Essay On The Oppression Of Women In The Handmaid's Tale

Throughout history, women have often been subjected to prejudice and an inferior status to men. Due to sexist ideologies of men believing that women are not capable of controlling their own lives, women have often been reduced to the status of property. This concept is prominent in many pieces of literature to demonstrate the struggles women have to go through in a predominantly, male structured world. In the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, the author illustrates a woman’s battle in an extreme society ruled by men to express the misogyny occurring in the time period when it was written, 1894. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia summarizes Atwood’s story as one that “depicts one woman’s chilling struggle to survive in a society ruled by misogynistic fascism, by which women are reduced to the condition of property.” Although written 100 years earlier, this is also seen in the novel, Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas Hardy, because both authors show the oppression of women through the experiences the characters go through and the means of survival they use. The two novels, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, and Tess of the D’Urbervilles, by Thomas

Both leading, female protagonists face the downgrade in status to property and are forced to overcome the horrifying struggles of a misogynistic based society by turning to extreme measures. Offred and Tess, losing a sense of who they truly are as women, put their lives on the line through dangerous means of rebellion in order to combat the oppression of women. Atwood and Hardy, through their literature, convey the struggles of women throughout history who are wrongfully subjected to the status of property and inferiority and have to find a way to navigate through a male dominated