tale, excessive control and power in the Gilead society strips the residents of their freedom, forbidding them to live ordinary lives. Men abuse their control and power over women in order to satisfy their personal needs and women are persecuted to the point of corruption. The Handmaids suffer the most due to the loss of their personal liberties and identities. Inhabitants live in constant fear for their lives, and are subjected to perpetual surveillance. The Gilead society follows a patriarchal law that women must obey their male counterparts. Since they believe that they are powerful, they think that they can get away with what they want. An example of the male abuse that occurs in the Handmaid’s Tale centres on Offred, who is trapped in Gilead as a Handmaid. She is one of the women valued only for her potential as a surrogate mother. Denied all her individual rights and personal identity, she is known only by the patronymic Of-Fred, derived from the name of her current Commander. Offred struggles with this new name with this statement, “My name isn’t Offred, I have another name, which nobody uses now because it's forbidden. I tell myself it doesn’t matter, your name is like your telephone number, useful only to others; but what I tell myself is wrong, it does matter...
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...“I do not wish [women] to have power over men; but over themselves” (Wollstonecraft, Poston). This quote, which Mary Wollstonecraft eloquently stated in A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, portrays the exact feelings of Offred, the main character in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale. Taking place in a dystopian future, The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a totalitarian government under which women are harshly subjugated. Instead of accepting her current position as a handmaid. Offred longs to return to her previous life; however, in the Republic of Gilead, gender-based oppression is commonplace and often prevents Offred from achieving both her short and long-term aspirations. Similar to the painting Fair Rosamund by Arthur Hughes, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale examines how sexual oppression leads to the loss of identity, shaming of...
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...used The Handmaid’s Tale to depict the possible future of the United States. Atwood takes current societal, economical, political, environmental and gender-related issues and uses them to create a possible future that is just as oppressive as the country’s past, leaving the reader to contemplate what they can do as a human being to protect this earth, and/or society from becoming a country “established by religious fanatics who have dismantled the republic, liquidated the opposition and replaced out present political system with a quasi-military infrastructure,” (Kendall 149). Atwood brings up such issues as money, a predominantly male government, the environment, and the value of a woman’s body throughout the text in an effort to bring to light some of the typical controversies of present time. “Yet the book just does not tell me what there is in our present mores that I ought to watch out for unless I want the United States of America to become a slave state something like the Republic of Gilead whose outlines are here sketched out,” (McCarthy 150). Atwood makes her warnings clear through the Tale she has written. Atwood uses a common middle class woman, in an effort to sympathize with the majority of women in the United States, also known as Offred, to paint the picture of the futuristic, or dare I say historical, times. “[Offred] is simply a warm, intelligent, ordinary woman who had taken for granted the freedoms she was to lose—the freedom to love, the freedom to work...
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...How far is language a tool of oppression in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’? Most dystopian novels contain themes of corruption and oppression, therefore in both ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ and ‘Nineteen Eighty Four’ language is obviously used as a form of the states control, enabling dystopian leaders to remain in power by manipulating language to restrict free thought. Orwell and Atwood have utilized language as a key tool of oppression throughout their novels. The use of language is mostly repressive, language can also be seen as liberating, and used as an act of rebellion, which the state wishes to eliminate. The novel Nineteen Eighty Four contains a world in which language is being systematically corrupted. The introduction of ‘Newspeak’ (official language of Oceania) is created to remove even the possibility of rebellious thoughts as, “In the end the whole notion of goodness and badness will be covered by only six words” - the words by which such thoughts might be articulated have been eliminated from the language. Orwell believed that the corruption of language may be used to oppress an entire group of people which is why he created “Newspeak” in his novel. ‘Newspeak’ has been developed to the point of absurdity, the idea that words are taken away and re-adapted means you are not permitted to express yourself as "the Party seeks to narrow the range of thought altogether”. Newspeak makes the citizens more loyal to the state as citizens may be afraid of the...
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...Charmaine Holliway Professor McRae English 1102 March 10, 2012 Escaping Gilead In Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale, women are subjected to unimaginable oppression. Almost every aspect of their lives is controlled; they are not allowed to read, write, or even speak freely. Any type of expression would be dangerous to the order of the Gilead’s strict society, but the handmaids are conditioned to believe that they are safer and better off living there. However, not everyone is convinced that the Gileadean society is how it portrays itself to be. Through storytelling, past memories, and rebellion, the handmaid Offred is able to escape the reality of Gilead and cease to completely submit to its repressive culture. Rebellion is a way for Offred to access freedom. Handmaids speaking freely are not tolerated in Gilead, so to find a way to secretly speak is Offred’s way of escape: “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 4). Each unfiltered word is a source of freedom. To be able to converse freely keeps alive the nature of relationships between people like life before Gilead. Conversation brings release and the comfort of knowing that everything she does is not controlled. These small rebellions that Offred participates in are very significant...
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...The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood in 1985. It is set in the republic of Gilead which has a highly structured hierarchy and a strict set of rules. The story is narrated by a young handmaid named Offred. Atwood says, “that the novel isn't simply a vehicle for private expression, but that it also exists for social examination.” Which is exactly what the novel serves as when it makes us criticise and reflect on the cracks in our society such as the totalitarian regimes that still reign today, gender inequality and the brutality of people higher up in society. In Gilead there is an obvious totalitarian regime and through the narrative of Offred, Atwood gives us a clear idea of her opinion on that. Offred was once a happily married woman with a daughter but she has now been caught up in the new Gilead totalitarian regime which has taken all that away from her and turned her into a handmaid whose only purpose is to bear children for her commander. The society is so strict that Offred has basically been reduced to a childlike state, she can’t pick what she wears, eats or says, she isn’t allowed basic necessities like moisturiser and she can’t even go to the bathroom unsupervised. The Gilead regime has taken away all of her personal freedom. Societies like these make us reflect on those in our own world such as the situation in North Korea. North Korea is run by a totalitarian regime, it is so strict on the people and they are in a similar situation...
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...getting her pregnant. When she says know he tries to blackmail her, Offred says, “He could fake the tests, report me for cancer, for infertility, have me shipped off to the colonies, with the unwomen” (The Handmaid’s Tale 61). The doctor was not treating her like a women, he was treating her as an object. Offred was afraid of what was going to happen to her, she was thinking about all the possibilities. Once she thought about it she rethinks the whole situation and told him that she will think about it. This was also showing dictatorship because societies like this man have all of the power and women have no power. Gilead is also a dystopian society by how the women have no control over their money. In a society like this woman was not allowed to vote nor owned ownership of their job. For example when Offred was reminiscing about how she was fired from her job and her money was to her husband’s account. This shows that the woman in this society does not have any control and the man takes all the control. This goes back to what Aunt Lydia says about freedom within this society. Aunt Lydia says, “There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from” (The Handmaid’s Tale 24)....
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...Andrew Papis 1 May, 2012 Perspectives on the Individual Final Course Paper The Struggle for Freedom Human beings are emotional individuals. Their feelings direct them in one direction or the next, and brutally establish who they are, and what they do. It is the human environment that activates these emotions, and these emotions that in turn impact the human environment. They can be either positive or negative in nature, and are centered with government and society. When life is attained from a human being, their outlook on life becomes devious. Having a positive on life conceives comfort in many people’s lives. When an outside fury comes along and changes someone’s life, his or her attitude is going to change drastically. In three books I’ve read, “Night”, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, and “The Autobiography of Malcolm X”, each struggle with the society they are dealt with. To be more specific, each main character has to struggle for freedom in the society that is surrounding them. ...
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...To what extent does The Handmaid’s Tale present the future as a feminine dystopia? A feminine dystopia imagines a world gone terribly wrong, exploring the most extreme possible consequences of current society’s problems. In a feminine dystopia, the inequality of society or oppression of women is exaggerated or intensified to highlight the need for change in contemporary society. The Handmaid’s Tale presents the future as this in many ways. Chapter 2 of The Handmaid’s Tale presents the future as a feminine dystopia. Religion is brought up as Gilead is seen to be trying to purify the values of women, for example Offred is only allowed a single bed, the words “nothing takes place in the bed but sleep; or no sleep” highlight the fact that a bed is only for sleeping, to purify her. The reference to nunneries also suggests there is religion involved in Gilead, Offred states that “time here is measured by bells, as once in nunneries. As in nunneries too, there are few mirrors” this suggests sexual contact for the Handmaids, or anyone, is forbidden, and the use of the word “once” suggests that Offred is like a nun, or feels like a nun, out of a nunnery and in a house. Also in chapter 2, the role of the Handmaids is introduced; we learn they are needed for something very important, as they are not allowed to attempt to kill themselves as it is said that “they’ve removed anything you could tie a rope to.” Also Offred says “I am not being wasted.” This shows that the Handmaids are not...
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...Tennyson links public and private spaces and their promotion of female passivity to illustrate societal as well as psychological and domestic examples of passivity. In Mariana, the “rusted” and “crusted” atmosphere of decay is representative of Mariana’s psychological deterioration and the stagnant “blacken’d waters” and “moated grange” act as an obstruction to her integration with the outside patriarchal world. This reflects the wider Victorian attitude regarding the home as “the centre of virtue and the proper life for women” and brings to light the impact that passivity in the greater context of society has on the role she plays in her private relationship. This idea of external influences is echoed much less figuratively in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ where “decreased birth rates” stimulated a change in the functioning of the governmental system and the politically organised passivity of women, creating a dystopian vision of patriarchy. A change in societal structure resulting in female passivity is also present in ‘Othello’. Desdemona’s transition from an assertive female who “challenge[s] that [she] may profess...
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...Katherine Wang Devin Loree English Literature October 30th, 2014 The meanings of “Context is all” in The Handmaid’s Tale In this society, people will always have labels on themselves, which will define their personality, their status and their identity. The labels are indispensable and play significant roles in people’s life. Without such labels, they will not define themselves accurately, the words will be explained wrong and their true self will be revealed. As mentioned in The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, “context is all” means that one’s identity will define their act, the background is important in analyzing words or sentences and one always displays persona to delude others. To begin with, “context is all” means that one’s identity defines everything, allowing aristocracy to be more noble or the humbler to become more inferior . For example, Commander’s wife regards Offred as nothing, who cannot even be compared to servants by stating that “Don’t call [the Commander’s wife] ma’am, [Offred] is not a Martha”(Atwood 15) irritably. Offred’s identity as a handmaid constructs her low status and the hatred and despise from the Commander’s wife. Moreover, Atwood indicates that because of Nick’s “low status”( Atwood 18), he is not allowed to “[be] issued a woman, not even one” (Atwood 18). Since “context is all”, Nick has to obey the rules, to be isolated from the society and “lack of connection”( Atwood 18). What’s more, Atwood demonstrates...
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...Things are not always as they seem; the first appearance deceives many. This quote by Phaedrus is a good representation of some of the characters in this book. They may seem like they are orthodox but deep down they could be trying to overrule the government and it’s rules. In the book, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, many characters follow the “rules” but there are also many characters that are rule breakers. They are expected to follow all of the regulations, and if they do not follow them then they will get punished. Offred, Moira, and the Commander all show that they are unorthodox in this novel. The first character that symbolizes unorthodoxy is Offred. “As long as we do this, butter our skin to keep it soft, we can believe that we will some day get out, that we will be touched again, in love or desire” (Atwood 96-97). Offred spends most of her time daydreaming about how her life used to be and all of the freedoms she once took for granted. These thoughts she continuously has shows unorthodox because they are to do with escaping Gilead somehow. “And it would be so flaunting, such a sneer at the Aunts, so sinful, so free. Freedom, like everything else, is relative” (Atwood 231). This is...
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