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The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

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The world was once said to be a man’s world, and women’s only true purpose was to please and reproduce. In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Atwood writes about a dystopian society where religious extremist overthrow the United States government and turn it into theocratic dictatorship. The new government suspense the Constitution along with freezing women’s bank account and stripping them of their rights. Although this seems very far fetched, modern society is walking a steady path down that road. Modern United States and the Republic of Gilead, although being different, have a few things in common. In the Republic of Gilead, women were divided into fertile and non-fertile. The handmaid’s only role was to serve as a surrogate …show more content…

She admits to this when she is at the Center with the rest of the handmaids- to-be. After admitting to her very traumatic experience, she is shamed and blamed for the rape. The Aunts make the rest of the handmaids chant “her fault” while they ask who lead the men on. The Aunts are put in charge of teaching a handmaid how to be a handmaid, and how it is such an honor to be chosen as a handmaid. In the United States, rape culture is presented as something so normal, and claims are made saying that women “ask for it”. In Ohio, two high school boys raped an unconscious girl and posted the video of it online. After they were arrested, the media victimized the boys by saying these “star athletes’ futures were ruined.” The rape victim received numerous death threats because she wanted justice for herself. Another case, Brock Turner was a Stanford University student was “convicted on three counts of felony sexual assault for raping an unconscious woman behind a dumpster” but was only sentenced to six months of prison. The judge believed that too much jail time would “a severe impact on Turner and his future.” He didn’t even get a slap on the wrist because he was a free man after serving three months of his six month sentence. The victims were once again accused of being the reason why they got

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On January 17, 2015 a young, unconscious woman was sexually assaulted by a Yale student, Brock Turner. He had stuck various objects into the woman’s vagina and when he was finished he disposed her body behind a dumpster. The police found the woman half naked and unconscious with her underwear beside her. The woman was unaware of the assault until she woke up the next morning and the nurses in the hospital informed her.

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To be a privileged Caucasian male in America is to be found guilty of three counts of sexual assault and receive a recommended sentence of six years out of the maximum fourteen that these crimes carry. Brock Turner is the privileged student of Stanford University that ended up being sentenced to only six months out of the six years but, only served a brief ninety days in county jail. People vs. Turner features young college student Brock turner and his crimes of sexual assault against an unconscious ‘Jane Doe’ behind a garage dumpster. Although physical and eyewitness testimony concluded that Jane Doe was unconscious during the time of the assault and for the following hours, Brock Turner stated the encounters were consensual. As the case unraveled

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(Atwood 187). Although Handmaids experience oppression by the Gilead regime, Atwood emphasizes the importance of unity and collaboration in the face of difficulties. The government of Gilead presents how hypocritical their society is toward women’s rights since the government uses a form of manipulation to make the Handmaid’s circumstances more tolerable. Additionally, Offred expresses how women do not have a right to their bodies because of the power others have over them as Offred states “I am abject” (Atwood 331). Offred expresses the removal of her individuality, autonomy, and basic human rights.

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Leniency in the Courtroom Rape is considered a hateful crime and can cause the offender to be sentenced to an average of five to fifteen years (Berman). According to Sara J. Berman, professor at Concord Law School, “rape is nonconsensual sexual intercourse; it is often committed through force, threats, or fear” (Berman). Sexual assault and harassment are widespread issues that affect people of all ages and sexes. It is not to be taken lightly but in recent cases, it has been. In a very recent case, college student Brock Turner was convicted of three felony counts of sexual abuse.

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The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood highlights this justification as it *depicts the creation and execution of an oppressive system. * Offred is married to a man who has been previously divorced, because of this she is seen as “morally unfit” and as someone who has less value than a woman whose partner had not been previously married. This . *. is shown through the quote, “The regime created an instant pool of such women by the simple tactic of declaring all second marriages and nonmarital liaisons adulterous...” This degradation allows the Gilead to justify the worth of woman in their society and grants them the ability to decide whether or not they are fit to be Wives or are forced into the burden of being a Handmaid.

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Margaret Atwood's novel The Handmaid's Tale depicts a dystopian world in which women are denied their rights and forced to have children for the wealthy. Notwithstanding being distributed in 1985, the book is as yet applicable to secondary school seniors today since it resolves issues, for example, ladies' privileges, government control, and the risks of radicalism. This book is a must-read for high school seniors because it warns about the dangers of taking democracy for granted and losing sight of fundamental values. The significance of women's rights is one of the book's most important values. Women are treated as property and stripped of their rights in Gilead, and they are made to have children against their will.

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Kyra Wright Ms. Milliner EES21QH05 October 19,2016 Novel Based Essay “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood is a novel that displays the life of women in Gilead . This novel shows how women of Gilead have no freedom. Atwood’s use of language symbolizes power .

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Women are beings of creation, the individuals given the burden and gift of fabrication. This obligation is powerful, yet it has been taken hostage by men. Men took power through force and have kept it, spanning from biblical times to our modern society. And with this power, men have used it to harm other women, usually for their own pleasure. Women throughout history have been sexualized, raped, abused, and killed, just for being women.

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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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The award-winning novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood depicts the malversation of a totalitarian society. Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale is a speculative fiction, reflecting the possibility of modern society's flaws. However, Atwood successfully conveys a sense of hope through the characters', Offred and Moira, acts of rebellion. The Handmaid's Tale make a clear point that society like Gilead will cease to exist. The totalitarian society will be overthrown, expressing that an extremist society will not be able to remain.

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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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1523 Words | 7 Pages

Margaret Atwood's dystopian novel The Handmaid's Tale is a cautionary tale warning about a future in which women are stripped of their rights and forced into reproductive slavery. Atwood's use of biblical references throughout the novel accentuates the role that religion plays in the story, particularly as a tool for controlling women's bodies and limiting their freedoms. At the time of the novel's publication in 1985, Atwood was concerned about the rise in political power for Christian groups, particularly the conservative Christian political organization known as the Moral Majority. Today, similar concerns can be seen in the political activism of some Christian groups in America, particularly in the areas of anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric, Christian

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825 Words | 4 Pages

Imagine living in a world where roles are given, freedom is taken, and you must abide to the rules unjust to everyone. Would you fight back, or reluctantly follow these oppressive rules? Offred is an independent and emotional woman who is forced into labor. In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, women are forced into certain labor based on their fertility and status in this new society. Both men and women have become oppressed for the sake of the country.

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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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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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