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What Is The Loss Of Identity In The Handmaid's Tale

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Margaret Atwood, the author of The Handmaid's Tale, utilized Offred's persona and emotion to illustrate the topic of people losing their identities in the Gileadean society. With every detail outlining the circumstances in Gilead, Atwood was able to imprint this image in the reader's consciousness. Losing one's identity is similar to being brainwashed. Offred tries to convince herself it’s not that bad but has trouble believing in Gilead’s morals. “I would like to believe this is a story I’m telling. I need to believe it. I must believe it. Those who can believe that such stories are only stories have a better chance. If it’s a story I’m telling, then I have control over the ending. Then there will be an ending, to the story, and real life will come after it. I can pick up where I left off” (Atwood 39). This is her recurring internal conflict, where she wants to escape Gilead but …show more content…

“It’s a lack of love we die from. There’s nobody here I can love, all the people I could love are dead or elsewhere. Who knows where they are or what their names are now? They might as well be nowhere, as I am for them. I too am a missing person” (103). Overwhelming loneliness and boredom distress her even more than oppression. This also tells us how fragile she is. Under their red covering, no one is present, and even if they are, they don't have any purpose or meaning. “I would like to be without shame. I would like to be shameless. I would like to be ignorant. Then I would not know how ignorant I was” (263). Offred is feeling shameful for opening her legs up for another commander. She feels undeserving of anything and is a miserable and ashamed handmaid. She hopes she could be free from the civilization she is forced to live in. Offred had lost her ability to choose, and as a result of the situation and her decision to maintain that viewpoint prior to the founding of Gilead, she was gradually beginning to give

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Outward Conformity In The Handmaid's Tale

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Outward conformity along with inward questioning, that is what the main character, presented in Margaret Artwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, has to undertake in order to survive in a theocratic society. Stepping out of line in any way risks your life, so in a place where freedom of speech and basic human right’s no longer apply, Offered must comply with whatever rules they have in place and pretend to agree with the system, but in the inside, she cannot help but think about her past life, her husband, her daughter, before everything began. Flashbacks are integrated in the novel to not only compare the old society with the new one, but to also demonstrate this fake conformity Offred has to display to others and her internal struggle with giving up on escaping the Republic or just accepting her fate and playing by

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1108 Words | 5 Pages

In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the protagonist, Offred, expresses her wish that her “story [is] different,” that it is “happier,” or at least “more active, less hesitant, less distracted” than it is ultimately portrayed (267). However, as her story is told, these characteristics are evident in the way she talks and acts, especially around those with authority. Hesitant to express her true thoughts and feelings, and distracted by memories from her previous life, Offred attempts to piece together her role in the society that has taken her freedom. The result is a compilation of moments, of memories, both from her present, her past, and even speculation about her future.

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Isolation In The Handmaid's Tale

957 Words | 4 Pages

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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“No woman can call herself free who does not control her own body”. When Margaret Sanger spoke these words, she was expressing her belief on a woman’s right to have an abortion. This quote, however, speaks to the fact that women are oppressed on more than just abortions. In the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Atwood portrays the dehumanization of sexuality through both the characters and events within the novel, therefore proving that women will always be considered less than men will. Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1939.

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How Does Margaret Atwood Manipulate Time In The Handmaid's Tale

1008 Words | 5 Pages

By the time I could have done that, I was afraid to. I couldn’t afford to lose you.” (Atwood 182). Atwood takes more than half of the novel to have Offred realize that she’s lost her identity through Luke. As someone’s past experiences and relationships are often indicative of their identity.

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Examples Of Rebellion In The Handmaid's Tale

711 Words | 3 Pages

Rebellion in The Handmaid’s Tale Imagine not being able to do what you used to do because some actions are forbidden in this new society. In the Handmaid's Tale, Gilead is a dystopian society where people are limited to certain actions. Throughout the story, Offred’s actions are rebellious because she has broken so many rules. Atwood demonstrates that restricted expression leads to rebellion by showing the Commanders and Offred’s affair developing throughout time and the actions of both characters.

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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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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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Siena Kriegel Ms. Buhr p.1 Handmaid’s Tale 16 May 2023 Identity Having a strong sense of identity can bring a sense of power by giving you self-worth and purpose. In Gilead the government seeks to control everyone's lives and sense of self. In The Handmaid's Tale, Atwood develops the idea of identity to show that it gives a sense of power.

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Symbolism In The Handmaid's Tale

1410 Words | 6 Pages

It is narrated by the protagonist, Offred who is a handmaid forced into sexual servitude. Facing a plunging birth rate, the fundamentalist regime treats women as property of the state. Handmaids are the few of the remaining fertile women and their sole purpose is to help the government into re-populating their society, where a lot of people are left sterile. The Handmaid’s Tale deals with the theme of women in subjugation to misogyny in a patriarchal society, primarily. It shows the struggle that women have to go through in that society, as a Handmaid or as not being able to be one.

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Flashback In The Handmaid's Tale

1277 Words | 6 Pages

“...What is revealed in [Offred’s] recollection of the pre-Gilead era is far from being exuberant; her memory is as smeared with fear and anxiety as is her present experience” (Nakamura 8). This anxiety is what many people experience in America today, anxiety about the inevitable dystopian decline of their country, when and what and how. Yet these fears hardly stop Offred from performing her little rebellions; rather, they

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928 Words | 4 Pages

At the same time, the Historical Notes reveal that other records of those who lived in Gilead also exist (346). Though Offred has never participated in a coordinated regime subversive activity, her story, along with those of other survivors, now form a polyphony of resistance. Storytelling in The Handmaid’s Tale performs various functions: it is Offred’s way of resistance, her survival strategy, her intellectual pastime, and a testimony to the future. By telling herself stories she escapes into memories, shape and change her experience, and substitute the lacking communication. She uses storytelling to preserve herself, to validate her existence, to prove her life matters.

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She was now a loose woman," (Atwood 133). Despite Offred slightly rebelling to hold onto her identity, it is still difficult to stay connected to in this

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This is the first sign of desperation when one is used to being free to express themselves it is hard to take it away. This is why Offred does not see the big deal in sharing her name at the beginning of the new world. Offred has been away from freedom for hardly any time and is beginning to break rules already. . With time Offred begins to see the harshness of the new world and the problems she can get into if she continues to break rules, even the simplest of them.

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