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Annotated Bibliography For The Handmaid's Tale

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Isabella Beatty Mrs. Oathout English IV CP Dystopian Studies 15 April 2024 Proposed Thesis: The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood provides insight to rape culture and victim blaming through its dystopian narrative and how it can represent what is still happening today. The Handmaid’s Tale Annotated Bibliography Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid’s Tale. Anchor Books, 2017. http://www.ada.com/ada.html>. The author addresses the rape culture and victim blaming that some of the girls face while fulfilling their roles in Gilead. When one of the Handmaids, Janine, is telling her backstory of her being gang raped as a young girl, Aunt Lydia has all of the Handmaids telling her it was her fault. She enunciates the victim, blaming Janine, making everyone chant repeatedly, “Her fault, her …show more content…

Atwood relates this to the real world by showing that some people will consider a rape case as justified. Cooke, Nathalie. Margaret Atwood A Critical Companion. Greenwood Press, 2004. http://www.greenwoodpress.com/>. Nathalie Cooke offers readers a concise introduction to The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood and identifies some of her central themes within her writing. When talking about Offred's role, she only describes it as someone “whose duty is to provide the Commander with a child” (Cooke 115). Her body is there in Gilead only to be used, which reflects the rape culture aspect because Offred can not say that she does not want to provide children for the Commander. Margaret Atwood reveals the nature of what some men see in a woman’s body and creates that image in her novel. Moss, Joyce, and George Wilson. The Handmaid’s Tale. Literature and Its Times: Profiles of 300 Notable Literary Works and the Historical Events that Influenced Them, vol. 5. Civil Rights Movements to Future Times (1960-2000), Gale, 1997, pp.

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1334 Words | 6 Pages

In a world of war and oppression, exposure to danger is what divides one from an image of hope. In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, hope is not found. The world of Gilead is an extreme patriarchal society. Women are victims to the political structure that requires the control of their freedom to torture and murder for disobedience of laws and religion to satisfy the men in charge. Offred, the protagonist handmaid, demonstrates the forced purpose of the fertile women class to produce babies as slaves in the Republic of Gilead.

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1317 Words | 6 Pages

The Handmaid’s Tale: Essay Drawing from an interview with Margaret Atwood, it examines the author's intentions and motivations in writing The Handmaid's Tale through exploring her perspectives on feminism, how this novel connects back to real world events, and the dangers of authoritarian governments. In the beginning of Atwood’s interview, she discusses her views on feminism and how she decided to create a balance between the modern day beliefs through storytelling. For example, she makes note of more conservative views through the inclusion of Handmaids and how they live more isolated lives, through staying at home. This is obviously seen multiple times throughout the novel as Offred is isolated from the rest of the household, is under complete

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567 Words | 3 Pages

The Handmaid's Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, is a story narrated through Offred’s eyes. She often expresses herself in rage, guilt, resilience, and hope. Through the lens of feminine critique, her story may include themes of power, reproduction, and resistance. Power structure is a prominent theme in the novel. With the construction of Gilead, women were deprived of their basic rights.

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1154 Words | 5 Pages

The actual act of stealing reminded Offred “of what [she] once could do, how others saw [her],” and the sense of internal locus of control in her life (Atwood 97). In both the Oceania and Gilead societies censorship of literary works is in full swing. However, the government of Gilead does not only censor what people can read, but also who can read. Handmaids are prohibited from reading and the only thing Offred can read is the

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2132 Words | 9 Pages

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood creates a dystopian world in which the object of the government’s control and management are the women. The new Republic of Gilead uses the bible as their means for control, justifying their actions through a version of Christianity perverted so heavily it is hardly recognizable to the reader. Women walk around heavily shrouded, any hint of their sexuality is strictly forbidden, they cannot work or engage in any activity that goes against their gender role, and they are not even allowed to read anymore. Narrated from the point of view of the handmaid Offred, she tells her story as a way of making sense of how the world around her came to be and how to maintain a sense of herself while living in it. Her

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1008 Words | 5 Pages

The Handmaid’s Tale by Magaret Atwood manipulates time creating a distorted reality where a tyrannical society uses time as a weapon to oppress and control the people of the Republic of Gilead. The Handmaid’s Tale depicts a totalitarian society based on religious Puritanism where women are forced into strict social rules and enslavement. The novel follows the account of Offred as she recounts her tragic experiences as a handmaid. Margaret Atwood in The Handmaid’s Tale challenges the reader’s perception of time through the use of analepsis that creates a non-linear narrative severing Offred’s connection with the past. This manipulation of time reveals Offred’s dissociation from her identity highlighting the importance of a connection with personal

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725 Words | 3 Pages

Demi Leonard AP Language Ms. McAlister 29 April 2024 A powerful feminist critique Feminist can be described as “The advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes, the advocacy of women's rights on the basis of the equality of the sexes.” The Handmaid's Tale is set in New England in 1985. The Author, Margaret Atwood, displays and offers a unique perspective on feminism, a way not many can and showcases the oppression in which women must overcome. The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood serves as a powerful feminist critique portraying women's oppression, resistance, and the manipulation of power dynamics. Furthermore, some authors depict instances of female subordination, while Atwood goes deeper.

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1550 Words | 7 Pages

Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s tale raises questions and presents the issues regarding feminism in society. Feminism is essentially the idea that there is to be equality between both sexes and has a primary focus on giving women more rights and freedoms to make women equal to men in society and is presented in the Handmaid’s Tale through an alternative lens: Gilead is a male-dominated society that challenges the presence of feminism. The Handmaid’s tale is set in a dystopian society that was previously the USA, where the previous society was rid of and became an entirely male-dominated society where the only purpose of women is to serve these men who rule. The novel, The Handmaid’s tale is a strong feminist text because although it challenges

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1010 Words | 5 Pages

This chapter will deals with the resemblance of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale (1985) to Present societies. Atwood’s this novel has become increasingly relevant read in the today’s world we live in; situated in the republic of Gilead where rise in totalitarian theocracy which strips off women of their rights in near future. Atwood told in her recent interview that she made “Sure I wasn’t putting anything into it that human beings had not already done somewhere at sometime”, there are many components in the novel which can be found somewhere in the world. Female oppression today can be found everywhere around the world, example of oppression in the novel are: women are segregated into groups based on their social functions, women are

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1992 Words | 8 Pages

With the rules of Gilead, Offred and many other handmaids struggle between oppression from societal rules and autonomy. In the beginning of the novel, Offred is assigned to a Commander’s house and although she is forced to be submissive, she thinks that a knife she sees is “sharp and bright, and tempting ” revealing her hidden thirst to revolt against her position (47).

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1797 Words | 8 Pages

(Holt). This self-treatment is identical to that of Offred. In both societies, women are aware that they must present themselves not an individual, but as a representation of the single story that they represent. This is identical to the way that women’s identities have been robbed in the Gilead Society. “The Ideal

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1321 Words | 6 Pages

The Handmaids Tale essay “Faith” as it read and that there would be the last offred would get to read. In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, tells the story of Offred, one of the few fertile women in Gilead who is used purely for breeding and birth for a population. In the beginning, Offred seems to be inoffensive, ordinary, and somehow makes light of her awful situation and towards the end something changes in her which makes her bitter, reserved, and rebellious. Lust for freedom leads to change in integrity shown through Offred, the Commander, Serena joy, and the rest of the handmaids. Life before Gilead meant women could own property, smoke, decide their sexuality, work, and live for something other than serving man.

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913 Words | 4 Pages

As a nation like the Republic of Gilead decides its policies based on biblical stories, it shows how extreme applications of those verses can lead to intrusion of human rights and degraded roles of women to only reproduce and nothing else. In addition, Atwood also focuses on the executions and persecution of women and constant efforts of these women to fight against the male-dominated society. Many of the characters such as Moira, Offred’s friend, Ofglen, another handmaid, Serena Joy and Offred, try to resist in her own way. Furthermore, I think there were many efforts by Atwood to use symbolism to represent motifs of the novel.

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1241 Words | 5 Pages

Rationale: I have written this piece for part 4: Literature-Critical Study. It is an article written straight from the interview conducted from Steve Johnson, imaginary figure, with Margaret Atwood, author of The Handmaid’s Tale. The interview closely examines how her work portraits the main message of the book: gender significance and Christianity. My written task written with the premise that readers claim that The Handmaid’s Tale is not clearly supporting neither feminism nor anti-feminism, and that readers want Atwood to be clear about the direction of the book and her personal view on feminism. In addition, The Handmaid’s Tale criticizes the Christianity for Christianity’s conservative view by referencing Bible’s content and interpreting

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1822 Words | 8 Pages

In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid's Tale, humanity is portrayed as a cyclically flawed being. Through the use of extended metaphors, allusions, and flashback descriptions of the past, the world created is meant to reflect reality and the shifts in societies as they occur. However, Atwood’s ultimate purpose is to not only show that nations and cultures collapse and rise in the place of their ancestors, but that this constant push and pull is created by man’s own inability to change. The depicted, pre-Gilead world shows possible flaws in the generally left-trending political avenues of society, and represents the current world as a whole.

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