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Violence In The Handmaid's Tale

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The dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, is about a new Christian theocracy that took over the government in the United States by creating a new society named the Republic of Gilead. This new society was created due to a nuclear fertility crisis, and their main goal is to heavily control women’s reproductive freedoms in order to increase the population. The protagonist, Offred, is a handmaid whose main role in society is to breed healthy children. In order to maintain control over the women in Gilead, the society uses acts of cruelty and violence to force the women to conform into their respective roles. In the dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood presents sexual violence, the removal of knowledge, and public hangings in order …show more content…

In Gilead, there are Eyes, who are the secret police who spy on the people in Gilead, watching and listening to everything said and done. When they suspect someone of being part of a rebellion, they abduct them in plain sight where anyone can see. The handmaids witness these abductions, and they usually pass by the wall where the bodies are publicly hung, and can be left out for days. When Offred walked by The Wall, she noted “we’re supposed to look: this us what they are there for, hanging on the wall”(Atwood 32). Gilead uses this display of the bodies in order to convey to the public that the punishment of breaking the rules is death. The immense amount of fear these brutal hangings envoked caused the handmaids to conform into their roles for their own survival. There is a large variety of people who get captured, so handmaids have the same likelihood to be accused of a crime than anyone else. They agree to the terms of giving up all freedom in exchange for staying alive. The government uses the fear from these public hangings as a way to influence the women to obey the system that was created to oppress

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Throughout the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, the protagonist Offred expresses how exposed beliefs and practices by the Gilead government affect the lives of Handmaids, relaying

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In the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, there is a wall that’s main purpose is to put fear in the people of Gilead. To illustrate, the gate has “sentries and there are ugly new floodlights mounted on metal posts above it, and barbed wire along the bottom and broken glass set in concrete along the top”(Atwood 31). As a result, the barbed wire fence is a way to show fear towards the people of Gilead and to express that they are not the ones in charge. Moreover, it states, “Beside the main gateway there are six bodies hanging, by the necks, their hands tied in front of them, their heads in white bags tipped sideways onto their shoulders”(Atwood 32). The purpose of the people hanging is to show that it is impossible for anyone to escape and

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the President of the United States and all of Congress, the United States is shaken at the center. Wars take after, and demolition follows. Out of the lethal waste dumps rises the Republic of Gilead. The forces that be, in the place where there is Gilead bring back the abuse of ladies that is a sign of severe religions and their social orders. This abuse is supported by people with significant influence as a way to guarantee the survival of mankind and the conservation of the beliefs of Gilead.

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Throughout the novel The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood portrays a world built upon the ideals of male leaders through the lens of a woman subject to the terrors that this world inflicts. In response to falling fertility rates and progressive ideologies, a group of powerful men are motivated to concoct a society based entirely upon their religious ideals to further both their reign over the female population and their success as leaders. Through the experience of a woman living at the expense of these ideas, Atwood communicates the negative consequences of idealism in the hands of a man, and the consequences of a religion-based idealistic world. Throughout the Handmaid's Tale, Atwood portrays a dystopian world by the name of Gilead, where

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Atwood clearly emphasizes this point through the inclusion of Offred 's inner thoughts; which in turn, help to illuminate to the reader the process of this deterioration. Atwood also shows how the Republic of Gilead uses totalitarianism tactics, which parallel those used in North Korea, in order to remain in control. In The Handmaid’s tale, a dystopian novel, Margaret Atwood uses imagery and allusion throughout the novel to illustrate how the republic of Gilead uses techniques to deteriorate one 's mind in order to maintain their power. Throughout the dystopian country

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Conflict can be described as the struggle between two opposing forces, whether the forces being person vs person, person vs self or person vs society. Good examples of conflict can be found in almost any book. Margaret Atwood’s novel, the Handmaid’s Tale is a source of all three types of conflicts. The Handmaid’s Tale is about a society where females are given specific duties and are restricted from reading, writing, talking to others and looking at themselves in mirrors. The protagonist, Offred whom is also the narrator in the novel faces conflicts with herself, with other people, and the society that she lives in.

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In the book A Handmaid’s Tale passivity is a common theme throughout Offred’s journey as a handmaid. In this context, passivity is allowing others to do things to you without complaining or pushing back to protect oneself and to keep oneself safe from harm or cruel treatment. There are several instances in which Offred is forced to be passive in order to please the people who have Offreds life in their hands. In the position that Offred is in as a handmaid, she is expected to do as her commander and the wife of her commander instructs her to do, and if she does not comply to these orders, no matter how unusual or unfair, she faces severe punishment or even death in the worst of cases. Just like Offred there are several other women who are forced to call Gilead home that must be passive in order to stay alive.

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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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Rebellion; the action or process of resisting authority, control, or convention. The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood is a novel. The novel takes place in Gilead a dystopian society. Everyone in Gilead has an important role to play within the society, however, it seems as if none of the characters seem content with their role, due to the restrictions they face. In the novel, the lack of freedom leads to rebellion as shown by the characterization, interior dialogue, flashbacks, and foreshadowing.

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There are two ways people will react to when their freedom is taken away. They will either accept it or rebel against it, which is what a lot of the female characters in Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale accomplished. Shown through Offred’s repetition of certain events, Moira’s tone of being a fighter, and Serena Joy’s desperation, the reader can see that lack of freedom leads to rebellion. Offred, the novel’s narrator, now lives in a world where women are powerless. She has had her freedom taken away, and at times follows the rules, but ends up rebelling in many powerful ways.

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The Handmaid's Tale is a story that is set in the near future. After a military coup and the assassination of the President, a group of right-wing fundamentalists takes over and establishes the Republic of Gilead, a theocratic state of absolute control. The rules of this state are very rigid, and every aspect of society is controlled by religious fanatics. The main goal of the new government is the increasing of the white population as pollution and war have resulted in a graphic drop of the birth-rate. Victims of this main goal are the women in Gilead, who are deprived of their legal rights and pushed back into their traditional roles as mothers or servants.

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1482 Words | 6 Pages

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood demonstrates a quizzical protagonist, Offred, in a dystopian, totalitarian society where fertile women are only a mere vessel for child birth. Every month during Offred’s menstrual cycle her Commander, Fred, and his wife Serena Joy perform detached intercourse while Serena holds Offred’s hands. The handmaids of the Republic of Gilead are not allowed to use their mind for knowledge nor take part in formal society. They are but the vacuous-minded property to their Commanders and their infertile wives. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred discloses the day to day moments and her commicalOffred had once lived in a world where she was her own person with a job and a home with a family of her own but now she lives under unfortunate circumstances that disable her from being a true, soulful human.

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(Atwood 88) This verse was read to the Handmaid 's everyday at breakfast and before the ceremony just to drill it in their minds, even though most of them know those were not the right textual evidence from the Bible. The police are called “Guardians of the Faith” which suggest that they are guarding the beliefs of Gilead. Another biblical allusion depicted would be the Angels, so they are called. But they were simply Guards.

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This year is the 30th anniversary of the publication of Margaret Atwood 's dystopian classic, The Handmaid 's Tale. The novel is told from a first person account of a young woman, Offred. In an age of declining births, she is forced to become a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, the imagined future in the United States. The Handmaids are to provide children by the substitution of infertile women of a higher social status. Through the creation of different characteristics of female characters – ones who are submissive yet rebellious, and like to take advantage of their power - Margaret Atwood portray themes of love, theocracy, rebellion, and gender roles.

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