ipl-logo

Handmaid's Tale Feminism Analysis

1545 Words7 Pages
bulb-icon

Recommended: Feminism in patriarchal society

Chauvinism and Feminism in Handmaid’s tale
Introduction
This paper explores the relations between women and men in a context of a dystopian society which is very well depicted by Attwood. Debates raised since society acquired language and nowadays is still a hot debate. Radical, feminists point men as the 'main enemy’ and they say that, patriarchy is considered as a form of domination imposed by men on women. Feminists are dealing with how to understand the relations between patriarchy and how to confront to oppose male chauvinism. “You can only be jealous of someone who has something you think you ought to have yourself.”
― Margaret Atwood’s saying at her official Facebook page. This previous line tries to explain how society judge women and has established different moral values to them. These rules enhances men and women into promiscuity and chastity.
Chauvinism
Definition of chauvinism The Oxford dictionary defines Chauvinism as an unreasonable patriotism. The …show more content…

It is clear that the Offred who is the main character faces a hard life after she became a Handmaid. However, the story tell us that despite all the suffering she escapes from such cruel nation that has forced her to become a social tool. Although she achieved her commitment, she feels like she will lose the only thing that she started to love “Nick” the Choufer. “The fact is that I no longer want to leave, escape, cross the border to freedom. I want to be here, with Nick, where I can get at him”. (41.37)
Proofs of chauvinism in Handmaid’s tale
The proof chauvinism in Handmaid’s tale are these lines;”I wait. I compose myself”. “Myself is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born” (12.25).
The narrator feels divided into two parts: "Offred" and herself, the other version of herself is what she calls "a thing". She simply can’t follow her emotions; she has her role, the role of a tool.

Show More
Related

The Handmaid's Tale And The Bloody Chamber Analysis

1647 Words | 7 Pages

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

Read More

What Does Offred Symbolize In The Handmaid's Tale

243 Words | 1 Pages

It’s a Man’s World… … but it’d be nothing without a woman or a girl1. James Brown’s lyrics describe Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale perfectly. In 1985, readers from all over the world received this Canadian’s dystopic novel and turned it into a best-seller, maybe because of the topic it deals with: a totalitarian society in which women are treated as objects.

Read More

Handmaid's Tale: Feminist Movements Of The 1960s And 1970s

211 Words | 1 Pages

A historical event that may have influenced Margaret Atwood is the feminist movements of the 1960s and 1970s. There are many instances throughout The Handmaid's Tale where women are controlled and forced to comply by the men that rule their government. In the 1960’s and 1970’s, the second wave of feminism arose. A specific catalyst for the second wave was Betty Friedan’s 1963 book, The Feminine Mystique. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are defined solely on their ability to become Wives, Marthas, or Handmaids,whereas men are defined by their military rank/position of power.

Read More

The Handmaid's Tale Literary Analysis

1076 Words | 5 Pages

For instance, Aunt Lydia makes excuse to the men by saying that men by nature are aggressive and cannot control their sexual desire. “Men are sex machines, said Aunt Lydia… It is nature’s way. It’s God’s device. It’s the way things are” (Atwood 168).

Read More

The Religion Influences In The Handmaid's Tale

1562 Words | 7 Pages

The Religion Influences in The Handmaid’s Tale Word Count: 1563 This purpose of this essay is to establish and explain connections between the Christian Religion and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. It is not attempting to point out flaws or discriminate against the religion. Margret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is a dystopian novel, that centres around the themes of corruption, oppression, and theocracy. Told in the first person, the novel follows the female ‘Offred’ in her daily life/activities and past experiences in the newly founded “Republic of Gilead”.

Read More

The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

761 Words | 4 Pages

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood depicts the future dystopian society, Gilead. There, the few remaining fertile women, called handmaids, are enslaved to a life of procreation to combat the dangerously low birth rates. The theme of oppression and rebellion is prevalent throughout the novel, and is best illustrated by Confutatis from Mozart’s Requiem. In his final hour as he composes Confutatis, Mozart begs God for mercy to be called one of the blessed to enter heaven. The compelling lyrics of Confutatis accompanied by intense orchestration parallel the lives of the Handmaids, who desperately seek to escape the oppressive world they are imprisoned in.

Read More

Racism And Classism In The Handmaid's Tale

746 Words | 3 Pages

The protagonist of The Handmaid’s Tale is referred to as Offred (of Fred). Through the manipulation of literary devices such as juxtaposition, allusion, and descriptive diction, Margaret Atwood voices her concerns about our future, and reveals just how quickly and completely our present could transform. As chapter 33 begins, the Handmaids are off to the Women’s Prayvaganza (a portmanteau of pray and extravaganza). The event, juxtaposed to the ‘fun festival’ it resembles, is really a mass wedding with girls as young as fourteen married off to Angels (troops).

Read More

Control Of Women In The Handmaids Tale

678 Words | 3 Pages

“You wanted a women 's culture. Well, now there is one. It isn’t what you meant, but it exists. Be thankful for small mercies.” (Atwood 124) Offred is looking back on her past life to a story her mother once told her.

Read More

Symbolism In The Handmaid's Tale

1410 Words | 6 Pages

It is narrated by the protagonist, Offred who is a handmaid forced into sexual servitude. Facing a plunging birth rate, the fundamentalist regime treats women as property of the state. Handmaids are the few of the remaining fertile women and their sole purpose is to help the government into re-populating their society, where a lot of people are left sterile. The Handmaid’s Tale deals with the theme of women in subjugation to misogyny in a patriarchal society, primarily. It shows the struggle that women have to go through in that society, as a Handmaid or as not being able to be one.

Read More

Theme Of Marxism In The Handmaid's Tale

2035 Words | 9 Pages

Works of literature often portray ideas relating to Marxist theory, this is why in a dystopian society, class distinctions dominate the social climate, using Marxist ideologies as a tool to define the lives of the narrator and those around her. In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, ideologies from Marxist theory dominate the society in which Offred, the narrator, lives in, evidenced by the strict class systems and limited interaction between them. In writing the novel, Atwood makes a point to create a world that could exist using technology and ideas already accessible in today’s society, meaning the events that take place in The Handmaid’s Tale could happen in present day. Offred lives in a reality where class distinctions dominate society, and women, especially fertile women. These women are displaced downwards, although there are those women who attempt to resist the grip of society.

Read More

Little Red Riding Hood And Beauty And The Beast In The Handmaid's Tale

1058 Words | 5 Pages

Fairy tales have been told for centuries and have been used to portray the conflict of sexual politics over time. Little Red Riding Hood and Beauty and the Beast are both examples of fairy tales with this focus. Making use of this conflict in The Handmaid 's Tale, Margaret Atwood has used certain elements of fairy tale genre to have the opposite effect of the stereotypical ‘happy ever after’ as the novel plays in a dystopian world. More specifically, the author has borrowed elements of fairy tales to develop the theme of shifting power in The Handmaid’s Tale.

Read More

Motifs In The Handmaid's Tale

1107 Words | 5 Pages

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.

Read More

Dehumanization In The Handmaid's Tale

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.

Read More

Injustice In The Handmaid's Tale

1482 Words | 6 Pages

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood demonstrates a quizzical protagonist, Offred, in a dystopian, totalitarian society where fertile women are only a mere vessel for child birth. Every month during Offred’s menstrual cycle her Commander, Fred, and his wife Serena Joy perform detached intercourse while Serena holds Offred’s hands. The handmaids of the Republic of Gilead are not allowed to use their mind for knowledge nor take part in formal society. They are but the vacuous-minded property to their Commanders and their infertile wives. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred discloses the day to day moments and her commicalOffred had once lived in a world where she was her own person with a job and a home with a family of her own but now she lives under unfortunate circumstances that disable her from being a true, soulful human.

Read More

The Handmaid's Tale Analysis

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.

Read More

More about Handmaid's Tale Feminism Analysis

Related Topics

Open Document