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The Religion Influences In The Handmaid's Tale

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The Religion Influences in The Handmaid’s Tale

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This purpose of this essay is to establish and explain connections between the Christian Religion and ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’. It is not attempting to point out flaws or discriminate against the religion.

Margret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ is a dystopian novel, that centres around the themes of corruption, oppression, and theocracy. Told in the first person, the novel follows the female ‘Offred’ in her daily life/activities and past experiences in the newly founded “Republic of Gilead”. From my personal research, the events in the novel were influenced by negative situations that involved the American society prior to the 1980’s. These negative aspects of Gilead’s religious society in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ were drawn from similar issues facing the American public prior to the 1980’ s. These issues were based on religious concepts that were thought to greatly improve the American population's standard of living. The main ideas that influenced the creation of certain events and …show more content…

The story of Adam and Eve serves as a tale on how mankind and womankind were created and placed on Earth. The story takes place in the Garden of Eden, and because the woman was deceived by the Serpent, both the women and the man were cast down to earth. The Serpent deceived the women by allowing her to eat the fruit from the forbidden tree, as she also influenced the man, God punished both. “Your desire will be for your husband, and he will rule over you.” (Genesis 3:16 NIV) and that He allowed “Adam (to) named his wife Eve” (Genesis 3:20 NIV). It shows that Eve was a possession of her husband Adam. “The Lord God said, ‘It is not good for the man to be alone. I will make a helper suitable for him’. (Genesis 2:18) showing that the Christian religion views women to be possessions of men and that women are inferior to

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Something I did not see earlier was Eve was deceived (she was never given the command from God not to eat of the tree, Adam was before she was created. See Gen. 2:16-17). Adam was openly disobedient and blatantly blamed God and Eve. “The man said, ‘The woman whom You gave to be with me (Blame!), she gave me from the tree, and I ate (Adam’s rationalization)’” (Gen 3:12, NASB).

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Another character that can be refered back to the story of Adam and Eve is

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Women were held responsible for the first original sin or sometimes known as the fall of mankind. Since Eve took the apple from the snake the church felt it was necessary to punish all women for her mistakes. In the book of Genesis, God tells Eve “Your Desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you” (Hopkins 5-6). People during the Medieval Society took this as an order that women should at all times be obedient to their Summerlin 2 husbands. The church got rich off of peoples fear of the devil and again, women were the subject of

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In face of severe situation, people often feel relief when they think of happier, simpler times in order to alleviate the severity. In the fiction novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, a theocracy government controls every aspect of life in order to produce the best result of its plans. At the beginning of chapter 12, Offred takes a required, but luxurious bath because she can take off the burdensome wings and veils. While she bathes, Offred remembers her daughter from the past and a time with her family. Atwood compares Offred’s past and present through imagery, tone, similes, and symbolism combined with parallel structure to highlight the vulnerability of women to their surroundings.

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