In the book The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Gilead was a totalitarian government. In the story, politics was dirty, sexual feelings were not allowed, and women’s bodies were treated as objects that only exists to bear babies, so population would not go down. All these mostly applies to handmaids as they are assigned to bear babies for elite couples who have hard time making babies. They are not supposed to have sexual relations to somebody else. All of the women in Gilead are “deprived of their individual freedom and ordered to serve the state in different ways and functions” (Zarrinjooee & Kalantarian 67). What Atwood showed in her book is an image of a patriarchal society that women must just obey what the men in position are saying. …show more content…
That must be true for all women. Even the wife of the commander seemed useless knowing that she is supposed to give her husband a child. Since she couldn’t, she had no choice but to allow the handmaid to sleep with her husband and even see the whole thing while she’s holding the handmaid’s hand while they are trying to make the process of making a baby. However, the handmaid’s situation is still seen as inferior as her only role is to bear a baby for the higher-class couples who could not have a baby. This is the case of Offred as she had no choice but to have sex with the commander so that he can have a child. When she still could not be pregnant after many tries, the doctor even tried to convince her to have sex with him because the commander might be infertile. Even the doctor thought to exploit Offred’s sexuality, and since she was treated as a property of the commander, she could be punished if she would allow the doctor to do that to her, so she refused. Meanwhile, the wife of the commander was the one to ask Offred to sleep with Nick secretly, so she could be pregnant. At this point, it is interesting to know that nobody wanted to tell the commander that he could be infertile, so he could never have a