Feminist Ideas in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
For this essay, we focused strictly on critics' reactions to Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. For the most part, we found two separate opinions about The Handmaid's Tale, concerning feminism. One opinion is that it is a feminist novel, and the opposing opinion that it is not. Feminism: A doctrine advocating social, political, and economic rights for women equal to those of men as recorded in Webster's Dictionary. This topic is prevalent in the novel The Handmaid's Tale. Margaret Atwood, a Canadian writer, spends most of her time featuring women in her books, novels, and poetry that examine their relationships in society. In the book Atwood centers her novel on a girl whom happens to be one of the handmaids. These handmaids are essentially women used for the birthing of babies. According to Atwood in one of her many interviews, "women were intrinsically good and men bad; to divide along allegiance lines--that is, women who wore high heels and makeup were instantly suspect, those in overalls were acceptable"(Problems of). These ideas were and have been created by our social and political system and could not be fixed until such systems have been reformed. The feminist ideas that are expressed in this novel are necessary. Besides, these women do exist not only in the novel but women like this exist in real life. The women are treated as property instead of human beings. The one and only purpose in their lives is to have children. The dystopic novel that she created isolated certain social trends and exaggerated them to make clear their most negative qualities. Pornography is a huge factor in The Handmaid's Tale. It is apparent in chapter twenty where Offred describes...
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... up ways of escaping out of the situation, either by fleeing or death, but is too chicken to try them. A feminist, like Moira, tried and tried to escape until they just about beat her down. Offred was a disgrace to the female sex, in that she never took it upon herself to better her situation, or to be rid of it for good. These examples are the reason critics tend to see the anti-feminism side of The Handmaid's Tale.
Works Cited
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Anchor Books: New York, New York, 1985.
Atwood, Margaret. "Spotty-Handed Villainesses." Problems of Female Bad Behavior in the Creation of Literature, 1994, http://www.web.net/owtoad/vlness.htm.
Works Consulted
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Anchor Books: New York, New York, 1985.
Tomc, Sandra. "The Missionary Position." Canadian Literature Fall/Winter 1993: 73- 84.
...s still evidence of two social classes in today's society. While not as distinct as those described by Margaret Atwood, men are more often in positions of power, they are often paid more, and there is less pressure on males to have a specific body type. Women are still viewed as conquest and recent events such as the video and shootings by Elliot Rodger is enough proof that a large group of people still believe that women owe them sex. However, media coverage has not focused on the well documented misogynist opinions of the shooter, instead focusing on his suspected mental illness. The warnings from a book written 30 years ago still ring true in today's society. In The Handmaids Tale, Atwood portrays two distinct social classes through her choice of words and uses her novel as an warning against the treatment and perception of modern day women by conservative men.
Thank you, and I promise that I will keep within my time period, in both senses of the phrase, of course (Laughter).
In the book, The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood writes about an alternate universe about America that illustrates our worst fears. Some of the fears depicted in the book can be seen in the world today, such as the distaste for abortion and the mentality that men are supposed to have more power than women. These issues are not only known as social issues but also feminist issues. Feminism is the belief that women and men should be treated equally socially, politically, and economically. This book shows how these issues could get worse in our society. The author uses Offred, the protagonist in the story, to show how the world could change for the worst. Offred, a handmaid in The Handmaid 's Tale, showed how men and society had control over
Adefemi replied that disallowance is only for a portion of the cost charged to Preschool program.
Homelessness is primarily a poverty issue. The persistence of poverty in the United States reflects more than just an aggregation of individual failings. Structural factors, such as the way we understand and define poverty, the inherent features of our economic system that produce income inequality, social inequities and our policy responses to these problems shape current trends. Economic changes have had the strongest association with trends in overall rates, regardless of how poverty is measured. Poverty rate is high amongst minority groups, children and female-headed households (Iceland, 2003). According to professor Iceland’s research, rates of extreme poverty are higher among children and African-Americans and lower for whites, Asians and the elderly. Among families with children, married couples were less likely to be poor (6.9 %) than single parent male (17.5%) and single parent female (35.3%).
McNamara, Robert Hartmann. "Homelessness." Encyclopedia of Contemporary American Social Issues. Ed. Michael Shally-Jensen. Vol. 3: Family and Society. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011. 1024-1031. Gale Virtual Reference Library. Web. 2 May 2014. .
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.
In Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale, women are subjected to unthinkable oppression. Practically every aspect of their life is controlled, and they are taught to believe that their only purpose is to bear children for their commander. These “handmaids” are not allowed to read, write or speak freely. Any type of expression would be dangerous to the order of the Gilead’s strict society. They are conditioned to believe that they are safer in this new society. Women are supposedly no longer exploited or disrespected (pornography, rape, etc.) as they once were. Romantic relationships are strongly prohibited because involving emotion would defeat the handmaid’s sole purpose of reproducing. Of course not all women who were taken into Gilead believed right what was happening to their way of life. Through the process of storytelling, remembering, and rebellion, Offred and other handmaids cease to completely submit to Gilead’s repressive culture.
"Overview of Homelessness In America." Homelessness In America. N.p., n.d. Web. 20 May 2014. .
Homelessness has become a serious problem in today’s society. Despite the organizations that help multitudes of homeless people, homelessness is continually increasing. In recent years, America’s culture has been changing due to economic, political, and social issues. These issues have caused a lot of stress on America resulting in abject poverty in several cities. Poverty is not nationwide, but if dealt with lightly, the affects can be catastrophic. Homelessness is increasing more than ever, and research proves that changing culture contributes to rising amount of homelessness.
Homelessness in the United States is as a revolving-door crisis. Person a can have a place to stay one night, and the next have nowhere at all. Homelessness is when one cannot afford for a place to live, or their current home is unsafe or unstable. One is homeless if he or she spends a night in a shelter or possibly on the streets. Many other definitions of homelessness exists, however, the main idea is that homelessness is a condition not a status. Women and children make up a big chunk of the homeless community. Education for homeless children is a struggle, and many agree that the Federal government should invest more towards reducing homelessness. Poverty and homelessness has always existed in the United States but by the turn of the twentieth century, approximately 40 percent of Americans were homeless in the year 1900.(Patterson,13) In the United States there are many factors to becoming homeless, but in America you are forced to become homeless.
The many causes of the homelessness issue has arisen from global conflict, unemployment increase, education tuition costs rising, and the increase of poverty. Homelessness is affecting all ages, ethnicities, and religions striking in both urban and rural communities. “Just last year, the national poverty rate rose to include 13.2% of the population. 1 in 7 people were at risk of suffering from hunger in the United States. In addition, 3.5 million people were forced to sleep in parks, under bridges, in shelters or cars.”
The Handmaid's Tale has been described as a scathing satire and a dire warning! Which elements of our own society is Margaret atwood satirising and how does her satire work ? Atwood tries to open our eyes by satirising our society with a brilliant contrasting novel. Dystopian in every way, the reader encounters a world in which modern values of our society seem/ are replaceable. Showing the worst of all possible outcomes, she demonstrates that our primarily heartless, just economical thinking could bring the downfall of our society.
The Handmaid's Tale presents an extreme example of sexism and misogyny by featuring the complete objectification of women in the society of Gilead. Yet by also highlighting the mistreatment of women in the cultures that precede and follow the Gileadean era, Margaret Atwood is suggesting that sexism and misogyny are deeply embedded in any society and that serious and deliberate attention must be given to these forms of discrimination in order to eliminate them.
Margaret Atwood sheds light on two concepts that are intertwined; fertility and motherhood. Nevertheless in Gilead these notions are often viewed as separate. The Republic State of Gilead views women as child-bearers and nothing more. In Gilead, these women are known as handmaids, who’s function in society is to produce children for barren females of a high status. Gilead also prohibits the handmaids from being mothers to their previously born children, meaning before Gilead was created, for instance, Offred, who is separated from her daughter. Thus it is evident that Margaret Atwood generates a state that views birth only as growth in population rather than the beginning of a relationship between mother and child.