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The Role Of Women In The Handmaid's Tale

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The Handmaid’s Tale Essay-How does Atwood’s portrayal of women compare to modern conceptions of women?
“I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it’s shameful or immodest but because I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely” (Atwood pg.82). This is a quote that the narrator and main character of the book (Offred) says as two other women give her her bath. How hard does a woman’s life have to be that she wouldn’t even want to look at her body. Not because she doesn’t like it, but because it makes her lose her identity and value because the environment in which she lives classified her as something she doesn’t want to be just because of her body. In the book “The Handmaid’s Tale” the author, Margaret Atwood portrays women in a futuristic society that in a way revolves around women. Not the feminist way that women would want however, but these women are told and obligated to be happy for what they have. The society the book is written in see women as property even though they have an important role in this book. Women have different roles and titles in this new society and some are based on their physical attributes. One example of this are the Martha’s which are housekeepers and they are in charge of cooking and cleaning houses. They weren’t used as handmaid’s because they either were too old, infertile or had their tubes tied before Gilead. In my opinion the Gilead regime is similar to today’s society, but the

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