Who Is The Protagonist In The Handmaid's Tale
As some of us might know there has been a passionate debate on the issue of the net neutrality in which there is strong feelings on both sides of the debate. Net neutrality is the idea government should regulate the internet so that the major telecommunications companies won’t be able to turn the internet landscape into a monopoly. This paper will examine both sides of the net neutrality debate in which the content of this paper will explore both the pro and cons of net neutrality. At the end of the paper I will reveal my true thoughts about net neutrality and will discuss what I have learned about this issue in the process. Some of the pros of net neutrality include easy access to information, promotion of free speech and promoting innovation for smaller internet companies.
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.
Women have been struggling with discrimination for years, will it ever end? In the world we live in, there are places that have deemed it normal for a woman to have no rights regarding education, marriage, clothing, children, employment, and more basic human rights. Not only that, but there is violence towards these women who live their lives struggling daily to enjoy the rights that they do have. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the central character Offred lives in The Republic of Gilead, an area that used to be known as Harvard University. In this dystopian society, the birthrate has plummeted and women are now valued for their ability to have children because the future of the society now relies on it.
The American science fiction and fantasy author Richard Grant once said that “the value of identity of course is that so often with it comes purpose.” In both The Awakening by Kate Chopin and The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the main protagonists search for their identities through the context of their daily lives. In correlation with the preceding quotation, in The Awakening, after a vacation opens her eyes to all that she has been missing in her life, she becomes desperate to find herself outside of the mother-woman while in The Handmaid’s Tale, the narrator must decide which parts of her identity she wants to hold on to and who she is in the trying times of the Gileadean society. The two novels demonstrate the journey of these women
The Fear Itself "Fear is a powerful stimulant" (Atwood 268). The novel Handmaid 's Tale is a story that takes place in a dystopian society where in order to increase the fertility rate women who are able to have children are distributed across the country and are encouraged to have babies from the Commanders. Like most of the dystopian novels, the focus of the story is how people are oppressed in the name of fear. Fear is used as a controlling mechanism to keep people in check and stop them from rising up. In the book, fear is too strong of a feeling that it creates the base of most of the emotions and actions.
Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale, takes place in a post-feminist, dystopian world that personifies negative feelings towards the 1980s feminist movement and radically projects them onto civilization, producing the severe subjugation of women that quickly transitions into their dehumanization and loss of identity. Atwood uses the strong juxtaposition of oppression and power in order to warn civilization of the dangers surrounding idealistic thoughts regarding society. While Atwood’s story is one that takes place in a dystopia, she adds a very realistic undertone that makes readers feel as though any events portrayed in her novel could happen in the near future. Nothing in this realm is fabricated, not technology, or law, or even history
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.”
Symbolism can be defined as the use of symbols that an author uses to suggest more than the literal meaning of the object .Symbolism often allows the reader to understand the text better and connect with the story on a different level. In The Handmaid’s Tale, symbolism can be seen in various parts of the novel. One of the most common type of symbolism that can be identified in the text is through the use of colours. One of the most obvious symbols in the novel is the uniform that every Handmaid is supposed to wear.
Often, we see a society’s cultural values reflected in its citizens. For example, the United States values equality, a standard that is shared in all facets including gender. The opposite is true of Gilead, a fictional society in Emily Bronte’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel’s main character, Offred, is subjected to degrading treatment simply because she is a woman. It becomes apparent that this repeated degradation has affected the protagonist’s mind.
In the handmaid's tale, the Handmaids are treated poorly, making the person no longer themselves. The reader learns that Offred is being told what to do and has no say for her opinion, since it is against the law to go against the government. According to the handmaid’s tale, "You go out through the door and turn right. There's another door, it's open. Go up the stairs and knock, he's expecting you.
The majority of people ask the same question at some point in their life; who am I? The concept of identity is something many wrestle with their whole lives. Other individuals are confident of who they are. The Handmaid’s Tale follows a society that is stripped of individuality and identity. This question can no longer be asked because it cannot be answered.
„Never be bullied into silence. Never allow yourself to be made a victim. Accept no one’s definition of your life, but define yourself” (“goodreads”). This quote by Harvey Fierstein emphasises the importance of having the freedom to define one’s own identity. A fundamental right in our society nowadays and since we are moving towards a more and more individualistic culture very crucial.
Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, argues that women are instruments of the patriarchy, that women know this, and that women allow the system of oppression to live on. Her fictions ask, “What stories do women tell about themselves? What happens when their stories run counter to literary conventions or society’s expectations?” (Lecker 1). The Handmaid’s Tale is told through the protagonist, Offred, and allows readers to follow through her life as a handmaid while looking back on how life used to be prior to the societal changes.
The novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a story about a society set in a future world where women’s rights have been revoked. Many values change with this new regime of controlled women and strict laws. Despite the changes in the world it maintains many conservative, religious beliefs while also containing liberal, feminist beliefs simultaneously. Society in the futuristic world of Gilead is structured heavily off of readings from the Bible and traditional views of gender that have been in place for a long time. An example of the Bible being an important part of society is the idea of the Handmaids came from a passage in the Bible about two women, Rachel and Leah.
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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