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Analysis Of A Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

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In A Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, Offred is unable to effectively deal with her oppressed condition. Rather than fight the notions that people have of Handmaids, Offred starts to believe the things that everyone says about her. Offred emphasizes that she was given the choice of becoming a Handmaid; however, her only other options were death or getting shipped off to the Colonies, where she would eventually meet her death due to large amounts of radiation. The society of Gilead believes that the Handmaids choose to become property, but in actuality, the Handmaids simply resolve to live. Their government uses their own choice to live against them. They take these women away from their families, make them conform to the new society, and force them to become childbearing vessels. The oppression of women is transmitted in …show more content…

Gilead oppresses its citizens by forcing them to wear a specific color so people can identify their social functions. “Everything except the wings around my face is red; the color of blood, which defines us”(8). Not only does the classification system strip the women of their identity, but it also shows a power structure within the Gilead society. Without individual identity it is much easier to stereotype groups because they can be easily manipulated into acting in similar manners, performing the same duties, and wearing the same colors. As the citizens of Gilead fall into their designated jobs and lose their individual identity, they internalize the repression they receive from other members of society. Offred feels the loss of her identity because she and the rest of the Handmaids are defined by the red outfits they are required to wear and by their healthy reproductive systems. Without their individual identity, the Handmaids are forced to obey the roles required of them simply because they don’t have any other identity to claim as their

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(Atwood 187). Although Handmaids experience oppression by the Gilead regime, Atwood emphasizes the importance of unity and collaboration in the face of difficulties. The government of Gilead presents how hypocritical their society is toward women’s rights since the government uses a form of manipulation to make the Handmaid’s circumstances more tolerable. Additionally, Offred expresses how women do not have a right to their bodies because of the power others have over them as Offred states “I am abject” (Atwood 331). Offred expresses the removal of her individuality, autonomy, and basic human rights.

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Both texts ‘The Handmaids Tale’ and ‘The Bloody Chamber’ were written during the second wave of feminism which centralised the issue of ownership over women’s sexuality and reproductive rights and as a result, the oral contraceptive was created. As powerfully stated by Ariel Levy, ‘If we are really going to be sexually liberated, we need to make room for a range of options as wide as the variety of human desire.’ Margaret Atwood and Angela Carter both celebrate female sexuality as empowering to challenge the constraints of social pressure on attitudes of women. Both writers aim to expose the impact of patriarchy as it represses female sexual desire and aim to control it thus challenge contemporary perspectives of women by revealing the oppression

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The Handmaid’s Tale Through a Critical Lens The Republic of Gilead is a dystopian society where women are stripped of all their rights. Written by Margret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale looks into the psychological torment of women in servient roles and is inspired by the dynamics of men and women in real society and displayed at its extreme in The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel is narrated by Offred, a Handmaid, who is forced to reproduce with her commander and has lost her family from the time before Gilead. Atwood’s use of descriptive language, ambiguity, imagery, and internal and external dialogue reveals the importance of sexual and reproductive rights, the separation of classes in a totalitarian society, and the effects of environmental degradation on society as a whole. Women in The Handmaid’s Tale are divided into their own social pyramid.

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Within the household, there are colours assigned to the members, such as ‘black, for the Commander, blue, for the Commander’s Wife, and the one assigned [to the handmaids], are red.’ These colour distinctions correlate the roles of such characters; the Commander has much freedom and power, the Wives, although in power, have limited freedom and are subjected to spending plentiful time alone in their homes. Imagery is also used to portray power distribution through the consequences of rebellion. The Gilead regime has intentionally publicised the death of rebels, such as those who look ‘like scarecrows’ are seen ‘hanged on the wall’. This deliberate representation of those who have been killed is used as a threat against the proletariat; a warning to whoever challenges the prejudiced hierarchy.

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The book The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood is a literary masterpiece containing many symbols hidden in everything from the flowers to the clothes worn by the characters. These symbols are used to represent the purpose of the characters in Gilead, the setting of the book. The flower is a symbol for the sole reproductive role of the handmaids and the colors are used to symbolize how the characters are meant to behave, red meaning fertile, white for purity, green for service, and blue for sadness.

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678 Words | 3 Pages

In the Handmaid 's Tale power is used to control the women and sort them into certain gender roles. Each women in the society of Gilead is assigned a certain job that is stereotypical of a woman 's job such as cooking, sex, and reproduction. These women are the lowest class in Gilead and have no control. The men have superior power of the women but the women such as Ofgeln and Offred gain control in power in their lives. Men have an upper hand in the control of these women.

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Often, we see a society’s cultural values reflected in its citizens. For example, the United States values equality, a standard that is shared in all facets including gender. The opposite is true of Gilead, a fictional society in Emily Bronte’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel’s main character, Offred, is subjected to degrading treatment simply because she is a woman. It becomes apparent that this repeated degradation has affected the protagonist’s mind.

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In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the Republic of Gilead actively represses women by forcing them into very narrowly defined, ultra-conservative gender roles. This totalitarian government strips women of all rights and protections, and imposes severe punishments for defiance. Pollution and disease had caused severe infertility in this society, drastically reducing birth rates. In an effort to reverse a drastic population decline, this thoroughly misogynistic and power-hungry regime, takes full control over the human reproductive process. Furthermore, the leadership uses various dehumanizing methods to achieve complete subservience of women to men.

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No one will see you. I'll sit here." Offred has been given a command by Serena Joy to meet Nick late at night which breaks the law. She has to follow Serena’s step by step procedure, however she also needs to listen to the laws that were made by the government. As a lower class citizen she will be severely punished, since her only job is to be a tool for sexual reproduction.

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(Atwood, 194). In the end all the methods used to protect women only reinforced the discrimination, and Handmaids are depicted as baby machines. All this class struggle leads to one answer, in this society freedom is all about what you are forced to achieve to serve the nation. Individuals do not settle their objectives, but the government that force them to accomplish them because they are morally correct. Women are expected to do their job, their “uses”, since it is for the wealth of the

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This year is the 30th anniversary of the publication of Margaret Atwood 's dystopian classic, The Handmaid 's Tale. The novel is told from a first person account of a young woman, Offred. In an age of declining births, she is forced to become a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, the imagined future in the United States. The Handmaids are to provide children by the substitution of infertile women of a higher social status. Through the creation of different characteristics of female characters – ones who are submissive yet rebellious, and like to take advantage of their power - Margaret Atwood portray themes of love, theocracy, rebellion, and gender roles.

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996 Words | 4 Pages

In this written text, the emphasis will be on Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale and as well as the way Atwood portrays women and how it can be argued to show the oppression of women. The main purpose is to analyze the way women are treated throughout this book and depict why they are represented this way in the society in Gilead. Then, comparatively, observe the men’s domination over women and how they govern this society. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are stripped of their rights, suffer many inequalities and are objectified, controlled by men and only valued for their reproductive qualities. The Gilead society is divided in multiple social group.

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Furthermore, Offred does not act defensively due to her submissive personality, which allows people with power to harm her. However, even though Offred is held back from showing her true identity, she acknowledges that she’s the only one who can change herself. Another quote states, “Pick up that disgusting thing and get to your room. Just like the other one. A slut.

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Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale depicts the Republic of Gilead in a futuristic setting where, a totalitarian state concerned with the declining birth rates, attained power in a major coup. The theocratic state takes complete control of reproduction among other aspects of women’s freedom by marginalizing the social group. In fact, the Handmaid’s are a select group of fertile, young women whose worth are judged solely on their reproductive abilities in a Commander's household. Written in the 1980’s Atwood addresses the aversive consequences of revitalized religious conservative views that criticized sexuality and feminism to strip women’s rights. Atwood warns her readers that the marginalizing of women through the loss of identity, restrictions

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1101 Words | 5 Pages

Imagine a nation in which its government commands by a religion where women are separated into different titles and must conceive children for their commander. Their rights from before this regime, and anything deemed unholy by the government, are a thing of the past. This situation is the one represent in the Republic of Gilead, where the rules of society and its traditions are not taken lightly if broken. In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood shows that an oppressive government leads to the inevitable neglect and remiss of the rules through Offred’s characterization, irony, and flashbacks. Offred 's character development can show that her actions change .

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