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Restriction In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

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Motif: Restriction in Gilead Theme Statement: Restriction in Gilead can make society feel confined and fearful. Thesis: In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the restriction of the people in Gilead is used as a motif to display confinement and a sense of fear through stealing, committing suicide, and threatening top-tier figures. Quote/Reasoning #1: Restriction of the people in Gilead can lead to fear and feeling helpless. Along with being confined to her room at night, Offred feels the need to steal something heads to the kitchen, and says, “What I would like to steal is a knife, from the kitchen, but I’m not ready for that” (Atwood 69). Offred has been wanting to steal something for a while but fears that someone will notice and punish her for her actions. She wants to steal something that wouldn’t be noticed such as a daffodil and save it for the handmaid that comes in after her. On the other side, she thinks of stealing a knife for protection and a way to …show more content…

For example, in the book the Commander tells Offred of the handmaid that stayed before her and says, “She hanged herself, he says: thoughtfully, not sadly. That’s why we had the light fixture removed. In your room” (Atwood 131). Offred is asking what the Latin phrase Nolite te bastardes carborundorum means and why it was sketched into the inside of her closet. Committing suicide shows how much pressure and unhappiness one is feeling. The jobs of a handmaid and the living conditions that they are put in are the epitome of the bare minimum. They are confined into such a small space with nothing but a bed and bathroom with an empty closet. Windows open barely halfway, there is no light fixture, and they can’t even own a comb. Having such little control over their life puts fear and pressure to uphold their duties and sometimes they simply cannot handle it

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In The Handmaid’s Tale, the oppression of women was the absolute first thing that stood out. The exposing of handmaids inabilities The women that were not able to produce babies such as Offred were sent to this Nazi type regimes called the colonies. There were Guardians or “secret police” watching all of the Handmaids at all times. The Republic of Gilead did something called “Men’s Salvaging”, which occurred when either men, but mostly women got penalized from doing something forbidden and they got hung and killed. Women weren’t able leave their households unless they were going shopping for food.

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Conformity in the Handmaid’s Tale A Japanese proverb says, “the nail that sticks out gets hammered down”. As seen in several historical events such as the Salem Witch Trials or the Holocaust, this concept illustrates the idea that nonconformity will get punished or suppressed. During the Holocaust, Adolf Hitler’s populist regime led to subservience out of fear because resistance was too dangerous.

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327 Words | 2 Pages

To sum it up, Margaret Atwood wrote this book to hint many things in life and one of them is hypocrisy. Sometimes people with authority and power get away with almost anything, which isn’t justifying. Individuals with less power such as the guardian/angel who raped a handmaid got punished for doing the same thing that every commander practices in this new reality. It’s something that is considered a job to them. It is raping because rape come in many forms and there are many types.

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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.

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It seems the older Wives are seeking to hang onto their attractiveness and fertility by decorating themselves with flowers and tending gardens. Serena Joy seems to enjoy mutilating the flowers ; flowers being the symbol for the Handmaids. This shows her hatred for the Handmaids . What the Handmaid’s never get to experience is freedom as they are supposed to blindly follow the rules set for them. In the text, the Eyes of God are Gilead’s secret police.

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971 Words | 4 Pages

Offred is suspicious of what the handmaid 's did. She looks at their hands, and a clue is given to her when she sees “black gloves”(Atwood 275). She ponders what they could have possibly done to have warranted such action from the authorities. Her speculation shows how the society of Gilead functions. The government of Gilead wants the handmaids to see that the prisoners are being hanged, as their suspicion is how Gilead gains control of them.

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In our third writing assignment it was required to observe an event that might be characterized as intercultural. Reading this novel feels most similar to the experience I had during the third writing assignment because as Offred is narrating her experience in Gilead, I am able to analyze the situation from an ethnographic perspective where a researcher would normally observe society from the point of view of the subject of the study The context of culture and power as you examine any intercultural interaction. Context is the physical and social situation in which communication occurs. We need to look at context when examine intercultural communication because the environment in which communication occurs can dramatically affect the strategies

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Throughout the novel, Moira’s use of informal language and slang is apparent. This is significant because Moira’s crude vocabulary is dramatically different from how the Handmaids are taught to speak, marking her as a dissenter under the restrictive rule of Gilead. For instance, Moira scoffs that the Red Centre is “a loony bin” in Chapter 13. The use of the colloquial noun ‘loony’ to describe the Red Centre establishes a conversational, almost childish tone of voice. This contrasts from the rather mechanic and automated voice Offred has when she becomes a Handmaid, replying with contrived phrases such as “praise be” to other Handmaids.

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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.

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1251 Words | 6 Pages

The Handmaid 's Tale is one of Margaret Atwood most famous novels written during the spring of 1984, when the Berlin wall was still standing. Atwood creates a dystopia, which mostly consists of gender gap and oppression. The Handmaid 's Tale effectively portrays the United States as the modern-day totalitarian society of Gilead, which was illustrated as perfect by using the book of Genesis. Although the authors ideas are inherently and completely fictional, several concepts throughout his book have common links to the past and present society which the author herself calls a speculative fiction. The author uses a totalitarian system which includes aspects of Soviet system, to describe, deprivation, repression and terror with the use of

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1364 Words | 6 Pages

Aunt Lydia’s more relevant quote in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, is the two freedoms, who gives the reader an accurate insight of the Gilead society. This quote exposes the contrast between the freedom before and after the settlement of the Republic of Gilead, and the mentality of the brainwashed nation. It is well known that the Gileadean era is a dystopia, but the reader must study deeper into both societies –Gileadean and pre-Gileadean- to understand which one is really worse. Before the appearing of the Republic of Gilead, freedom was seen as a person’s desire, however, on the Gileadean era, freedom is a collective idea. On the current community, freedom is settled by laws based on moral and social values, but ignoring the

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996 Words | 4 Pages

Handmaid’s whom are the fertile women in the Gilead society, are stripped from all freedom and rights, banned from knowing any form of literature and have to be submissive to men, allowing their bodies to be sexually used to produce children. In contrast, women who are not fertile such as Wives have their freedom taken away too as they are confined to doing assigned jobs around the house. In contrast, the Aunts and the Commanders are shown to have the highest rankings in the Gileadean society. They are powerful figures, with privileges such as the Aunts being allowed to read and write and the Commanders being permitted to get married and have a handmaid's assigned to

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1587 Words | 7 Pages

“Power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power.”- William Gaddis. People take advantage of power when it is entrusted to them because of their own greed, which as a result lead to societal deterioration. In the story, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” by Margaret Atwood, the higher-ups from Gilead abuse the power that is given to them, ruining the life of the citizens in the society. This was the cause for the need of higher birth rates and fixing conflicts in the world, but this was handled immorally.

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988 Words | 4 Pages

It projects a patriarchy of elite white men who repress the majority of the population through sexist and racist policies. In this puritanical state, Commanders are political leaders and lawmakers who support and contribute to the rise of Gilead. Each Commander possesses a big house, a Wife, Marthas, a driver, and a Handmaid, epitomizing wealth and power. The Gilead society uses Biblical allusions to justify the role of the Commanders. During the Women’s Prayvaganzas, the Commander expresses, “For Adam was first formed, then Eve” (221) where Eve was made as a helper and to complement Adam as a servant rather than function as an equal.

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