In 2014, people need to be kept current on events around the world. The news, however biased, feeds this necessity. In a dystopian world, this necessity can be manipulated and exploited. In the newscast passage of Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred’s point of view is reliable due to the imagery and diction that are used to convey an attention to detail and her avoiding falling into a false sense of security.
Throughout the passage, imagery defines what Offred sees on TV, forming her opinions on what she views. When she first starts watching the news, she is greeted with an update on the war currently going on in the Appalachian Highlands. In viewing the front lines, she saw “wooded hills, seen from above, the trees a sickly yellow.” (Atwood 82) The distorted colors of the trees display how Offred became absorbed by the newscast. This details her reliability because in an inaccurate remembering of the event, she would not have gone so far out of her way to remember this insignificant detail. Later, when watching the two captured Quakers, Offred noticed that “they’re trying to preserve some dignity in front of the camera...The woman’s veil has been torn off, and her hair falls in strands over her face.” (Atwood 83) Offred notices their struggles. The way the woman’s hair lays across her face depicts that Offred sees her from a non bias perspective. If she would have been inaccurate in telling this story, she would have chosen a side, either the Quakers being terrible or saintly. However, the image of them being dignified, even though both the man and the woman are tattered and dirty demonstrates how she is retelling this as it is happening. Immediately after this, Offred is greeted with what “used to be Detroit. Under t...
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... trapped beyond her will. A child can at least run away. Like a child, she also resists her guardians. She notes how the anchorman is “very convincing” and she wishes that she “could only believe.” Unlike the first quote, these thoughts of defiance informs the reader that she has not been totally brainwashed, and still knows when she might be lied to. Ultimately, the diction used in this passage proves her reliability as a narrator in this section due to her unconscious acknowledgement of the control that this post United States world has on her, all while she still has active resistance to accepting it entirely.
In this passage, Offred’s point of view is reliable. Not because of outside evidence, but because of her imagery and diction. Her understanding of the small details and her word choice help her avoid plunging entirely into the strange world she inhabits.
Although Offred is the heroine of this story, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the hero’s journey can be found in many characters in the story as well. This story is breaking into shambles between the past and the present, however, through the story, readers can still see the signs of the hero’s journey that Joseph Campbell has studied. Offred, being a handmaid, has been thrown into a world where women are powerless and stripped away of their rights to read and write. Atwood illustrates a dystopian world where equality is a part of history, not in the present day Gilead. However, Offred is one of the main characters who ceased to live in a degrading world and find means to escape. Thus, Offred begins on her Hero’s Journey, which occurs
Thesis Statement: Both 1984 by George Orwell and The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood are similar as they are placed in dystopian societies with governments that have complete control over their citizens, however, the roles of the narrator in both novels contrast with each other. In 1984, the point of view is Limited Omniscient while the point of view in The Handmaid's Tale is first person. 1. Topic Sentence: As there are differences in the narration of both the novels, 1984 and the Handmaid’s Tale, the role of the narrators will be quite different as readers see different perspectives in each novel. In The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, readers are introduced to Offred, who is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead.
Offred and everyone else is taken from their old lives and forced into a new life where they lost their loved ones and are isolated from everything they enjoyed and took for granted in their old lives. Offred, over everything else had the hardest time coping with the isolation from her daughter. Offred said “I want her back, I want it all back, the way it was” (Atwood 122). This quote is showing the pain and how desperately Offred wanted to be back in the life she had in before and to have her daughter with her, it shows how she is isolated from her daughter due to the subjugation and it proves how detrimental it was for her. Offred similarly to Smart and Chiyo had to deal with isolation that came with the subjugation and they had a very difficult time with it as it was very detrimental to all of
The Handmaid’s tale is a story in which throughout the text, the readers witness the events that occurred in Offred’s life in the past or the present. However, for this reason, there is uncertainty that the narrator is telling the truth. “If it 's a story I 'm telling, then I have control over the ending...But if it 's a story, even in my head, I must be telling it to someone. You don 't tell a story only to yourself. There 's always someone else. Even when there is no one.” (Atwood 39-40) This quotation is significant because the readers know that the irony of her telling that this is a story is evident that she has control because the reader is limited to the knowledge of the narrator. Overall, The Handmaid’s tale focuses on many topics, but the main idea of the story is that the actions of what society does, foreshadows their future. When there is no one to lean on after the physically present superior model is gone, people will learn to turn to and have faith in an unseen
“Atwood looks explicitly at the thesis that we are our own enemies,” (Feuer). What Feuer is trying to explain is that the women in the Gilead society feed into the treatment of feminism and do nothing to stop it. This goes hand and hand with Offred's problem with her relationships. Offred sets her relationships for failure when she begins a relationship in a sticky situation. As a handmaid, she is not allowed to see Nick or have any relationship for that matter. Because of the riskiness, the relationship was doomed from the start just as the one with Luke. As soon as Offred got comfortable with Nick and they were intimate, Offred began analyzing so many things and questioning everything, but she gave into herself as she is her own enemy. She was incapable of standing up to her temptations and therefore Offred did not learn to become a better person. Aside from Nick, Offred also had a forbidden relationship with the Commander. Offered was still a Handmaid that abided by the rules before she went to her secret meetings with the Commander. Offred “...constructs her own subjectivity through language as a mode of survival…”
Similarly to Montag, reading provides Offred with a sense of rebellion and acts as a way to fight against conformity, as women are not allowed to read. The Latin phrase which is carved into her closet symbolises inner resistance to Gilead, allowing her to feel as though she can communicate with the woman who engraved the message; even more so does it make Offred rebellious, when the meaning of the phrase is revealed to be “Don’t
In it Atwood is no longer writing in Offred’s voice, instead she writes from the perspective of male intellectuals remarking on the discovery of Offred’s story years after her life. With exception to the first, a transitional sentence from the last paragraph, the sentences in this paragraph are long-winded and carry a tone of pretension. The longest sentence pushes 80 words, full of complex diction like “signification” and “contention.” In choosing these words Atwood shows how the men take pride in their large vocabulary, using it to show off to one another. The most significant choice Atwood makes in this final paragraph however is to return to the wordplay so beloved of Offred. Through this Atwood reveals that the title of the novel is little more than a pun made by the men upon discovering Offred’s story, buried as tapes in a military locker. The men use the word “tale” as a homophone for “tail” as used in the phrase “get some tail” when referring to sex. In doing so Atwood shows how the language so important to Offred throughout the book is now used against her, reducing her once again to an object for men’s desires. The very tool Offred used to ground herself, to reinforce her humanity now mocks her, made into a crude joke for the benefit of her
Offred has not portrayed any heroic characteristics in The Handmaid’s Tale, through her actions of weakness, fear, and self-centredness. This novel by Margaret Atwood discusses about the group take over the government and control the Gilead’s society. In this society, all women has no power to become the leader, commander like men do. Offred is one of them, she has to be a handmaid for Serena and the Commander, Fred. Offred wants to get out of this society, that way she has to do something about it. There wasn’t any performances from her changing the society.
Offred’s experiences throughout the novel are only that of fiction, however, many women throughout the world actually go through similar situations to hers. Too many countries, such as Nigeria, are experiencing gross inequalities in the treatment and rights of the men and women. This is a big hurdle for the future of the world. One of the largest problems of inequality is both a consequence of and an obstacle for gender inequality. It is a simple lack of education. Many countries are working towards evening this gap, but in those countries that simply ignore it, they are much further from a world of equality.
As you read through the handmaid’s tale you see the relationships of the characters develop and the fight for power, however small that glimpse of power may be. The images of power can be seen through out the novel, but there are major parts that stand out to the reader from the aunt’s in the training centre to the secret meetings between the Commander and Offred.
Throughout The Handmaid’s Tale, the author Margaret Atwood gives the reader an understanding of what life would be like in a theocratic society that controls women’s lives. The narrator, Offred, gives the reader her perspective on the many injustices she faces as a handmaid. Offred is a woman who lived before this society was established and when she undergoes the transition to her new status she has a hard time coping with the new laws she must follow. There are many laws in this government that degrade women and give men the authority to own their household. All women are placed in each household for a reason and if they do not follow their duties they are sent away or killed.
However, as Margaret Atwood warns in her novel The Handmaid’s Tale our reality is a dangerous one in which our complacency can result in the loss of every single one of these freedoms. Offred’s journey gives us a glimpse into what lies ahead for this country if we don’t take action. Her rights have been stolen from her and her family is taken away from her all as she is pushed into the role of a sex slave for the Gilead. Such a grisly depiction of the future is closer to the truth than what meets the eye. The inability to take a stand against this adversity is what is allowing it to begin with. Collectively, we must not stop the fight for actual justice for the oppressed of this country until we see them come to fruition. Inaction now will result in our own
This is the way Atwood gets across her feelings about the future world that Offred lives in. She forms a close relationship with the reader and the character, and then shows the reader Offred’s feelings about different aspects of the world. This is not to say that everyone reading the book will get the exact same thing from it.
Offred can not escape the fact that, in spite of the treatment from Serena Joy and the commander, that they both will have, if not already, an impact on her life. Not to mention Nick also. Nick gave her the comfort and the security that she wanted, and in the end nothing done to her by the commander or his wife mattered to her. Living in the Republic of Gilead will always be a memory that she will probably try to forget. & nbsp;
As The Handmaid’s Tale is considered an allegory of the social injustice women face against traditional expectations of their role in society, the symbolism of the Handmaids and other women as a whole for repressed feminine liberty and sexuality allows Atwood to connect her work to the theme between gender and expectations in her society. As Handmaids in the Republic of Gilead, females are stripped of their previous identity and are defined as a tool of reproduction for the men who is assigned them. At its core, these females are forced against their will to be mere tools, experiencing unwanted sex at least once a month, which Gilead names “The Ceremony”, hiding its true nature as a form of rape. Offred