How Does Offred Maintain Identity In The Handmaid's Tale

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The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood follows the narration of Offred, a young woman struggling to maintain her humanity in a sea of indignity and sexist oppression. Although severely restricted by the patriarchal theocracy of Gilead, Offred uses small physical activisms to maintain her individuality, regain her sense of control, and salvage any shred of agency possible, which ultimately help preserve her Pre-Gilead identity, despite her lack of power and slave-like position. Small acts throughout the story such as the act of theft, shows her willingness to rebel against the oppressive setting. However small, Offred's physical and mental activisms give her hope for the future and empower her to maintain her individual identity. At the beginning of the novel, Offred is extremely adamant about maintaining who she was pre-Gilead. She believes that if she could maintain her identity, it will give her the will and the power to fight back and survive the torturous rule of Gilead. Offred explains as a handmaid, there are many things she is no longer allowed to indulge; such as, reading, …show more content…

Rather than fighting to be a part of 'Mayday' and help with the resistance, she decided to succumb to the ways of Gilead and accept that life was not so bad the way it was. "Dear God, I think, I will do anything you like. Now that you've let me off, I'll obliterate myself, if that is what you really want; I'll empty myself, truly, become a chalice. I'll give up Nick, I'll forget about the others, I'll stop complaining. I'll accept my lot. I'll sacrifice. I'll repent. I'll abdicate. I'll renounce." (Atwood p.286) Everything that she had been engrained into her and the other handmaids at the red center has finally taken hold of her. Offred decided she would comply and do whatever she had to in order to stay alive with or without the hope of an end to being a

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