Protesting In The Handmaid's Tale

Despite “there [being] about 97 men for every 100 women” in the United States, the country remains a patriarchy (Kiersz). Women have been trying to gain equal rights, but it has been an uphill battle. The first step in gaining equality is making one’s voice heard. Protesting is a common method of making oneself known and it can be seen in poetry such as “Still I Rise” by Maya Angelou and “Daddy” by Sylvia Plath. Protesting can also be seen in longer forms of literature such as The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Antigone by Sophocles, and The Help directed by Taylor Tate. Women have other ways to express their displeasure as well. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Ofglen and Offred have a society of other handmaids, essentially an underground resistance

After exhausting all of her other options, Antigone resorts to violence. Creon throws her into jail and soon after, her soon-to-be husband Haemon discovers her “hanging with a noose of linen around her neck”( Sophocles 246). Killing herself serves as a message to Creon that no rule of a man can go above the rule of the Gods.Whether the speaker’s “daddy” is her actual father or just men in general, she also uses violent imagery to prove her point. In "Daddy," “Plath associates the figure of the father with other figures of oppression-Hitler, a torturer, a vampire” (Dunn). All of these associations are horrendous considering she calls herself the oppressed person in each situation. This does not stop her from gaining her freedom though. When her daddy takes the form of a vampire, the villagers “[dance] and [stamp] on [him]” and kill him, thus freeing her from his reign of terror (Plath 78). Earlier she also mentions that “there’s a stake in [his] fat black heart” (Plath 76). Killing and overcoming a male figure is seen in “Sweat” as well. In the early twentieth century, men were expected to be the providers and women were expected to be the homemakers. For Delia Jones, however, she is responsible for both jobs. Jones is the one whose “sweat has paid for [their] house” (Hurston 5). Throughout the story, it is revealed to the readers how abusive Delia’s husband is to her and he even goes as far as to try to kill her in order to get the house for him and his new mistress. In order to kill her, Sykes places a snake in her baskets of laundry, but Delia manages to “speed into the darkness of the yard” (Hurston 10). After the snake bites Sykes instead, Delia is finally able to “confront [him], an act that shows her ability to violate patriarchal social codes” (Champion). Watching her husband die and not helping him is her way of saying that no one owns her and that no one can control her life