Violence In The Handmaid's Tale

The book the handmaid’s tale written by Margaret Atwood, written in 1985 tells the story about a totalitarian society in which women are forced out of jobs and property. The architects of Gilead use religion as a way of controlling the people and use fear to keep that control. The main features of Gilead are strict discipline and national security through the use of religion. The story follows the life of a handmaid, Offred and what she had to do to escape Gilead. “Better never means better for everyone... It always means worse, for some.” The Narrator Offred is a Handmaid in Gilead, a totalitarian and theocratic state. Due to very low reproductive rates, Handmaids are assigned to different elite couples

A woman called Aunt Lydia supervises the women at the center, giving speeches trying to brain wash them into thinking this new society is better and safer than the old world, she also coaches them on how women should behave and what is expected of them, which in her eyes is just to bear children. Their roles will be to have emotionless, non-erotic sex with the elite in order to provide society with children. While at the center the narrator is happy to see her friend Moira, by seeing her she knows she has an ally, however Moira escapes, and Offred does not know what becomes of

The two meet in the bathroom where she learns Moira’s story of her recapture and chooses to work at Jezebel’s instead of the colonies which had toxic chemicals. Later on that night the Commander and Offred end up having sex in a hotel room. When Offred returns home, she is instructed by the commander's wife to have sex with Nick, the commander’s chauffeur and driver in exchange she will show her a picture of her daughter .This was in an effort to get her pregnant and pass the child off as the commander’s child. Eventually Offred and Nick start having sex on a regular basis and she tells him about her life