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Power In The Handmaid's Tale

1407 Words6 Pages

Margret Atwood’s, The Handmaids Tale is a dystopian novel set in a totalitarian theocracy. Many unpleasant circumstances lead towards making this regime extremely controlling and manipulative. The government uses its power to take away every citizen’s freedom and force them to conform to the dystopian political ideology. In an oppressive society like Gilead, there are people who rebel and fight against the government to attain their rights and freedoms back. The main goal for dystopian societies like Gilead is to maintain power over its citizens through different means of control and suppress anyone who speaks against the government. The regime is successful in maintaining power by practicing several different methods of control by limiting …show more content…

All relationships are monitored and there are certain boundaries set out which you can’t cross at any cost. Women are oppressed through the means of sex in Gilead. Handmaids are required to have sex with their Commanders at fixed times, called the ceremony. Sex is strictly meant for procreation purposes only. Women are basically considered to be vessels of the child. “Atwood’s Handmaids, then, are an extreme example of almost complete loss of personal leisure space. They have no choice regarding the treatment of their bodies; no permission to select the individuals with whom they pass time; no control of their lives.” (Nordström). The control over women's sexual life is all in the hands of the government. This power of freedom is not given to the women which makes them inferior to men. The concept of controlling sex doesn’t only control the Handmaids but also the other women in the regime, such as the Marthas and the Wives. Any woman who is not a Handmaid, especially the Wives, create this sense of jealousy towards the Handmaids which serve the purpose of destroying unity in the society. Other women wanting to be each other, stops them from having a real connection with other women. That results in getting rid of any incentive from them that would create an alliance to overthrow the …show more content…

They twist many of the biblical references to fit their ideology. This shows one of the ideologies that Gilead has to offer, selectivity. “Gileadean government uses the Bible in order to reinforce their beliefs. They want the handmaids to believe that childbearing is their sacred purpose” (Osijek). This leaves Handmaids no chance of questioning their role in the society. They simply follow what the government has set out for them. This idea of religion as a means of control has come up a lot more times. When the Handmaids listen to the tape from the Bible, Offred notices how so many things about the bible have been

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