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Essay On Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

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Margaret Atwood wrote the Handmaid’s Tale shortly after the election of Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher in Great Britain. This was during the time that televangelism was on the rise and many popular political movements in the West was fueled with religious conservatives. These conservatives used Christianity to frown on the “sexual revolution” of 1960s and 1970s. The term “religious right” referred to label “conservative Christian political factions that are characterized by their strong support of socially conservative policies.” (Andersen) This heightened feminist fears as many of their traditional principles set the gains made by women back decades. The novel discloses what would happen if the rights of women were actually taken away. This is shown after a group of conservative religious extremists (The Republic of Gilead) takes power and uses it to make women powerless and subservient. Gilead is a society that is built on …show more content…

These toxic issues led to infertility (only within women), which is another fear that can be dated to the 80s. Women who still possessed the ability to reproduce are made as handmaids. Handmaids are looked down upon by the Wives, those no longer able to reproduce but are married to very wealthy and/or influential men. Handmaids are first brainwashed in a re-education facility known as the Red Center. They learn to forget their past identities “from the time before”, to know their place and duties, and understand that they have no real rights. Atwood also only includes events that has actually occurred sometime in the world’s history. The effect of this makes things very vivid and realistic for readers. This also shows how close mankind has come to a radical theonomic militaristic society like Gilead. Atwood provides a realistic insight towards the direction she believed the United States was headed during the rise of Christian political

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She is known as a vessel for reproduction having no control over her own body. This reflects her acknowledgement of the degrading and oppressive nature of her circumstances. In conclusion, the oppressive nature of Gilead results in women not being able to own properties, empower themselves, and control their

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746 Words | 3 Pages

the President of the United States and all of Congress, the United States is shaken at the center. Wars take after, and demolition follows. Out of the lethal waste dumps rises the Republic of Gilead. The forces that be, in the place where there is Gilead bring back the abuse of ladies that is a sign of severe religions and their social orders. This abuse is supported by people with significant influence as a way to guarantee the survival of mankind and the conservation of the beliefs of Gilead.

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Throughout the novel The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood portrays a world built upon the ideals of male leaders through the lens of a woman subject to the terrors that this world inflicts. In response to falling fertility rates and progressive ideologies, a group of powerful men are motivated to concoct a society based entirely upon their religious ideals to further both their reign over the female population and their success as leaders. Through the experience of a woman living at the expense of these ideas, Atwood communicates the negative consequences of idealism in the hands of a man, and the consequences of a religion-based idealistic world. Throughout the Handmaid's Tale, Atwood portrays a dystopian world by the name of Gilead, where

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588 Words | 3 Pages

Savonne Andrews Ms.Milliner EEs21QH-02 10/19/16 The novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a story which showcases an oppressed society named Gilead. Gilead’s society is a result of a war the United States participated in causing the country to regress to into a religious less free society. Throughout this book the biggest theme is the weakness of women within Gilead’s society.

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1373 Words | 6 Pages

The Handmaid 's Tale is one of Margaret Atwood most famous novels written during the spring of 1984, when the Berlin wall was still encircled. Atwood writes this book to create a dystopia, which most authors invision as the world’s fate. The Handmaid 's Tale effectively portrays the United States as a modern day totalitarian society of Gilead, which was depicted as perfect by using the book of Genesis. Although the authors’ ideas are inherently and completely fictional, several concepts throughout his book have common links to the past and present society which is the author herself calls a speculative fiction. Atwood integrates a totalitarian systems of the past, including the soviet system from deprivation, repression and terror which are

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510 Words | 3 Pages

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale is about a strange new world called the Republic of Gilead, which was once the United States of America. The Republic of Gilead was formed by an army that assassinated the President and the members of Congress. They suspended the Constitution. Laws were passed that didn’t allow women to have their own money or jobs. There was a shrinking in birth rates in Gilead because of the environment.

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1255 Words | 6 Pages

She removes the thought that Gilead could never happen in the modern world from readers’ minds to create a more eye-opening and thoughtful reading experience. In fact, when asked if the world of Gilead was imminent, Atwood responds, “The United States is where it’s going to happen first.” Atwood then expands on the revolutionary nature of the birth of America, and how by forming itself from the ashes of a revolution overnight, the United States has become humanity’s testing ground. It is also not difficult to see some of Gilead’s ideals present in the current US administration, including a

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Rebecca Rines History 4438 December 8, 2017 Describe the interaction between economics and foreign policy during the Cold War. This was a topic chosen from three choices given by Dr. Merrriman. The assigned book was America, Russia, and the Cold War, 1945-2006, Tenth Edition by Walter LaFeber.

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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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783 Words | 4 Pages

“No woman can call herself free who does not control her own body”. When Margaret Sanger spoke these words, she was expressing her belief on a woman’s right to have an abortion. This quote, however, speaks to the fact that women are oppressed on more than just abortions. In the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Atwood portrays the dehumanization of sexuality through both the characters and events within the novel, therefore proving that women will always be considered less than men will. Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1939.

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Aunt Lydia’s more relevant quote in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, is the two freedoms, who gives the reader an accurate insight of the Gilead society. This quote exposes the contrast between the freedom before and after the settlement of the Republic of Gilead, and the mentality of the brainwashed nation. It is well known that the Gileadean era is a dystopia, but the reader must study deeper into both societies –Gileadean and pre-Gileadean- to understand which one is really worse. Before the appearing of the Republic of Gilead, freedom was seen as a person’s desire, however, on the Gileadean era, freedom is a collective idea. On the current community, freedom is settled by laws based on moral and social values, but ignoring the

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251 Words | 2 Pages

The Handmaid’s Tale is a postmodernism novel that deal with skepticism. In the novel there is the presence of a metanarrative speaking about theocracy which is in control of the clergy or the people of God. At the time that Margaret Atwood wrote this story, Regan was in office and had a lot of back support of the Moral Majority whom preached that the political state of the United States should follow the Old Testament. The Republic of Gilead in The Handmaid’s Tale, would be the outcome of what will happen if there is no separation of church and state in the United States. Offred, the woman protagonist of the story, tells the reader of what life is in Gilead.

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988 Words | 4 Pages

In the 1980s, United States was experiencing the rise of conservatism. Under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, conservative religious groups were gaining popularity. In response to the social and political landscape, Canadian author Margaret Atwood published a fictional novel The Handmaid’s Tale in 1986; a genre of dystopian novels. The storyline projects an imaginary futuristic world where society lives under oppression and illusion of a utopian society maintained through totalitarian control. Dystopian novels often focus on current social government trends and show an exaggeration of what happens if the trends are taken too far.

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Atwood connects the political events to show how Gilead gained control and keeps their control by establishing fear into the women. Gilead stays in control by limiting speech to religious references, keeping the women from talking about the oppression they are suffering. Additionally, women are blamed for the social issues that were present in a pre-Gilead society such as rape, abortion and adultery. Women get the blame for the issues and men do not suffer consequences since it is in their nature to cheat. Atwood uses allusions to the Old Testament and historical events to satirize the oppression of women in political, religious and social

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889 Words | 4 Pages

Gilead is ruled by fundamentalist regime that treats women as property of the state, and is faced with environmental disasters and a plummeting birth rate. In the opening chapters, the handmaid’s lives are presented as just property of the state. The start of chapter one begins with The Handmaid 's Tale, The novelist Margaret Atwood presents the life of handmaids as protagonist who live in such fear and solitude. The first chapter begins with the narrator describing the old gymnasium as being peaceful such as ‘Powdering the dancers with a

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