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The Handmaid's Tale Aunts Analysis

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The role of the Aunts in Gilead is not only to train the Handmaids at the Rachel and Leah Re-education Center, but to sustain the rituals of Gileadean society. The Aunts break the spirits of the Handmaids-in-training in order to guarantee their complacency. According to Lee Briscoe Thompson in Scarlet Letters: Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Handmaids are isolated from one another not physically, but mentally by being taught how to betray other women. The Aunts teach that “the only storytelling permitted or rewarded are informing on others or testifying against oneself”. This encouragement for betrayal creates an atmosphere of paranoia and fear amongst Handmaids, thereby, ensuring the Handmaids will obey the rules outlined by the Aunts. …show more content…

Women are blamed for being victims of horrific acts, and rape is made out to be ceremonial in nature. However, there is a double-standard in terms of rape. Consider the Particicution that takes place following the Salvaging, where a man – a Guardian – is executed for raping two Handmaids at gunpoint. Directed by Aunt Lydia, a Particicution is when the Handmaids participate in the execution. The Handmaids surround the alleged criminal and are “permitted anything”, meaning they can collectively punish him for his transgressions. This act gives the Handmaids a sense of freedom, and it is in these miniscule opportunities for independence that the Aunts are able to place the Handmaids into complacency. In contrast, the act of rape is not deemed “rape” when it is committed by a Commander to his Handmaid. In fact, when a Commander rapes his Handmaid, it is a state-sanctioned act and justified by the needs of society. Thus, this act of Particicution inconspicuously differentiates the raping of a Handmaid when it is done by a Commander and when it is done by anyone else. Lucy M. Friebert, in her article “Control and Creativity: The Politics of Risks in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale”, notes that “at the Particicutions the Handmaids ritually dismember any man accused of rape. The Aunts supply the rhetoric that arouses the women to savagery”. This barbarity facilitated by the Aunts, shows that their power may be comparable to that of the Commanders in terms of the amount of power they hold over women. In addition, it is significant to note that the Commanders and the Aunts are the only people allowed to read or write. This power goes along with the Aunts’/Commanders’ perversion of biblical verses, as the rituals of society are built on literal interpretations of the Bible. The Aunts repeatedly use biblical phrases to educate the Handmaids on why they are to submit to the

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995 Words | 4 Pages

The dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, is about a new Christian theocracy that took over the government in the United States by creating a new society named the Republic of Gilead. This new society was created due to a nuclear fertility crisis, and their main goal is to heavily control women’s reproductive freedoms in order to increase the population. The protagonist, Offred, is a handmaid whose main role in society is to breed healthy children. In order to maintain control over the women in Gilead, the society uses acts of cruelty and violence to force the women to conform into their respective roles. In the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood presents sexual violence, the removal of knowledge, and public hangings in order

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1042 Words | 5 Pages

All of the female characters suffer through it on at least one occasion. When Cunegonde describes the attack on her family’s castle and her subsequent rape she states that it is “the customary way of doing things.” (23) The narrator describes another violent scene: “Girls who had been disemboweled after having sated the natural needs of some of the heroes were breathing their last.” (9) The rape of women is viewed as “natural” and the rapists are “heroes” of the story.

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The Handmaids must submit to their Commanders as they hold the dominant role. The Handmaids are also sacrificing their bodies and fertility to their Commander and his wife in order to give them a child. They have all been renamed with names that signify the Commanders they serve: Offred, Ofglen, Ofcharles, Ofwarren, etc. These names show the Commanders’ possession of the Handmaids. In The Handmaid’s Tale, sex symbolizes the Handmaid’s sacrifice and submission and the Commanders domination and control over the Handmaids in

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Men made all decisions for women; in doing so, men control women’s fate. For Cunegonde, being ravished was only the beginning to her suffering and oppression. She gets rescued from the Bulgar by a Bulgar captain, but only because the captain noticed the lack of respect his soldier showed him. Once again, Cunegonde’s thoughts and opinions are completely worthless to those in charge. The Bulgar captain decides her fate for her by taking her as a prisoner of the war; he thought her “pretty as well as useful” (41).

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Symbolism can be defined as the use of symbols that an author uses to suggest more than the literal meaning of the object .Symbolism often allows the reader to understand the text better and connect with the story on a different level. In The Handmaid’s Tale, symbolism can be seen in various parts of the novel. One of the most common type of symbolism that can be identified in the text is through the use of colours. One of the most obvious symbols in the novel is the uniform that every Handmaid is supposed to wear.

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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.

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Rebellion; the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention. The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood is a novel. The novel takes place in Gilead a dystopian society. Everyone in Gilead has an important role to play within the society, however, it seems as if none of the characters seem content with their role, due to the restrictions they face. In the novel, the lack of freedom leads to rebellion as shown by the characterization, interior dialogue, flashbacks, and foreshadowing.

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801 Words | 4 Pages

There are two ways people will react to when their freedom is taken away. They will either accept it or rebel against it, which is what a lot of the female characters in Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale accomplished. Shown through Offred’s repetition of certain events, Moira’s tone of being a fighter, and Serena Joy’s desperation, the reader can see that lack of freedom leads to rebellion. Offred, the novel’s narrator, now lives in a world where women are powerless. She has had her freedom taken away, and at times follows the rules, but ends up rebelling in many powerful ways.

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“What it really means is that she is in control of the process and thus the product. If any.” (109). The society of Gilead wants to make sure that the child is the Commander’s wife’s child as much as possible, and they believe that by having Serena Joy hold the hands of Offred, then that is possible. In this way, Offred, and all of the other Handmaid’s are sexually dehumanized.

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1482 Words | 6 Pages

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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1035 Words | 5 Pages

Thirdly, the classification of women into different classes prevents them from identifying their upmost enemy: masculine power. The relationship between the different groups of women creates a powerful atmosphere of suppression. In fact, Gilead promotes the act of woman against woman. Wives and Aunts controls and enforces the disciplines of the patriarchal society to other women, so one can clearly see that even women takes advantage of power. For example, Serena Joy, the Commander’s Wife who lives in vain hope for traditional womanhood, is the true traitor against women.

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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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1141 Words | 5 Pages

In this frightening society, women are not allowed to speak freely, therefore, the handmaids learn how to lip-read, and to whisper at one another while they are at the Red Center (where handmaids are trained for their mission), as their only way to communicate with another person, and to maintain even a minimum of human contact in a society that has amputated their ability to feel as a normal human being. Even though this is pure fiction, sadly some common threads between Gilead and our society can be found. For instance, in some South Asian countries, women’s rights are non-existent, they are treated

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1008 Words | 5 Pages

Throughout the novel, aphorisms play a large role in depicting the role of women as subservient to their male counterparts. By altering distinct aphorisms from the Bible and then locking it away from women, the male leaders of Gilead use the Bible to impose their rules and views. These modified sayings are instrumental in the effort of the subjugation and indoctrination of Handmaid’s. Although Offred resists conforming to such brainwashing, her constant references to Aunt Lydia's precepts are indication of the success of such tactics. One saying in particular, “Modesty is invisibility” (Atwood 28), is so indoctrinated in Offred that she conforms to the doctrines and rules of Gilead without hesitation.

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988 Words | 4 Pages

The subjugation of women is evident in the Gilead system as each Commander is given a handmaid whose name is “Of” the Commander’s name. Handmaids have no identity of their own and are similar to sex slaves at the mercy of

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