Examples Of Allusions In The Handmaid's Tale

In the novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, Gilead -the republic in which Offred resides- is a theocracy-a government in which there is no separation between church and state. Religious terminology and references are incorporated into everyday life; everything from the titles of civilians, to the names of the shops they frequent, to the automobiles they drive. This uses of biblical phraseology to describe all things in their society, provides an ever-constant insinuation that those who reign are acting with “God’s” warrant. However like in most theocracies, words get warped and taken out of context and used as justification for vile deeds and characteristics; especially those of the Old Testament. In the novel, many of the biblical quotes have been misrepresented. In the “Rachel and Leah Center”, Offred is aware that the prayers the Aunts plays in Handmaid are not the words of the Bible saying: “ I knew they made that up, I knew it was wrong, and they left things out, too, but there was no way of checking.”[p.110-111] The theocracy even go as far as to corrupt essential virtues such as charity, forgiveness and tolerance; torturing nuns in an attempt to pressure them to “renounce their celibacy, sacrifice it to the common good.”[p.276] This

For example: The Crusades that destroyed entire societies such as the “First Crusade” of 1099 where its crusaders, an estimate of two thousand men, conquered Jerusalem and massacred its inhabitants; no matter their faith. Another case of their inhumanity was the “Witch Hunt” of the Middle Ages in which over nine million people were persecuted, and then murdered. In spite of the infernal imprint theocracy has left in our past, it still exists today. The Republic of Iran is an Islamic theocracy in which, one man titled the “Supreme Leader”, employs complete control over a system run by clerics who oversee every major function of the