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The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

1066 Words5 Pages

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood takes place in the Republic of Gilead, which is in the present day United States. The change in government control happened about three years before the book took place. The narrator, Offred, experienced going from a democratic government to a totalitarian government first hand. The social structure in The Handmaid’s Tale is an effective way of controlling women because the new government regime stripped away all of women's rights, rearranged society's structure, and ultimately made everyone unhappy. Throughout The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred explains what the change was like. While living in the democracy, women had rights. They were guaranteed the freedom of speech, the freedom of expression, and the freedom …show more content…

The most powerful class of women is the Wives, they are married to a Commander and have authority over the Handmaids, Marthas, and Guardians. They live in a house with the Commander and spend much of their time in the garden or sitting down working on a knitting project. Wives often talk badly about their Handmaids out of either jealousy or hatred. The next most powerful is the Aunts, it’s their job to indoctrinate the Handmaids into their roles in society. The Aunts are firm believers in the new regime and control every aspect of the Handmaid's lives. They set up clear rules about where Handmaids can go and what they can eat. Aunts are also the only women who are allowed to be violent. They can beat the Handmaids when they do something wrong; such as trying to escape or spending too much time in the bathroom. The Handmaid's purpose is to birth children for the Commander and his Wife to raise. The Handmaid's get transferred between the Commanders to reproduce as much as possible, since most other women are infertile. Offred, the main character, is a Handmaid. She tries to break the rules and get together with Nick, a low-ranking Guardian. She has some freedom as she doesn’t get caught, but she has to be

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They control the Red Center where Handmaids are indoctrinated and forced into subjugation to their roles as Handmaids. They use mantras to help facilitate the indoctrination of the Handmaids by saying things like, “there is more than one kind of freedom … freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it” (Atwood 24).

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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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In the 1980s, United States was experiencing the rise of conservatism. Under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, conservative religious groups were gaining popularity. In response to the social and political landscape, Canadian author Margaret Atwood published a fictional novel The Handmaid’s Tale in 1986; a genre of dystopian novels. The storyline projects an imaginary futuristic world where society lives under oppression and illusion of a utopian society maintained through totalitarian control. Dystopian novels often focus on current social government trends and show an exaggeration of what happens if the trends are taken too far.

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1562 Words | 7 Pages

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What would become of the world, if our current societal flaws, such as sexism, racism, and classism were ingrained and executed at a systematic level? This is exactly what The Handmaid’s Tale set out to explore. The novel, which claims to be speculative fiction, is set in the theocratic Republic of Gilead (formerly the USA), where birth rates are rapidly declining and women have been marginalized by the patriarchal regime, forbidden to read, write or love and valued only if they are able to procreate. They are separated into classes, including Wives, Marthas, Aunts, Unwomen, and Handmaids, distinguishable only by the color of their clothing. The Handmaids are renamed by combining ‘of’ and the name of the Commander that they have been assigned to, stripping them of any individuality.

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Works of literature often portray ideas relating to Marxist theory, this is why in a dystopian society, class distinctions dominate the social climate, using Marxist ideologies as a tool to define the lives of the narrator and those around her. In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, ideologies from Marxist theory dominate the society in which Offred, the narrator, lives in, evidenced by the strict class systems and limited interaction between them. In writing the novel, Atwood makes a point to create a world that could exist using technology and ideas already accessible in today’s society, meaning the events that take place in The Handmaid’s Tale could happen in present day. Offred lives in a reality where class distinctions dominate society, and women, especially fertile women. These women are displaced downwards, although there are those women who attempt to resist the grip of society.

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1251 Words | 6 Pages

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1364 Words | 6 Pages

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1035 Words | 5 Pages

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1141 Words | 5 Pages

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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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