Men Will be Men in The Handmaid's Tale
Perhaps the most frightening aspect of Offred's world is not even its proximity, but its occasional attractiveness. The idea that women need strict protection from harm is not one espoused solely by the likes of Rush Limbaugh or Pat Buchanan, but also by women like Andrea Dworkin and Catharine MacKinnon. This protectionist variety of feminism is incorporated in the character of Offred's mother, and to a certain degree in Aunt Lydia. Offred's mother is just as harsh in her censorship of pornography as any James Dobson. By burning the works which offend her, she too is contributing to the notion that women's safety is contingent on squelching the Bill of Rights. The restriction of sexually explicit pictures places the blame for sex crimes on women, again -- the women in the photographs who supposedly drive men to rape. Where have we heard this before? Who else refuses to hold rapists responsible for their own actions, choosing instead to restrict the behavior of those they consider the catalysts?
Aunt Lydia is depicted as being mildly psychotic, but the "freedom from" that she offers seems oftentimes almost soothing. To be free of fear of rape would be a wonderful thing. To force men to act respectful seems not too bad. We can observe this attitude on our own campus, where the student government holds a "nightwalk" every few years. On these walks, dangerous areas are marked out and reported to the Physical Plant and the campus police. In response, bushes and trees next to walkways are demolished to discourage possible attackers who might conceal themselves in them. More halogen lamps are installed. More foot patrol officers walk potential problem spots. Every year the campus looks less like a university and more like an armed camp, but we accept these ugly alterations on our environment in the name of safety. It doesn't seem like such a high price to pay.
In a way, many women already live in a sort of Gilead. They would not dream of going out alone. They feel unfulfilled without children. They do not read (they don't have the time.) They occupy little more than a servant's position in their own homes. Their access to abortion is denied. They already live under so many unreasonable restrictions and expectations -- what's a little more, if it comes with a guarantee of safety?
Gender inequality has existed all around the world for many centuries. Women were seen as property of men and their purpose of existence was to provide for the men in their lives. Men would play the role of being the breadwinners, whereas women played the role of being the caregiver of the family and household and must obey the men around her. The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood portrays how women in society are controlled and demeaned by men, and how men feel they are more superior over women.
Imagine that it is the year 1841 in Saratoga, New York and blossoms of the dogwood tree are swirling around your face as the wind gently tousles your hair. All seems well in the world, and, to Solomon Northup, great opportunities are coming his way. Two men, by the names of Merrill Brown and Abram Hamilton, had offered a dream job to Solomon. They had asked him to join them in a circus, playing the fiddle, an instrument Solomon had mastered. However, these men were not as honest as they seemed. Brown and Hamilton later drugged and kidnapped Solomon at a hotel one night during the tour. These men successfully forced Solomon into twelve years of slavery.
Throughout history, society has been used as a means of inspiration for writers of all genres. More often then not, writers do not shine a light on the positive aspects of society, they chose to focus on the decline of the modern world. For a writer to truly capture this societal decline, they must be brave enough to accept it. For one writer in particular, her passion and style are what fuel her to create masterpieces of literature centered on that very topic. With her ability to focus on modern American society with topics such as rape, child abuse and murder, Joyce Carol Oates’s novels have been able to capture the sometimes cruel reality of American life in an unorthodox way.
The Handmaids Tale is a poetic tale of a woman's survival as a Handmaid in the male dominated Republic of Gilead. Offred portrayed the struggle living as a Handmaid, essentially becoming a walking womb and a slave to mankind. Women throughout Gilead are oppressed because they are seen as "potentially threatening and subversive and therefore require strict control" (Callaway 48). The fear of women rebelling and taking control of society is stopped through acts such as the caste system, the ceremony and the creation of the Handmaids. The Republic of Gilead is surrounded with people being oppressed. In order for the Republic to continue running the way it is, a sense of control needs to be felt by the government. Without control Gilead will collapse.
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.
Feminism as we know it began in the mid 1960's as the Women's Liberation Movement. Among its chief tenants is the idea of women's empowerment, the idea that women are capable of doing and should be allowed to do anything men can do. Feminists believe that neither sex is naturally superior. They stand behind the idea that women are inherently just as strong and intelligent as the so-called stronger sex. Many writers have taken up the cause of feminism in their work. One of the most well known writers to deal with feminist themes is Margaret Atwood. Her work is clearly influenced by the movement and many literary critics, as well as Atwood herself, have identified her as a feminist writer. However, one of Atwood's most successful books, The Handmaid's Tale, stands in stark contrast to the ideas of feminism. In fact, the female characters in the novel are portrayed in such a way that they directly conflict with the idea of women's empowerment.
"With the Gracchi, all the consequences of empire - social, economic and political - broke loose in the Roman state, inaugurating a century of revolution." (The Roman Revolution, Ronald Syme, p16).
The Handmaid’s Tale shows a dystopian society in which men have a certain role in society. Those at the top of the hierarchy, like the Commander, support the current order of society, while Nick, a common man, questions his role. The Handmaid’s Tale portrays masculinity as a dominant and hyper-sexualized trait.
This twentieth-century tradition of dystopian novels is a possible influence, with classics like Aldous Huxley’s Brave New World and George Orwell’s 1984 standing prominent. The pessimism associated with novels of this genre—where society is presented as frightening and restrictive—exposes the gender inequality between men and women to be deleterious. An aspect of the way male/female relationships are presented in both texts is the repression of female sexuality by men, possibly stemming from a subliminal fear of women attaining power in a male-dominated society. Brocklehurst—a possible reflection of Bront’s Evangelical minister at Cowan Bridge, her own poorly run school—is a male authoritative figure whose relationship with the girls at Lowood is one of imposed tyranny. He means to “tame and humble” them through deprivations and restrictions, but such removal of liberties like cutting off the girls’ hair, consequentially robbing them of female attributes, can be interpreted as the male repression of feminine sexuality.... ...
The Handmaid's Tale This is a futuristic novel that takes place in the northern part of the USA sometime in the beginning of the twenty-first century, in the oppressive and totalitarian Republic of Gilead. The regime demands high moral retribution and a virtuous lifestyle. The Bible is the guiding principle. As a result of the sexual freedom, free abortion and high increase of venereal diseases at the end of the twentieth century, many women, (and men also, but that is forbidden to say), are sterile. The women who are still fertile are recruited as Handmaids, and their only mission in life is to give birth to the offspring of their Commander, whose wife is infertile.
Throughout The Handmaid’s Tale, the author Margaret Atwood gives the reader an understanding of what life would be like in a theocratic society that controls women’s lives. The narrator, Offred gives the reader her perspective on the many injustices she faces as a handmaid. Offred is a woman who lived before this society was established and when she undergoes the transition to her new status she has a hard time coping with the new laws she must follow. There are many laws in this government that degrade women and give men the authority of each household. All women are placed in each household for a reason and if they do not follow their duties they are sent away or killed. Atwood bases the irrational laws in the Gilead republic on the many
...nt the works of Marx. The result became a system where emotion triumphed over practicality, and the central message was blurred by the overthrow of the old regime. Thus, Lenin followed Marx in the general ideas of socialism, where everyone was equal under the law, and worked for each other and the common good. While Lenin’s system did manage to create a proletariat class, it also evoked the formation of the corrupt and power hungry Bolshevik Party. With regard to the Populists and Anarchists, Lenin was transformed into a revolutionary who would not stop at anything in the pursuit of Communism. Furthermore, Lenin followed to a lesser extent the Social Democrats and their views on the threat of the peasantry if they were not properly maintained. It is clearly evident that in following other philosophies, Lenin mutated Communism into a form unrecognizable to true Marxism
The hierarchy of women goes as such: Commander’s Wives, Aunts, Marthas, Handmaids, Econowives, and Unwomen. Commanders are at the head of their household. Every woman within these ranks has settled into their roles as part of the Republic except for the Unwomen, those who refused to become a part of their society under any circumstances--those who are sent to work camps and separated from the rest of the world. Aside from them, the rest of the Republic's women all serve men in one way or another. Women are made to believe that the roles assigned to them are to be seen as a great honor. Outwardly, women accept these roles with little to no retaliation, but inwardly and amongst each other, many perform small acts of rebellion against their overseers. One woman who partook in many of these acts is referred to as Offred throughout the story; however, her real name is never revealed.
The Handmaid's Dystopia The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian tale about a world where unrealistic things take place. The events in the novel could never actually take place in our reality." This is what most people think and assume, but they"re wrong. Look at the world today and in the recent past, and there are not only many situations that have ALMOST become a Gilead, but places that have been and ARE Gileadean societies. We're not in Kansas anymore, Dorothy! Even today, there are places in the world where there is a startling similarity to this fictitious dystopia.
A new form of military government is set up in Gilead, the United States; stripping all women from their normal behaviors and way of life. Even though the lives of men have also been changed they are still the ones in power able to rule, control, and restrain women as they feel they should do. Women no longer have the choice, judgment to personal freedom; to say what they want to do with their lives and how they go about operating it. They must follow the rules that have been placed on society and to break them would mean death. We see through Offred’s eyes, hear through her ears, and feel with her heart the torture an...