...“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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...Study Guides and Literature Essays Editing Services College Application Essays Writing Help Q & A Lesson Plans Home : The Handmaid's Tale : Study Guide : Summary and Analysis of V: Nap - VI: Household The Handmaid's Tale Summary and Analysis by Margaret Atwood Buy PDFBuy Paperback V: Nap - VI: Household Summary This section begins with Offred simply sitting alone, waiting. She had not been prepared for all this stillness, all of this boredom. She thinks about experiments they used to do on animals, how they would give them something to distract them. She wishes she had something to distract her. She lies down on the floor and begins to do her exercises, tilting her pelvis back. She remembers how at the training center they had rest time every day from three to four. Now she thinks it was practice for all of the waiting. She remembers how Moira showed up, after she'd been there for about three weeks. They couldn't talk for a few days, but finally during a walk they were able to plan a meeting in the washroom. The first time was during Testifying, which Aunt Helena came for specially. That day, Janine was talking about how she was gang raped when she was fourteen and had to get an abortion, and the other women respond as they have learned to, chanting that it was her fault. Despite the surroundings, Offred was extremely happy to see Moira. Now Offred thinks about her body. She used to see it as an instrument of her will, but now she sees it only as a container...
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...Devault Handmaids Tale Imagery Essay December 8, 2011 Imagery and how it relates to characters inner feelings in Margret Atwood’s Handmaids Tale The use of imagery is a staple in every novel; it gives a much needed visual connection with the themes stated in the novel. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood demonstrates the use of imagery to further solidify the reader’s comprehension of the tense relationship between the characters, Serena Joy and Offred. On page 153, Atwood describes a scene in which, Offred is coming back from the market, and comes upon Serena Joy working in her garden. As we know from previous dialogue in the book, Offred and Serena Joy do not have a very good relationship, (i.e. Serena Joy doesn’t speak to Offred unless she absolutely has to). In this scene, Atwood isolates the image of Serena Joy’s garden, using the type of flowers in the garden and their colors to express how the problematic aspects of the society affect the relationship between Serena Joy and Offred. Atwood states that there are many flowers in Serena Joy’s garden, yet the only flower she mentions by name is the Iris. Irises in many of cultures are viewed as symbols of messages from God, faith, hope, and bravery. In the society of Gilead, religion is the basis of existence. The idea that irises in some cultures are viewed as messages of God, the placement of the flower in Serena Joy’s garden represents how the relationship between Serena Joy and Offred must...
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...In Margaret Atwood’s speculative fiction, The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood introduces a society where men place domination and governance over women. Women’s bodies, particularly Handmaids’ bodies, are used as political instruments that are under the government’s complete control. The epigram Genesis 30: 1-3 provides biblical justification for the Handmaid system and serves as a prophecy for how women’s worth in Gilead is dependent on their ability to bear children. Corresponding to the novel, the character Offred from the Handmaid’s Tale resembles Bilhah from Genesis, while Offred’s higher authority, Serena Joy, correlates with Rachel from Genesis. In Genesis 30:1-3, Bilhah, Rachel’s handmaid plays a similar role to Offred, both of them are both...
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...almost every aspect of the people’s lives, down to the food that they consume. Though the totalitarian government of Gilead tries to break spirit of the women to control them and keep the people ignorant, it does not succeed in preventing the people from rebelling in their own small ways. The women are the key to the survival of Gilead. In order to ensure their survival, the founders of Gilead drew up a philosophy that they drilled into the women’s heads. They first broke down the women’s spirit by essentially re-educating them about what would now be accepted in society and would not be tolerated. "Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary" (Atwood 33). The Aunts drill this propaganda into the Handmaids’ heads to ensure that they will remember. This type of brain washing helped break down the Handmaids’ morals. Continuously being told that what they were being tasked was right made it easy for the Offred, the main character who is a Handmaid, to be impregnated by the Commander. She disregarded the Commander’s wife, not of spite but out of indifference. The propaganda spread by the government eventually...
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...Atwood’s Look into the Future Margaret Atwood 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...
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...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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...Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 i RTNA01 1 13/6/05, 5:28 PM READING THE NOVEL General Editor: Daniel R. Schwarz The aim of this series is to provide practical introductions to reading the novel in both the British and Irish, and the American traditions. Published Reading the Modern British and Irish Novel 1890–1930 Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Daniel R. Schwarz Brian W. Shaffer Forthcoming Reading the Eighteenth-Century Novel Paula R. Backscheider Reading the Nineteenth-Century Novel Harry E. Shaw and Alison Case Reading the American Novel 1780–1865 Shirley Samuels Reading the American Novel 1865–1914 G. R. Thompson Reading the Twentieth-Century American Novel James Phelan ii RTNA01 2 13/6/05, 5:28 PM Reading the Novel in English 1950–2000 Brian W. Shaffer iii RTNA01 3 13/6/05, 5:28 PM © 2006 by Brian W. Shaffer BLACKWELL PUBLISHING 350 Main Street, Malden, MA 02148-5020, USA 9600 Garsington Road, Oxford OX4 2DQ, UK 550 Swanston Street, Carlton, Victoria 3053, Australia The right of Brian W. Shaffer to be identified as the Author of this Work has been asserted in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs, and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, except as permitted by the UK Copyright, Designs, and...
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