ipl-logo

The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

825 Words4 Pages

Imagine living in a world where roles are given, freedom is taken, and you must abide to the rules unjust to everyone. Would you fight back, or reluctantly follow these oppressive rules? Offred is an independent and emotional woman who is forced into labor. In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, women are forced into certain labor based on their fertility and status in this new society. Both men and women have become oppressed for the sake of the country. Offred is a handmaid given the task to procreate with a Commander. She is one of many of the women who are basically imprisoned into labels and must abide by many limiting laws. She is given multiple options to break the rules by people who, even though they are blessed, also try to break the rules. The lowest and most burdened class to the highest and blessed class break the rules of this new regime. No matter how many benefit from a “utopia” many, from different class and social status, will rise against these injustices in any way, shape, or form leading to the dysfunction and even destruction of society. We come to realize this as Offred’s dialogue and flashback explains people’s motivation and …show more content…

Their mental and physical states are damaged. Yet this new regime claims to have helped women. The regime is a new protector as ““women in the past were not protected” (Atwood 24). This is a dystopia, yet it’s built like their own utopia for everyone. Women are given protection and helped from the misdeeds of others. This new environment forces women into certain mentalities. They have become so damaged that they break the rules in order to regain their sanity a bit. Handmaids are not given lotion as part of the law and resorted buttering “[the] skin to keep it soft”(Atwood 96). They are breaking rules only for vanity. It’s their only way to keep going and have beauty. The new regime claimed to help women yet it only applied more

Show More
Related
512 Words | 3 Pages

Their actions proved that they were mentally capable of more than previously believed. Now women were expected to keep the morale of the household intact by supporting her husband (Berkin 154). A woman was also expected to educate her children in the same values of the republic, a role that use to belong to a male. However, now she was able to learn enough about government, politics and philosophy in order to teach her children to become good citizens (Berkin 155). 5)

Read More
177 Words | 1 Pages

Offred is a woman who has lived and was married before Gilead “in an age of readily available pornography, prostitution, and violence against women” (Plot Overview). She was captured and separated from her husband and child while trying to flee the country to Canada. Afterwards she was brought to the commander’s house in order to serve him as a handmaid. At the beginning, the girls were taken to the “Red Center” where they were instructed on how to become handmaids.

Read More
431 Words | 2 Pages

The treatment of women and of people as a whole is absolutely disgusting. Offred represents the treatment of women and their strict set of standards/expectations. She also shows how the government controls most aspects of life through her daily life and constant flashbacks. In this novel, the Commander symbolizes governments all over the world who have a large part of control in their citizen’s lives.

Read More
1023 Words | 5 Pages

In Offred’s inner dialogue after Ofwarren’s successful birth, Offred states, "She [Janine]'ll never be sent to the Colonies, she'll never be declared Unwoman. That is her reward." Atwood creates the derogatory term "Unwoman" by manipulating the use of the prefix "un" to equate to ‘not’ rather than ‘opposite’, meaning that for a Handmaid to be an Unwoman suggests she is ‘not a woman’. This term insinuates that for a Handmaid not to be fertile, they lose their value as a human being. The threat of becoming an Unwoman, which targets one’s very humanity, crystallises the idea that to be a Handmaid is a reward in comparison, solidifying Gilead’s sexist system by threatening women towards the sole purpose of reproduction and demonstrating to the reader how Atwood uses language to showcase the effectiveness of Gilead in manipulating language to control the public.

Read More
193 Words | 1 Pages

This quote shows that The Handmaids culture were taught to be submissive and it shows Offred’s interpretation of their strategies to stop revolutions or thoughts that could cause someone to revolt. The woman training them, Aunt Lydia, encourages all the handmaidens that even though the new concepts introduced in their schooling may seem strange at first, they will eventually become mundane or submissive. For if they didn’t the handmaidens would be punished for stepping out of line like one woman that did in the quote above. To promote the submissiveness all of them go through an indoctrination, the indoctrination is a brainwashing ritual at the Academy where they train to be handmaidens. In another scenario in Chapter 13, Offred describes a

Read More
1436 Words | 6 Pages

Conflict can be described as the struggle between two opposing forces, whether the forces being person vs person, person vs self or person vs society. Good examples of conflict can be found in almost any book. Margaret Atwood’s novel, the Handmaid’s Tale is a source of all three types of conflicts. The Handmaid’s Tale is about a society where females are given specific duties and are restricted from reading, writing, talking to others and looking at themselves in mirrors. The protagonist, Offred whom is also the narrator in the novel faces conflicts with herself, with other people, and the society that she lives in.

Read More
591 Words | 3 Pages

The world Offred lived in, in the time before of freedom, choice, and before she was deemed Offred is now Gilead. A corrupt ‘Godly and holy’ place. Gilead's rulers controls its citizens through language, they can shift, mold, and encourage any kind of conversation with the language they allow them to use, all phrases spoken to each other are short and either godly or purely within context of whatever the subject. They use language, also as punishment instead of hitting them they verbally attack with words, made up mostly. What they've done has left the people, women especially reminiscent of robots.

Read More
678 Words | 3 Pages

In the Handmaid 's Tale power is used to control the women and sort them into certain gender roles. Each women in the society of Gilead is assigned a certain job that is stereotypical of a woman 's job such as cooking, sex, and reproduction. These women are the lowest class in Gilead and have no control. The men have superior power of the women but the women such as Ofgeln and Offred gain control in power in their lives. Men have an upper hand in the control of these women.

Read More
1410 Words | 6 Pages

Symbolism can be defined as the use of symbols that an author uses to suggest more than the literal meaning of the object .Symbolism often allows the reader to understand the text better and connect with the story on a different level. In The Handmaid’s Tale, symbolism can be seen in various parts of the novel. One of the most common type of symbolism that can be identified in the text is through the use of colours. One of the most obvious symbols in the novel is the uniform that every Handmaid is supposed to wear.

Read More
902 Words | 4 Pages

The handmaids tale is a dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood in 1985. Offred, the narrator, describes Gilead, as being a corrupt city where her rights were suppressed. Throughout the book we (the reader) are presented with many allusions, one of these being the bible. Atwood uses specific parts of the bible that glorifies marriage, convict women but absolve men of adultery for the purpose of childbirth to make the law’s in Gilead. Other Bible references that focus on meekness and humility has been used to dictate the handmaid’s behavior.

Read More
571 Words | 3 Pages

In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Offred has a continuous search for justice for her daughter, in a society in which her idea of justice is starts as one concept and changes to one that she never expected. Margaret Atwood writes Offred as a character who was at once strong-willed, and who would stop at nothing to get what she wanted. Her strength is dimmed at first, when her daughter and husband are first taken from her. Her strength, however comes back in full force when she finds the opportunity to get justice for her daughter. Offred uses the motivation of her daughter to spur a rebellious side of her that disappeared when the new leaders came into power.

Read More
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
1364 Words | 6 Pages

This new regime brings the laws to control women; this included a new language and the use of violence as a method of oppression. Language is very connected with oppression. Throughout history, we see how colonizers impose their language in colonized countries to keep the natives ignorant, the same in The Handmaid’s Tale. It is noticed how every simple thing that can contain a word has been replaced. Coins are now tokens with symbols, and shop signs were replaced by drawings, to give just the necessary information about it.

Read More
1035 Words | 5 Pages

To begin with, the Handmaids are unfortunate women whose existence depends on their fertility. They lose all of their personal possessions, families, memories, and finally identities. They are renamed according to their relation to men and they must wear the same uniform, as they are objects

Read More
996 Words | 4 Pages

In this written text, the emphasis will be on Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale and as well as the way Atwood portrays women and how it can be argued to show the oppression of women. The main purpose is to analyze the way women are treated throughout this book and depict why they are represented this way in the society in Gilead. Then, comparatively, observe the men’s domination over women and how they govern this society. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are stripped of their rights, suffer many inequalities and are objectified, controlled by men and only valued for their reproductive qualities. The Gilead society is divided in multiple social group.

Read More

More about The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

Related Topics

Open Document