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Theme of women in the handmaid's tale
Plot and structure of the handmaid's tale
Plot and structure of the handmaid's tale
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It will be a terrible life if the society under highly government control. There are two stories describe this dystopia world :one is the novel called The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood ,another is the movie The Island. The story of the handmaid’s tale happened in the country which called the Republic of Gilead . In this society, men control everything and the women have to follow many rules and they don’t have freedom. The movie is about the future society,the supervisor uses many ways to control the clones society.
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
Don't you hate it when someone tries to help you out, but instead they make things worse. In Margaret Atwood's novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, we learn about the relationship between the Commander and Offred and how even though they live in the same house the Commander believes that Offred’s life is much better than what it actually is. The different relationships and events that occur in the novel shows that ignorance really is bliss and that ignorance can cause separation between social classes and genders. Gender roles and social classes lead to ignorance as shown in the relationship between the novel’s characters, the Commander and Offred.
Throughout the novel The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood portrays a world built upon the ideals of male leaders through the lens of a woman subject to the terrors that this world inflicts. In response to falling fertility rates and progressive ideologies, a group of powerful men are motivated to concoct a society based entirely upon their religious ideals to further both their reign over the female population and their success as leaders. Through the experience of a woman living at the expense of these ideas, Atwood communicates the negative consequences of idealism in the hands of a man, and the consequences of a religion-based idealistic world. Throughout the Handmaid's Tale, Atwood portrays a dystopian world by the name of Gilead, where
The Commander and the Aunts claim that women are better protected in Gilead, where they are treated with respect and kept safe from violence. However, while Gilead claims to suppress sexual violence, it actually institutionalizes it. An example is Jezebel’s, the club that provides the Commanders with prostitutes to service the male elite. Another example is the Ceremony that compels Handmaids to have sex with their Commanders. Foster suggests, “...sex can be pleasure, sacrifice, submission, rebellion, resignation, supplication, domination, enlightenment, the whole works” (158).
In the book The Handmaid’s Tale a new society is created and put into standards. These people strengthen and maintain power of the society. The people in the society have little to no say in the society and have to conform to the society even know that they don’t agree to the rules. Offred’s surroundings control her as she has to follow the Gileadean society because there is no possibility of appealing against it because she has fear of appealing and that there will be big consequences if she breaks the rules and Offred conforms to the Gileadean society because if she doesn’t there will be consequences. Offred has little to no freedom or rights but she can’t really do anything about it.
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.
She is used by Commander for sex and companionship and had an affair with Nick (higher preganancy chance). Most of her actions are being forced “Which of us is it worse for, her or me?”(151) meant the sex between the narrator and commander is unbearable to the point of watching your husband having sex with another women right infront of you. Her only defiance done totally by herself is “I will use the butter later that night.” (113), everything else including escaping the Gilead, having an affair with Commander, having an affair with Nick and leaving the Commanders house are all stimulated by others. Offred represent those who does not stand against oppresion, being pushed around and used for sex.
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.
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.
She knows that there are laws, but she is so desperate that she is willing to break them by suggesting this to Offred, “Maybe you should try it another way”(Atwood 204). She encourages Offred to break the law and have sexual intercourse with another man and plant it as the commander’s child. Her desperation make her take desperate actions and how she achieves to rebel against the government. The Commander the one above all and on top of the official classification of Gilead-Men. He has power and in control of the household.
However, she is unhappily trapped in this new society she advocated for, where her hands have to endlessly knit for wool scarves and also touch flowers that mock her sterility. She has no choice but to support Offred’s and the Commander’s Ceremony for the future of the household. Through illustrating women who do not show solidarity to their gender, Atwood wants the reader to realize how they are also a product of their society, caught in their gender
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.
“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.
In The Handmaid’s Tale, the novel critiques gender inequality and autocratic authority. The hierarchical class of men consists of Commanders, Angels, and Guardians. In particular, the Commanders are the highest-ranking social group in Gileadean society. The Commanders are represented as powerful men. They have leadership roles, autocratic governance, and are oppressors controlling the Gilead regime.
