A woman’s power and privileges depend on which societal class she is in. In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale each group of women are each represented in a different way. The three classes of women from the novel are the Handmaids, the Marthas and the Wives. The ways in which the women are portrayed reflect their societal power and their privileges that they bestow.
A woman’s color of clothing that she wears reflects her social class status and what she is capable of. If a woman is able to have sex freely, or at all, is also dependent on her class. A women’s role in the dystopian society is also based on her class. Both of these factors reflect her power and privileges.
The role of a woman in this society is entirely dependent upon the color of cloths that she wears. The women will get this color for a specific reason. If a woman is able to reproduce she will become a Handmaid. The Handmaids exist because the Wives are physically unable to have a child of their own. The Handmaid’s position is to reproduce for the Commander and his wife, so that they can have a family together. A woman will become a Martha if she is unable to reproduce. The Martha’s job is to look after the families. She has to care for the family, protect them, and to comfort them at all times. The Wives job is to essentially have her family. The wife is to make sure the Handmaid has her child and she is to be calm and peaceful. A woman would become one of the Wives if she was already married to her husband before the laws in their society changed.
The color of clothing that the women wear is an important element because it helps to show the women’s power and privileges. The color of clothing a woman wears reflects how much freedom she will have. Th...
... middle of paper ...
...en the handmaids are going to the market “You don’t see the Commanders’ Wives on the sidewalks. Only in cars” (27) which shows how much more power the wives have.
The amount of power and privileges that the women have is completely dependent upon where she falls in the groups of women. The women are completely marginalized. This could be because the women each have a different potential towards each job that needs to be done, but this is just the reason that appears on the outside. To have complete control the government separates the women, but it is not just the women that are separated, everyone is. They are separated so that no one in the society will unite and riot for the laws in society to change. Each role is given more power and privileges than another. This way, the wives won’t join with the Marthas. The wives do not want to jeopardize what they have.
The book begins by explaining the roles that women in this time were known to have as this helps the reader get a background understanding of a woman’s life pre-war. This is done because later in the book women begin to break the standards that they are expected to have. It shows just how determined and motivated these revolutionary women and mothers were for independence. First and foremost, many people believed that a “woman’s truth was that God had created her to be a helpmate to a man” (p.4). Women focused on the domain of their households and families, and left the intellectual issues of the time and education to the men. Legally, women had almost no rights. Oppressed by law and tradition, women were restricted their choice of professions regardless of their identity or economic status. As a result, many women were left with few choices and were cornered into marriage or spinsterhood, which also had its limitations. As a spinster, you were deemed as unmarried who was past the usual age of marriage. Patronized by society, these women were left and stamped as “rejected”. On the other side, If the woman became married, all that she owned belonged to her husband, even her own existence. In exchange to her commitment, if a woman’s husband was away serving in the military or if she became a widower, she could use but not own, one-third of her husband’s property. This left her to manage the land and serve as a surrogate laborer in her husband’s absence. Needless to say, a day in a woman’s life then was filled with a full day of multi-tasking and as circumstances changed, more women had to adapt to their urban
To understand the significant change in the role of the women is to understand its roots. Traditionally, women in colonial America were limited in the roles they played or limited in their "spheres of influence." Women were once seen as only needed to bear children and care for them. Their only role was domestic; related to activities such as cooking and cleaning. A married woman shared her husband's status and often lived with his family. The woman was denied any legal control over her possession, land, money, or even her own children after a divorce. In a sense, she was the possession of her husband after marriage. She "... was a legal incompetent, as children, idiots, and criminals were under English law. As feme covert she was stripped of all property; once married, the clothes on her back, her personal possessions--whether valuable, mutable or merely sentimental--and even her body became her husband's, to direct, to manage, and to use. Once a child was born to the couple, her land, too, came under his control." (Berkin 14)
Women were auctioned off as “merchandise” to the best suitor they could get in town. Beauty, though important, was not as important as the dowry the woman possessed, because it was the dowry the family provided that could exalt a man’s societal status to all new heights. Once married, women were expected to have son’s for their husbands in order to take over the family business. A barren woman was not an option and could have easily been rushed to the nearest convent to take her vows of a nun, for no honor could be brought otherwise. No woman could run from the societal and legal pressures placed upon them. Rather than run, some chose to accept their place, but, like Lusanna, some chose to fight the status quo for rights they believed they
Lynn Peril writes a fascinating study of pink color and its historical connection to ideas and beliefs of femininity. Peril translates and defines Pink Think as collection of specific ideas, beliefs, and approaches of how and when is feminine behavior considered as proper. Throughout her book, Peril is pointing out various fundamental approaches and attitudes that are considered to be crucial for women achievements and accomplishments. Peril's Pink Think also advocates how greatest concern of femininity is related to women physical appearance (fashion and beauty) and their marriage (motherhood and housekeeper). Furthermore, Peril is demonstrating an evolution of femininity, and constant and intense impact of its norms and rules on women lives.
They had no right to do anything other than what they were supposed to do. They did not have the same rights as men did. They were considered to be nothing but a form of maid to their husband. They were not allowed to have a say in anything including themselves. Their opinion was not as valuable as men. Gender roles are institutionalized in Pleasantville through the way women and men were expected to do certain roles. In the film women were expected to do the housework and stay at home. It was not normal for a women to work or to not have dinner made .A woman was supposed to stay in the house with the kids, prepare food for the family and have it ready when the husband came back from work. They were also expected to look beautiful at all times with their makeup and hair done so they can look attractive for their husbands. They were to not worry about a thing because It was not allowed for them to worry about anything since they only had to worry about pleasing their husband. They were also supposed to act “ladylike” because anything other than this was not accepted in their village. Men were the only workers in the family and were the sole provider because women were not allowed to work. Being the sole provider gave them power over their family which contributed to the feeling of male superiority and gave women less power in the household. They were also to be the decision makers of the family. The gender of a person determined everything. It determine how you were supposed to act and what was your role within your family. Gender roles also dictated how each gender is to speak, think, act, and engage with each
...es clear that women are able to maintain their agency even when it seems impossible. They may not be able to make huge changes in their lives but the agency they do have allows them to manipulate situations in their favor and/or ensure their voice is heard. This fact is clear through Janie’s internal and externa rebellions in Their Eyes Were Watching God and Mrs. Ramsay’s ability to change views and her choice of language in To The Lighthouse. Overall, this demonstrates the issues with agency for wives. They often find themselves in an oppressive relationship that makes it difficult to sustain their agency, thus they must be creative in their choices in how they remain active agents. This issue is common in modernist narratives and beyond. It is a topic that needs to be explored in literature so it can be explored in the real world with real world consequences.
Thesis: In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood characterizes Handmaids, as women with expectations to obey the society’s hierarchy, as reproducers, symbolizing how inferior the Handmaid class is to others within Gilead; the class marginalization of Handmaids reveals the use of hierarchical control exerted to eliminate societal flaws among citizens.
Women during the medieval period had certain role with their husbands, depending on his social status. The wives were placed into a class according to their husband’s line of work or social status (Time Traveler’s 54). This social status may be favorable, but not all wives were able to make it into the elite social status. Once the woman was committed, and married to her husband, she was totally controlled by her husband. Even though the wife was able to maintain the same social status of the husband, she lost a lot of rights after she married. Women during the medieval period not only lost a lot of their rights, but also became somewhat of a slave to the husband in many ways.
In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale there is a threat of physical, emotional, and mental abuse if you disagree with the established group or party. The Handmaid’s Tale is a book about a “woman victimized by a totalitarian system that attempts to control her thoughts and deny her humanity” (Thomas 90). In The Handmaid’s Tale there are differences between all the women. There are the wives, who are married to the commanders. The commanders are in charge of all the other women. There are the econowives, which are the wives of the low-ranking officials. The Martha’s are in charge of the upkeep of the commander’s house. The Handmaid’s are in charge of having the commander’s baby. Each woman has to listen to their husband or commander. No woman can think for herself. The men are in charge of everything. (Atwood, Thomas)
In her novel Good Wives Laurel Thatcher Ulrich explores the roles women played in northern New England throughout the 17th and 18th centuries. In her exploration she describes both the idealized and realized roles that were filled by New England women. Ulrich categorizes the books into three parts, each part named for a biblical female who represents traits that aligned with New England expectations for women. Ulrich emphasizes that women were expected to fill many roles at once, “A married woman in early New England was simultaneously a housewife, a deputy husband, a consort, a mother, a mistress, a neighbor, and a Christian. On the war-torn frontier she might also become a heroine” (pg 9). Ulrich maintained the stance that none of these roles could occur in isolation and dedicated the remainder of Good Wives to the study of how those many roles would be fulfilled.
Throughout the book, many of the wives note how they wish that they were able to pursue their goals and dreams, but were unable to due to the fact that they had responsibilities as a wife. I think that by putting themselves in a position where they could be viewed as undeserving upper class members who did not work, it not created a dependency to their husbands financially, it portrayed them as women incapable of supporting themselves or their desires in life. “Upper-class women, like other women, experience dissatisfaction with their role as wives–with its expected mode of accommodation, unequal voice in family decisions, and sole responsibility for home and family”
The Handmaid's Tale is a dystopian novel in which Atwood creates a world which seems absurd and near impossible. Women being kept in slavery only to create babies, cult like religious control over the population, and the deportation of an entire race, these things all seem like fiction. However Atwood's novel is closer to fact than fiction; all the events which take place in the story have a base in the real world as well as a historical precedent. Atwood establishes the world of Gilead on historical events as well as the social and political trends which were taking place during her life time in the 1980's. Atwood shows her audience through political and historical reference that Gilead was and is closer than most people realize.
In Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, social turmoil after a staged terrorist attack has led to a totalitarian Christian regime. In this dystopian future, the roles of men and women are much different than in today’s society. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are unequal because they have no choice about their bodies, their dress, or their relationships.
The misogynistic view of women in the 17th century has resulted in women being considered subordinate to men by the Putaritarian (England) society. Thus, they were dependant on their husbands, similar to how servants relied on their “owners” for financial stability. Chudleigh identifies women as servants, to reflect the status given to them in the 17th century, “Wife and servant are the same, But only
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.