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The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

908 Words4 Pages

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood, shows us how the government used women as a means of reproduction and to repopulate. The Gilead was a period where birthrates were down and religion was running the government. Women that could reproduce, were given the color red to wear as a symbol of menstruation and fertility. The time of the Gilead, was a time that women were branded by what their bodies could or could not do. Offred was a wife, a mother, and a daughter before she had it all taken away and was forced to be a handmaid. Judged and tested by the government, women were placed into categories depending on age and reproduction abilities. From the beginning of The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred was never given a choice, she was put into her designated category and then placed in the hands of Serena Joy and the Commander. “Everything except the wings around my face is red: the color of blood, which defines us,” (Atwood 9). This quote from The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred describes the symbolism of the color red, which is that women wearing red represent blood, menstruation, and …show more content…

The Gilead was a period where birthrates were down and religion was running the government. During the Gilead, women were only used for their reproduction capabilities, so that repopulation could occur. Put in categories, women were defined by colors according to their fertility and age. Each color having a definition, the color red to wear as a symbol of menstruation and fertility was given to the handmaids. The time of the Gilead, was a time that women were branded by what their bodies could or could not do. Before the time of the handmaid, Offred was married, and she had a child, then it was all taken away and she was forced into a system of based on reproduction. Assessed by the government, women were assigned to categories based on their ability to bear

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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).

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1707 Words | 7 Pages

In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the main character Offred faces many hardships throughout her life as a Handmaid, but the hardest and deepest issue she confronts is the lack of freedom she has due to her being fertile and children are desperately needed in the Gileadean society. Offred is stripped of her freedom once she becomes a Handmaid, and is unable to live the life she longs for, which she describes throughout the story through symbolism. Instead of a free life, she is confided to living in her bedroom except when the Handmaids are allowed to leave for events such as child bearing ceremonies, trips to the grocery store, and executions. The Handmaids are trapped in this lifestyle due to their low status in the Gileadean social

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Gilead is a patriarchal society where only men have access to education, can hold property, jobs or any political positions. Whereas women are treated as subhumans, they are forbidden from taking care of themselves, read or write and they must submit to the authority of men. Moreover, there are skilled soldiers referred to as “angels”, symbolizing ‘helpers’ and a messenger of God. They are seen as ‘goodness’ who are supposed to comfort and help the ones in trouble. In contrast, this is seen as rather ironic as the women in Gilead are unable to make choices for themselves and live their lives which is considered wrong.

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In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred goes through many changes within her experience in Gilead. These changes include losing her job, being unable to read and being unable to have anything of value. Offred, alongside with many other women has been deemed as a handmaid. As a handmaid, the fertile women of Gilead are used to produced children for the infertile women and families. A handmaid 's life within this society contained of things such as the Ceremony where Offred would lie on her back, “fully clothed except for the healthy white cotton underdrawers.”

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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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Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel The Handmaids Tale depicts America as an oppressed dystopia called, Gilead. In Gilead the superiors primarily focus on the women and their ability to have children while overindulging in the pregnancies and births. While the population of their current residence gradually decreases the people of Gilead decide to revert back to the biblical days. The women take care of the house and have babies while the men remain the ones in charge.

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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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These texts demonstrate the societal issues involving oppression of women, women’s sexual role and their status. The Handmaid’s Tale depicts the rigid societal structure whereby women are forced to serve in various aspects and functions in the society. The boundaries of the context set are in Gilead, a totalitarian state dominated by Christian fundamentalists, indicating that Gilead enforces conformity among its citizens. In a simply put manner, one’s social position is fixed. The permanent social statuses are clearly evident from the colour-coding of the women wherein “some [are] in red, some in dull green of

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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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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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According to Alanna A. Callaway, Gilead’s entire power structure relies on the disunity of women. Although Gilead’s system oppresses women, it is the few women in power that make the caste system dangerous for Handmaids. The patriarchal power structure of Gilead needs women to regulate each other, suggesting that gynocentric misogyny, or women hating women, is far more dangerous than traditional misogyny (Callaway 2008). This being said, the genuine threat in Gilead is not from the men in power, but the

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