The Handmaid's Tale and Family Values
In the olden days, religion and politics went hand in hand. The
church either ran the land or had a strangle hold on the people. If the
church thought there was one way to do something, one had to do as the
church requested or suffer great penalty. To go against the church was to
go against God, and that meant death. The king was supposed to be chosen by
God to rule the people in the way he commanded. The king was the closest
thing to God on earth. Monarchs generally ruled hand in hand with the
church. As the monarchy's rein started to come to an end, the church's
tight grip on the citizens slowly started to loosen. With the implication
of democracy, the church lost all real power to make laws and actually
govern the people. The church still held power over peoples' morals, but
without the monarchy's to enforce it the church's found their power
decreasing. In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, the government and
the church are interchangeable. The government is what used to be called
the church, they have come together to become one unit of power. The power
of a modern day government with all the knowledge and weapons combined with
the fanaticism of a medieval based church create a dictatorship like none
other. The novel deals with the treatment of children harshly for a society
which views children as their last hope, their most valuable commodity.
Children are taken away from their homes to be given to the privileged, and
women are forced to give birth to babies they can not keep. The society of
Gilead takes the views of a traditional religious monarchy and enforces
them with modern day power.
In the novel The Handmaid's Tale, there is a place called the "Red
Center", which is a training facility. When one thinks of a training
facility they tend to invision a military base with young soldiers learning
what they need to know to survive. Atwood's "Red Center" is very similar
to this type of facility; it has soldiers inside the facility and people
are being taught how to survive. Women in the "Red Center" are being taught
how to become submissive to the new order.
They did not want to separate from their church. Thy wanted to make themselves, and their church pure, or free of fault.
Frank, Roberta. “The Beowulf Poet’s Sense of History.” In Beowulf – Modern Critical Interpretations, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987.
Beowulf. Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces. Expanded Edition Volume 1. ED. Maynard Mack et al. New York: Norton, 1995. 1546-1613.
Shippey, T.A.. “The World of the Poem.” In Beowulf – Modern Critical Interpretations, edited by Harold Bloom. New York: Chelsea House Publishers, 1987..
Red cloaks, blue cloaks, green cloaks, men. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is like any dystopian future in that its themes are guided by the past. From Ender’s Game and Hunger Games to Fahrenheit 451, moralistic issues in society are challenged through the pages of these novels; The Handmaid's Tale is no exception. Made a handmaid to produce babies and curb a declining population, Offred transitions in her mental state through dramatic changes as she metamorphosizes from a women hesitant and resistant to her newfound role to one accepting of it, and new ideologies infiltrate her such as the honor of her position and the righteous, goodness of Iliad--a future society riddled with imperfections, where Offred now resides. She is a red, a
Beowulf. The Norton Anthology of English Literature, Volume A. Ed. Stephen Greenblatt. New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 2006. 34-100.
Beowulf’s fight against the dragon shows Beowulf as a hero. Although Beowulf had previously defeated two other foes, he stands fast and fights his most formidable foe yet, the dragon. Dragons were notoriously difficult to kill, and the poem states that it was a great man, who could kill a dragon, even if it meant losing one's life. While others cower away Beowulf fights the dragon. Beowulf defeats the dragon but loses his life in the same instance. Like the classical hero Beowulf loses his special status in death. Beowulf sought no compensation for his services; the mere satisfaction of helping others was pay enough. Like his two previous battles Beowulf fights for those who could not fight for themselves.
A new society is created by a group of people who strengthen and maintain their power by any means necessary including torture and death. Margaret Atwood's book, A Handmaid's Tale, can be compared to the morning after a bad fight within an abusive relationship. Being surrounded by rules that must be obeyed because of being afraid of the torture that will be received. There are no other choices because there is control over what is done, who you see and talk to, and has taken you far away from your family. You have no money or way out. The new republic of Gilead takes it laws to an even higher level because these laws are said to be of God and by disobeying them you are disobeying him. People are already likely to do anything for their God especially when they live in fear of punishment or death. The republic of Gilead is created and maintains its power structure through the use of religion, laws that isolate people from communication to one another and their families, and the fear of punishment for disobeying the law.
Margaret Atwood's futuristic “The Handmaid's Tale” refuses categorization into a single style, or genre. To me it blends a few approaches away from a predictable sci-fi or thriller fiction. Throughout the novel their were a few determinants or factors that decisively affect the nature or outcomes of certain events and how people behave or interact with one another.
Margaret Atwood's renowned science fiction novel, The Handmaid's Tale, was written in 1986 during the rise of the opposition to the feminist movement. Atwood, a Native American, was a vigorous supporter of this movement. The battle that existed between both sides of the women's rights issue inspired her to write this work. Because it was not clear just what the end result of the feminist movement would be, the author begins at the outset to prod her reader to consider where the story will end. Her purpose in writing this serious satire is to warn women of what the female gender stands to lose if the feminist movement were to fail. Atwood envisions a society of extreme changes in governmental, social, and mental oppression to make her point.
The oxford dictionary refers to the word “utopia” as being a place of “paradise, heaven on earth” as well as perfection. It can be labeled as a place that is the most desirable in any nation on earth and can sum up what we as humans search for. “A Handmaid’s Tale” depicts a twisted, yet not to far off, version of our country not to long ago when we lived in the opposite of this so-called paradise. No word can describe this story better than the opposite of utopia, a “dystopian” society. The entire U.S. government fell into a dystopian-type ruling when the very laws created by the government served to treat women as no more than maids and harlots. In this chaotic story, Margaret Atwood depicts a society where men and women fall into the rules of the old testament based on older beliefs describing women as lesser individuals compared to men. Atwood shows the similarities between the Republic of Gilead and the way we used to see the roles of women as well as some aspects of society today. Her overall reason for creating this story is to show her readers around the world the scary truth and effects of the belittlement of women and disregarding them as more than just wives and housemaids.
The ability to create life is an amazing thing but being forced to have children for strangers is not so amazing. Offred is a handmaid, handmaid's have children for government officials, such as Commander Waterford. Offred used to be married to Luke and together they had a daughter but then everything changed; Offred was separated from her family and assigned to a family as their handmaid. The society which Offred is forced to live in shaped her in many ways. In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood uses cultural and geographical surroundings to shape Offred's psychological and moral traits as she tries to survive the society that she is forced to live, in hopes that she can rebel and make change.
Beowulf. Holt elements of literature. Ed G Kylene Beers and Lee Odeel. 6th ed. Austin: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 2008. 21-48. Print.
to dominate over and control his kingdom/state, it was obviously not meant for lesser mortals. It
In society today families are falling apart and getting divorced. Not all families of course but the percent rate is higher year after year. Destroy means “to wreck; ruin” (Webster’s 169). This is what most people would say about their family if their parents were no longer together. In Gilead this is what all families are saying. The government has destroyed the families by taking away the women and giving them to other families like a piece of property.