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Women In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

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Imagine living in a place where everything you do is heavily criticized and self-expression is not allowed. A world in which everyone and everything is closely controlled and one gets punished if rules are not followed. In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, in the dystopian society of Gilead, the oppressive system forces its citizens to follow assigned roles and rules by being highly critical and manipulative. Throughout the story, Atwood presents the characters through a series of events, which show the impacts on the society. The points of view of Offred, the Aunts, Janine and the other Handmaids on females reveal how an oppressive community forces women to objectify themselves. Throughout the story, women in Gilead live under …show more content…

In Offred’s case, she portrays a depressed persona whose role is that of a surrogate and her duty is to give birth to the commander’s child. During the Ceremony, Offred feels like “ [what is going on during the sexual encounter] is serious business” (Atwood 95). She explains how the ceremony is not enjoyable for any of the participants, stating that it’s just a job that needs to get done. Her point of view portrays the ceremony as a duty in which her body is being used only to conceive, but not as something that is desirable. She relates it to past encounters between men and women during sex and notices that there is no connection between the participants in the ceremony. In the Gilead community, only men with high ranks are allowed to have Handmaid’s that can carry their children for nine months in their wombs. Offred explains, “ [she waits] washed, brushed, [and] fed, like a prize pig” ( 69). Before Offred goes to the Ceremony, she has to prepare herself and be ready to hand her body to the commander, with no hesitation or reluctance, so that together, along with Serena Joy, they can conceive a child. We can see the emotional damage her position in the society has caused her and her body. It is evident from Offred’s point of view on being a surrogate, she feels objectified, used, and

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An oppressive regime gains control of the United States and renames the country Gilead. In this context and because of infertility problems, women are forced to conceive for couples who cannot. Offred is one of these handmaids whose freedom is restricted in order to populate the Republic. Serving at the Commander’s house, Offred tells not only how the regime functions but also how

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In The Handmaid's Tale by Margret Atwood, the Republic of Gilead was formed from extreme religious views. In Gilead, what the government has decided should be taken from the Bible has become absolute law. The authority the Bible already had pre-Gilead becomes even more powerful. Strange, small pieces of Biblical text show up frequently throughout the book to enforce the new rule of Gilead and the leaders. This is particularly evident in place names throughout Gilead, for example the names of the bakery or butchers have been replaced by biblical names such as "Loaves and Fishes, "All Flesh,” "

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The handmaid’s tale is a book written by Margert Atwood. The story is narrated by the narrator’s protagonists. The narrator informs about the life in Gilead in which the commanders get a handmaid to breed for them since their wife’s cant breed and the society of Gilead needs reproduction. not only that, but there are different commanders and not every commander has a handmaid because some of them have wives that can breed children and have children of their own. There is different dress code for women in Gilead because the handmaids wear red, the wives of the commander wear blue, Martha’s wear green.

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Rationale For Part 4, we studied The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood. In this written task, I have decided to write a blog, from the view point of a tourist who is a character within the book. I discuss about how Gilead seems so perfect but actually isn’t. My primary source will be the current situation of Gilead and Moira.

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“Nobody dies from lack of sex. It’s lack of love we die frome.” Offred recognizes this reality in The Handmaid's Tale, written by Margaret Atwood. It is in human nature to need compassion and connections with other people. In The Handmaid's Tale a new society referred to as Gilead is formed where many unreasonable restrictions are added, including restrictions on the boundaries of relationships.

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In Margaret Atwood’s book, The Handmaid’s Tale, the basis on which Gilead rises is that of utilitarianism, with every person supposedly living to serve the greater good. The Republic of Gilead uses religious extremism to objectify women and oppress the women with archaic traditions. The duties of the ruling class are performed solely by men. Commanders are at the very top of the hierarchical pyramid and have the power to make every decision in Gilead. Women are second-class citizens in Gilead and, with the exception of the Wives and Daughters of the Commanders, have the role of serving the ruling class.

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In The Handmaid’s Tale, the novel critiques gender inequality and autocratic authority. The hierarchical class of men consists of Commanders, Angels, and Guardians. In particular, the Commanders are the highest-ranking social group in Gileadean society. The Commanders are represented as powerful men. They have leadership roles, autocratic governance, and are oppressors controlling the Gilead regime.

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However, Gilead rehashed all of those old tropes, and classified in a never before seen way. Women are now Wives, Marthas, Handmaids, or Ecnowives. Each classification has different responsibilities, dress colors, and status, but what binds them all together is the anonymity it shoves on to each woman. A woman is no longer a person, she is the role defined by her dress color, easily replaced by another one of the same dress color. They stick to their own kind, segregated from each other by the different status associated with each role.

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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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Sexual acts for pleasure ,for both man and women, have been forbidden. The new regime has also caused the Commanders relationship with Serena to be damaged, due to them acquiring handmaids. This causes the Commander to form a relationship with Offred, in order to satisfy his needs. He soon manipulates Offred into having sex with him. The irony of this situation rests in the fact that most of the laws, based on the Bible, of Gilead were enforced in order “to protect women,” yet Offred is not being “protected” due to her fear that the Commander might expel her if she does not sleep with him.

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How The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood Dehumanize Women

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Some of these methods include destroying identity through classification, objectification, and indoctrination. Most women of Gilead are sufficiently repressed that they seem to accept their assigned roles, at least outwardly resigned to their fate. Atwood uses gender roles in The Handmaid’s Tale to show the lengths to which misogynistic totalitarian governments will go, to protect their dictatorships. The Republic of Gilead is a hierarchical society which requires complete submission of women to men. By taking away women’s paid jobs, confiscating their property, draining their bank accounts, and giving them no recourse, the male leadership leaves women in a fully dependent and subservient position.

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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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Summary Of Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Eleanor Atwood

749 Words | 3 Pages

The Handmaids are forced into these lives of being almost trapped in their rooms aside from performing their household duties and going to few societal events (Shmoop). By bearing children they are given freedom in life and being rewarded for this by not being put to death. It also confines them to a life where they give birth to children that are taken from them and fathered by someone who they are not in love

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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

Furthermore, the author displays a dystopian society completely dominated by a totalitarian and theocratic state. The main subject of this novel is the role assigned to women, mainly represented by the handmaids. In Gilead, the made-up country where the novel takes place, women are completely subjected by the government, and especially by men, who clearly have a higher status than women. Moreover, women’s freedom is entirely restricted, as they cannot leave their house at their will, they are forbidden to hold properties or jobs, they cannot read or write, and they are treated as sexual slaves whose only purpose in life is to bear children for elite spouses. The other option is a miserable, short life at the Colonies (a type of concentration camp), and death.

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