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The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

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Oppressors force and beat women in order to provide children. Margaret Atwood depicts this exact story in her book The Handmaid’s Tale which centers around Offred, a handmaid whose only job in Gilead is to provide a baby. In this dystopian society, women are forced into traditional gender roles enforced by a strict religious ‘code.’ Offred, along with the other women, struggles to survive emotionally and physically every day. They use many methods that can be explained using Freudian theory. Beate Krickel, a cognitive scientist, explains this theory in her article “Are the States Underlying Implicit Biases Unconscious? - A Neo-Freudian Answer,” where she explains how people can subconsciously cope with their harsh surroundings which affects …show more content…

Throughout her experiences as a handmaid, she constantly reminiscences about her experiences in her past life. At one point she notices how much she misses hotel rooms: “will I ever see a hotel room again? How I wasted them, these rooms, that freedom from being seen” (Atwood 50). She longs for a time when she can have the same freedoms she once had. This past freedom cause Offred to strive for more than what Gilead gives her. This actually helps her and gives her reasons to live. She subconsciously finds things in the past that she enjoyed in order to give her things to look forward to and allow her to have reasons to escape. These constant flashbacks act as a way for Offred to ignore her current living conditions. …show more content…

Offred observes this while watching Serena: “the woman in front of me was Serena Joy. Or had been, once. So, it was worse than I thought.” (Atwood 16). This shows Offred reminiscing about their past times. She recognizes how different Serena is now through her various coping mechanism. This desperation shows how unwilling these women are to live in this society. They are “afraid [and] miscategorize this feeling as” intense physical pain (Krickel 1018). By only showing their frustrations through physical pain, the wives effectively ignore their true fears. Ignoring these things makes living easier since no bad thoughts are brought up consciously. Instead, all of the negative attitudes surface in a physical illness. By not confronting their emotions directly the wives can focus more on

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She is known as a vessel for reproduction having no control over her own body. This reflects her acknowledgement of the degrading and oppressive nature of her circumstances. In conclusion, the oppressive nature of Gilead results in women not being able to own properties, empower themselves, and control their

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“Nobody dies from lack of sex. It’s lack of love we die frome.” Offred recognizes this reality in The Handmaid's Tale, written by Margaret Atwood. It is in human nature to need compassion and connections with other people. In The Handmaid's Tale a new society referred to as Gilead is formed where many unreasonable restrictions are added, including restrictions on the boundaries of relationships.

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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

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Throughout history, oppressive regimes have existed to expand the power of a few at the cost of many. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale tells the tale of Offred, a handmaid in the oppressive Republic of Gilead. Gilead strictly controls the actions of its people, especially its women, to expand the power of the men in control and combat falling birth rates. Their control consists of literal force and the use of psychology. Krickel, a psychologist, uses repression as a way to explain implicit biases.

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839 Words | 4 Pages

Regarding feminist dystopia, Margaret Atwood is one of the first writers that come to mind. She is the writer of The Handmaid's tale, a dystopian novel. In general, the book covers women who are trying to survive the new patriarchal social order. The book was written by Canadian novelist Atwood in 1985. It is dystopian literature that describes the secluded living order in the Republic of Gilead, which has a caste system where fertile and healthy women are made into continuous production and allocated to high-level families who are unable to have children.

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Both “The Handmaid's Tale” novel and series aim to comment on and criticize the misogynistic views in American society. “The Handmaid's Tale” book was published in the spring of 1985 and is speculated to be set in the 2000s, while the series first began to be shown during the spring of 2017, being fixed in the mid-2020s. Both the series and text of “The Handmaid's Tale” narrate a dystopia created by Canadian author Margaret Atwood, which takes place in the modern world in the United States. The setting is in modern-day Massachusetts in the Republic of Gilead, a patriarchal, totalitarian theocracy that has overthrown the American government. Offred, who serves as the story's lead protagonist and narrator, is one of the Handmaids, who are women

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This is depicted through various sub-parts in the novel. Narrated through the character of Offred, the novel even reflects back on her life and the events that have led to this bizarre

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Offred initially feels a sense of loss due to her position as a fertile woman since the independence and individuality she once enjoyed has since been stripped from her by the Republic of Gilead. It is only through rebellion that Offred is able to slowly regain her sense of self and reject the role that Gilead forces her into. By rebellion, however, it is often more dangerous for the perpetrators than to the government’s grip on the people. Offred’s societal role as a handmaid in Gilead forces her to first obey, then causes her to question, which finally allows her to realize her

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This unit has greatly increased my knowledge of genetic technology, and my understanding of different perspectives on the ethicality of its use. Unlike somatic cell therapy (treating genetic disorders by replacing genes in certain body cells of living people), which has gained extensive approval for clinical uses on humans, germ-line gene therapy (GGT) is a far more controversial method of performing genetic engineering on an unborn embryo, to change all of the DNA that will make up that baby as it grows up. In my detailed study of GGT, where I went into quite extensive learning on the full process of recombinant DNA and genome editing (with technology like CRISPR), I discovered that the general public fear the capabilities of GGT in creating

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Furthermore, one act of rebellion was when she goes to the Commander’s office and he says, “‘I’d like you to play a game of Scrabble with me’” (Atwood 138). Not only is Offred breaking the rules by being with the Commander, she also

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981 Words | 4 Pages

In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the Republic of Gilead actively represses women by forcing them into very narrowly defined, ultra-conservative gender roles. This totalitarian government strips women of all rights and protections, and imposes severe punishments for defiance. Pollution and disease had caused severe infertility in this society, drastically reducing birth rates. In an effort to reverse a drastic population decline, this thoroughly misogynistic and power-hungry regime, takes full control over the human reproductive process. Furthermore, the leadership uses various dehumanizing methods to achieve complete subservience of women to men.

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1504 Words | 7 Pages

No one will see you. I'll sit here." Offred has been given a command by Serena Joy to meet Nick late at night which breaks the law. She has to follow Serena’s step by step procedure, however she also needs to listen to the laws that were made by the government. As a lower class citizen she will be severely punished, since her only job is to be a tool for sexual reproduction.

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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.

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1587 Words | 7 Pages

You 'll end up the same.” Offred has longed to achieve her freedom, human rights, and proclaim her real name back, but the society strips it away from her. This also connects back to the theme because Serena was taking advantage of Offred with her power because of her laziness. Serena could have easily picked it up herself but since Serena has power over Offred, she is able to instruct her to do anything. Serena’s nasty attitude

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1101 Words | 5 Pages

Imagine a nation in which its government commands by a religion where women are separated into different titles and must conceive children for their commander. Their rights from before this regime, and anything deemed unholy by the government, are a thing of the past. This situation is the one represent in the Republic of Gilead, where the rules of society and its traditions are not taken lightly if broken. In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood shows that an oppressive government leads to the inevitable neglect and remiss of the rules through Offred’s characterization, irony, and flashbacks. Offred 's character development can show that her actions change .

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