Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
The handmaid's tale analysis and the bible
The handmaid's tale analysis and the bible
Religion allusions in the handmaids tale
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Handmaid's Tale: A Biblical Allusion
Imagine a country where choice is not a choice. One is labeled by their age and economical status. The deep red cloaks, the blue embroidered dresses, and the pinstriped attire are all uniforms to define a person's standing in society. To be judged, not by beauty or personality or talents, but by the ability to procreate instead. To not believe in the Puritan religion is certain death. To read or write is to die. This definition is found to be true in the book, The Handmaid's Tale (1986) by Margaret Atwood. It is a heartbreaking story of one young woman and her transformation into the Gilead society, the society described above. In the book, we meet Offred, the narrator of the story. This story is not the first to create a society in which the only two important beliefs in a society are the ability to procreate and a strict belief in God. It is seen several times in the Old Testament, the Bible. The Biblical society is not as rigid as the Republic of Gilead, which Margaret Atwood has built, but it is very similar. The Handmaid's Tale holds several biblical allusions.
The first biblical allusion is that of the Republic of Gilead. Gilead is mentioned several times in the Bible as a place of fertile lands. The Bible states, "To the east [the Israelites] occupied the land. . . , because their livestock had increased in Gilead" (Numbers 32:1, NIV) and "The [tribes], who led very large herds and flocks, saw that the lands of Jazer and Gilead were suitable for livestock" (1 Chronicles 5:9, NIV). The Biblical land of Gilead was a land of prospering livestock. Families and tribes came to Gilead because of the land's lush, green and fertile soil. The Republic of Gilead was also...
... middle of paper ...
...n individual, but each person is noticed only by the clothing that they wear. Imagine a country where the husband is the head of the family, and no other members of the household hold any rights at all. Imagine a country where reading and writing are crimes punishable by death. One can imagine, but no one can comprehend the pain and suffering and emotional death that one must acquire to live in a society such as the Republic of Gilead. This story of the future may very well be a story of the past; a story based upon principles found in the Bible, but taken so literally and enforced so strictly that the country becomes a theocracy to hate.
Bibliography
Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Boston, Massachusetts: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1986.
The NIV Study Bible. Barker, Kenneth: General Editor. Grand Rapids, Michigan: The Zondervan Corporation, 1995
In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, the protagonist, Offred is a Handmaid, one whose sole role is to provide a child, in a misogynistic totalitarian regime. Although Gilead society seems unrealistic, a similar orthodoxy has been imposed in Syria. The ISIS brides’ situation directly mirrors the societal roles, restrictions, and methods of coercion of the Handmaids, illustrating that Gileadean society can be achieved in the modern world.
To live in a country such as the United States of America is considered a privilege. The liberties that American citizens are entitled to, as declared in the Constitution, makes the United States an attractive and envied democracy. It would be improbable to imagine these liberties being stripped from American society. However, Margaret Atwood depicts the United States as a dystopian society in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale. The first society is modern America, with its autonomy and liberal customs. The second, Gilead, a far cry from modern America, is a totalitarian Christian theocracy which absorbs America in the late 1980s in order to salvage it from widespread pollution and a dwindling birthrate. The principal flaw in Atwood’s Gileadian society is the justification of human rights violations. This justification only limits the liberties citizens experience, and taunts their once freeing rights, such as the prerogative to explore sexuality. Gilead’s only freedom, is freedom from all other liberties, or as Aunt Lydia would describe, freedom from the anarchy that unveiled in the first society.
First, the government used a dangerous literal interpretation of a Biblical passage as justification for adultery under the guise of reproduction. Second, the state constantly reinforced its falsified morality by saturating daily routines with religious expressions. Lastly, the regime altered Biblical references to further its political goals, and then prohibited language to prevent exposing its duplicity. Although Gilead rather effectively erased women’s values to construct a hyper-patriarchy, The Handmaid’s Tale provides a voice for this silenced population.
Throughout the Handmaid’s Tale, we come across a plethora of biblical references; also many aspects of the stories’ plot are based on biblical passages. The story is based in the republic of Gilead, a futuristic and dystopian America. This futuristic government isn’t based on loving peaceful messages from scripture; rather, it takes snippets from the violent passages and adopts them to suit their choke-hold of society. We first take notice of this oppressive government in the first few pages of the book when we read “Aunt Sara and Aunt Elizabeth patrolled; they had electric cattle-prods slung on thongs from electric belts.” ( 4) These “Aunts” are older women, who wear habits, whose man function is to brain wash and rule over the “handmaids”. Often referencing from the Old Testament, they encourage a very bleak outlook at life outside of government rule. To meet this end, they often times force the handmaids to view pornos and gratuitous violent acts. The main character in the story is a handmaid named Offred (of Fred), who’s purpose in life, imposed on by the government, is to bear children.
Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale deals with how women are forced to accept roles based on extreme biblical laws distorted by a male dominated society; yet, there are women who willing participate in the reinforcement of these sexist and misogynistic values that subdue women. Gilead's government controls and shapes women's identities through oppression, however, indoctrinates women into believing that the roles stripping them of their independence are designed to protect and support them in fulfilling their biological purpose; fear of the Colonies and the Salvaging has intimidated women into becoming passive in order to survive, and forces them to report anyone failing to comply to the imposed hierarchical society. The new regime claims that it has given women more freedom than it has taken away, and since women are better protected they can become mothers without the fear of rape or being degraded by men or society; women are viewed as “functionaries” that must remain invisible by having matching uniforms, new names, and forgetting past identities in exchange for new ones consistent with the morals of Gilead (261). Handmaids fulfil no other purpose than to bear children, while barren wives must provide companionship for their husbands, perform domestic duties, and raise the children; every women’s body becomes a replaceable object controlled by Gilead, and all liberties and individuality are taken away, yet the Aunts justify and appear to encourage the subjugation of women. The utopian society employs fear as a powerful motivator to coerce its citizens to live a life of forced compliance and mental enslavement, by being passive and refusing to resist one is able to temporarily remain alive by escaping brutal punishment an...
Benjamin Franklin contributed to the Pennsylvania Gazette, which became the most successful newspaper in the colonies. In 1732, Benjamin published Poor Richard’s Almanack, which gained him huge success. He arranged the United States’ first public library and fire department. Benjamin was elected for many honors such as Grand Master of the Pennsylvania Masons, postmaster of Philadelphia, and clerk of state assembly.
Many texts that were published from different authors have introduced topics that can be related in today’s society, but Margaret Atwood’s creation called, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, gives voice to the thoughts and revolves around the narrator Offred, a woman whose rights have been deprived due to political issues. However, the information shared by Offred to the reader to the text is not reliable for the reason that she only touches upon her own perspective. Through the text, Atwood depicted what the United States of America would be in the future based on the actions of humanity during 1980’s. The text is set up in an androcentric and totalitarian country called Gilead, where the government attempts to create a utopian society. Thus, in order to attain this society, the authorities generated their legislation from the teachings of the Holy Bible in an attempt to control humanity. The governing
laws is to keep the bad things out from the old society out such as
Benjamin Franklin was one of the Founding Fathers of America. Benjamin Franklin was an extraordinary man. He had many different professions such as; statesman, author, publisher, scientist, inventor, and diplomat. Franklin was born into a wealthy family and while growing he was inspired by his father, Josiah Franklin. He had a formal education, but that ended at the age of 10. From there on he learned on his own. His was a great reader and soon to be a skilled writer. With all his writing and reading knowledge he became a successful author and publisher.
The thought of male superiority and women being nothing more than baby incubators is evident in ‘The Handmaid’s tale’. There are no laws that extinguish women's rights in today’s society but there are people who have this mindset, even though it is a minority. Some of the laws in Gilead may be different as the laws and normalities are the opinions of the few people who believe that male superiority is embraced to a further extent. The novel represents sex as something no longer for two significant others but for mens pleasure and women’s sole use, procreation. When Offred
In The Handmaids Tale, Gilead the dystopian state is the reason for all of misery and misuse of power. In the book, the narrator Offred explains how Gilead came to be. Gilead was created because of low birth rates, the mass killing of the congress and the president, and pollution from radioactivity and toxic waste. From there, social classes were created to determine each role of people in the society. The Handmaids are used to make babies of the Commanders, while the Wives are underneath the Handmaid, and the action of sexual intercourse takes place. The Commanders are the men that are high in ranking of Gilead, and their Wives are considered to be sterile, and this is where the use of Handmaids come in. The narrator Offred is a Handmaid and she explains how she feels “erased” and how she is powerless and becomes suicidal. During pre-Gilead, the rights of women were abolished, and given to the closest family male member. This is where Offred feels powerless because her husband Luke wanted to make love that night the law was passed for women, but she refu...
Starbucks Coffee came on the scene with just one store in 1971. After that time, the Seattle coffee shop has exploded into something like 16,000 spots in over 50 various nations (Gaudio, 2003). The organization makes sure that it fulfills every part of its mission: “to inspire Starbucks Coffee Company denotes to their workers as “partners,” for whom they offer extensive training and benefits
I chose to place focus on Starbucks because I personally don 't like this particular coffee shop and I think it 's overpriced. but I was also fascinated by their marketing strategies which is one of Starbuck’s strengths. The marketing strategies Starbucks uses is their monopolistic advantage among its competitors, because of its popularity has kept its monopoly, and also because of it the company has found its way into
"Total Quality Management is a [holistic] business management methodology that aligns the activities of all employees in an organization with the common focus of customer satisfaction [to be achieved] through continuous improvement in the quality of all activities [processes], ...
University of Phoenix. (Ed.) (1998). Achieving Quality through Continuous Improvement, [University of Phoenix E-text], John Wiley & Sons Inc. Retrieved March 7, 2008 from University of Phoenix, Resource, MGT/449---Quality Management and Productivity: https://mycampus.phoenix.edu/secure/resource/resource.asp