ipl-logo

Reproductive Control In The Handmaid's Tale

468 Words2 Pages

The Handmaid's Tale: The Ceremony as a Warning of the Dangers of Reproductive Control Reproductive control and the exploitation of women's bodies have been used throughout history as a means of exerting power and control over women. This has been demonstrated in the fictional novel The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood and in the real-world, including the comfort women system during the Second World War. Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale explores the dangers of a society that seeks to control women’s bodies and their reproductive rights. In the novel, a ritualized sexual act known as the “Ceremony” occurs monthly where a handmaid is forced to have sex with the Commander she serves which is intended to result in pregnancy and increase the population of Gilead. This act demonstrates that the handmaids have no agency over their bodies as they are reduced to a role of only being a reproductive vessel and are forced to endure this dehumanizing act. While the “Ceremony” is a fictional creation in the novel, there are many examples throughout history of governments and societies using sexual coercion and control to maintain their power over women including the comfort women system during the Second World War. …show more content…

The women were trained to provide sexual and emotional comfort to the Japanese soldiers. This was done through forcing the women to work in brothels that were set up by the Japanese military, where they were subjected to rape, torture and other forms of sexual violence on a daily basis. Many of the women who were forced into the comfort women system were underage and the abuse they suffered had a profound impact on both their physical and mental

Show More
Related
1310 Words | 6 Pages

(Atwood 187). Although Handmaids experience oppression by the Gilead regime, Atwood emphasizes the importance of unity and collaboration in the face of difficulties. The government of Gilead presents how hypocritical their society is toward women’s rights since the government uses a form of manipulation to make the Handmaid’s circumstances more tolerable. Additionally, Offred expresses how women do not have a right to their bodies because of the power others have over them as Offred states “I am abject” (Atwood 331). Offred expresses the removal of her individuality, autonomy, and basic human rights.

Read More
1230 Words | 5 Pages

History through Film and Literature Final Paper The American expansion west was a great time in history for the United States gaining new land and expanding the country, but it was also a very depressing, and terrible time for the Native Americans. Their land was just being taken from them. Many lost their culture and many lost their lives.

Read More
875 Words | 4 Pages

They perform a ceremonial act described similarly to how Winston was feeling with his wife - pleasure is completely stripped away. In The Handmaid’s Tale, however, it is taken to an even higher extreme. The act is no longer consensual and the handmaids are being raped by the commanders. In 1984 the human instinct for sexuality is further taken away by the implementation of the “Junior Anti-Sex League, which

Read More
2864 Words | 12 Pages

The Handmaid’s Tale Through a Critical Lens The Republic of Gilead is a dystopian society where women are stripped of all their rights. Written by Margret Atwood, The Handmaid’s Tale looks into the psychological torment of women in servient roles and is inspired by the dynamics of men and women in real society and displayed at its extreme in The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel is narrated by Offred, a Handmaid, who is forced to reproduce with her commander and has lost her family from the time before Gilead. Atwood’s use of descriptive language, ambiguity, imagery, and internal and external dialogue reveals the importance of sexual and reproductive rights, the separation of classes in a totalitarian society, and the effects of environmental degradation on society as a whole. Women in The Handmaid’s Tale are divided into their own social pyramid.

Read More
1536 Words | 7 Pages

Leaders of Totalitarian governments show great enthusiasm towards running all aspects of society, they have a great passion for employing power over their people. These governments are not finite to just politics, they find a way into the private lives of citizens. They invade into the way that a population thinks, feels and act in their everyday lives, they quite literally have no control over how their lives play out because it all depends on what the government wants. This is an extreme way of living and the question is how are these governments able to gain control? Even when their intentions are not all good the people still seem to follow the leader.

Read More
746 Words | 3 Pages

What would become of the world, if our current societal flaws, such as sexism, racism, and classism were ingrained and executed at a systematic level? This is exactly what The Handmaid’s Tale set out to explore. The novel, which claims to be speculative fiction, is set in the theocratic Republic of Gilead (formerly the USA), where birth rates are rapidly declining and women have been marginalized by the patriarchal regime, forbidden to read, write or love and valued only if they are able to procreate. They are separated into classes, including Wives, Marthas, Aunts, Unwomen, and Handmaids, distinguishable only by the color of their clothing. The Handmaids are renamed by combining ‘of’ and the name of the Commander that they have been assigned to, stripping them of any individuality.

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
971 Words | 4 Pages

In The Handmaid’s Tale, the effects of suspicion on a society, on handmaid’s, are clearly visible; it can also be seen that the government’s method of control leads to the creation of a dystopia. The Handmaid’s Tale proves that a society built on fear and shaped by suspicion achieves near total control of the population by the ruling class, the government of Gilead in this case. In chapter 42, Aunt Lydia describes how they will no longer announce the crimes that the prisoners have committed at the Salvagings. Once Offred learns this she states, “Now we are left to our own devices, speculation” (Atwood 275). Therefore, through Offered, the reader is able to see how the handmaid 's will now have suspicions of what the prisoners did to get hanged, since they are no longer being told.

Read More
783 Words | 4 Pages

The Handmaid’s are not only not allowed to touch the Commander during the process; they are not even allowed eye contact. This portrays the idea that the Handmaid’s are only there to provide sexual stimulation for the man, and is not allowed to take any sort of pleasure in the act. The Handmaid’s must remember, “For him …I am only a whim.” (Atwood 159). Another example of sexual dehumanization during the Ceremony is when Offred is “serviced” beforehand.

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
1122 Words | 5 Pages

Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, argues that women are instruments of the patriarchy, that women know this, and that women allow the system of oppression to live on. Her fictions ask, “What stories do women tell about themselves? What happens when their stories run counter to literary conventions or society’s expectations?” (Lecker 1). The Handmaid’s Tale is told through the protagonist, Offred, and allows readers to follow through her life as a handmaid while looking back on how life used to be prior to the societal changes.

Read More
649 Words | 3 Pages

These views can be seen in the Handmaids themselves because traditionally the lives of husbands and wives are very private, but by introducing Handmaids, the idea of privacy is destroyed. For example, the Ceremony, which is how Handmaids conceive their children, is something the whole household is a part of, which is quite a change from how things were done before the regime was put in place. Another liberal idea in The Handmaid’s Tale was Jezebel’s, a place where women could work for very little money as prostitutes instead of becoming Handmaids or being sent to the Colonies as punishment. This is a liberal idea because in such a strict society one would not think such an establishment would be allowed, especially because so many Commanders know about it. Also in the novel are feminist beliefs that run society.

Read More
1141 Words | 5 Pages

Furthermore, the author displays a dystopian society completely dominated by a totalitarian and theocratic state. The main subject of this novel is the role assigned to women, mainly represented by the handmaids. In Gilead, the made-up country where the novel takes place, women are completely subjected by the government, and especially by men, who clearly have a higher status than women. Moreover, women’s freedom is entirely restricted, as they cannot leave their house at their will, they are forbidden to hold properties or jobs, they cannot read or write, and they are treated as sexual slaves whose only purpose in life is to bear children for elite spouses. The other option is a miserable, short life at the Colonies (a type of concentration camp), and death.

Read More
1304 Words | 6 Pages

The Handmaid’s Tale Essay-How does Atwood’s portrayal of women compare to modern conceptions of women? “I avoid looking down at my body, not so much because it’s shameful or immodest but because I don’t want to see it. I don’t want to look at something that determines me so completely” (Atwood pg.82). This is a quote that the narrator and main character of the book (Offred) says as two other women give her her bath. How hard does a woman’s life have to be that she wouldn’t even want to look at her body.

Read More

More about Reproductive Control In The Handmaid's Tale

Related Topics

Open Document