Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
Love of God replaces love of humanity in Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale. Offred’s recollections of her past life, especially of her husband, are ones filled with passion and happiness as she remembers his tenderness towards her. Much more emphasis is put on the physical human form in her memories; she often remembers lying with her husband while she wears little or no clothing. Appreciation of the human form is an essential component of loving humanity. Offred remembers the love she felt for her friends with whom she enjoyed spending time and conversing. When her friend is taken away, Offred spends much time mourning the loss of this person from her life. She also longs, throughout the novel, to be reunited with her husband. While she has not seen him in years, his memory lives strong in her mind, and she can often imagine him arriving at the Commander’s house and rescuing her. Her memories almost all revolve around human interaction because that is what she cherished most and that is what society held to be most important. But that was before the religious revolution.
The new era of government ushers in a time where humanity is meaningless and the world revolves around God. One example of this is the sex ritual that Offred has to undergo with the Commander. Sex is the ultimate expression of humanity, but she is forced into doing it without any sort of emotion. Furthermore, Offred’s needs as an individual are petty and insignificant throughout Atwood’s work. Offred is expected to keep qualms and concerns to herself and to obey the strict lifestyle laid out for her. Additionally, the human form is not something to be celebrated in this new world, but it is rather something to be...
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...she did not die in the novel, she gave up her body for the continuation of mankind. What better martyr, I thought, than Jesus Christ himself. After much thought, I decided upon Giotto’s rendition of Christ on the cross from the Arena Chapel in Padua, Italy.
I faced a major challenge in picking the paintings, apart from my utter lack of knowledge of art history. Each of these paintings was done with such precision and care that the artist likely loaded each one with symbolism and deeper meanings which would not be applicable to The Handmaid’s Tale. As an example of this, my friend who had studied Picasso’s “Guernica” launched into a lengthy description of what the painting meant, when I only used it for the image of war that it projects. Clearly many of these paintings carry baggage that is unwanted for my purposes, and this is a challenge that I face as the author.
Columbian Exchange: The Columbian Exchange was an exchange of peoples, animals, diseases, and foods between hemispheres. Foods and diseases from the New World, such as maize, potatoes, and syphilis, were carried to Europe. Food, livestock, and diseases, such as wheat, barley, cattle, horses, smallpox, measles, and influenza, traveled across the Atlantic to the New World. This term is
Columbian Exchange or the big exchange was a great exchange on a wide range of animals (Horses, Chickens, sheep, swine, Turkey), plants (Wheat, barley, corn, beans, tomatoes), people and culture, infectious diseases, and ideas, technology (Wheeled vehicles, iron tools, metallurgy) all these things happened between Native Americans and from Europe after the voyage of Christopher Columbus in 1492. Resulting in communication between the two cultures to initiate a number of crops that have led to the increase in population in both hemispheres, where the explorers returned to Europe loaded with corn, tomatoes, potatoes, which has become one of the main crops in Eurasia with the solutions of the eighteenth century. At the same time, the Europeans crops, cassava and peanuts to Southeast Asia with a tropical climate.
In The Handmaid’s Tale, much use is made of imagery; to enable the reader to create a more detailed mental picture of the novel’s action and also to intensify the emotive language used. In particular, Atwood uses many images involving flowers and plants.
Much like women worldwide, the handmaids are alike in that they face a mutual dilemma. They are forced to accept an unjust reality and are changed greatly because of it. First Offred is forced to abandon her family and her societal role to assume a new one, she “[yearns] for the future,” where this reality no longer exists. The reds have a “talent for insatiability” that always remains “in the air”(3-4). Yet, this fundamental longing for change, for the progress of women, is one that has been present in culture for many centuries. Atwood’s depiction of Offred’s desire for a new reality is one that many individuals in society already aspire to obtain, for they currently face dystopian-like circumstances of being silenced much like the handmaids. Offred “[tries] not to think too much” because while she is intelligent
...r women in the society, but she longs for her freedom and for the life she once lived. Because she was caught trying to run away to Canada at the beginning, she is scared to attempt escape again. When the Commander first shows interest in Offred, he, to her surprise wants a friendship from her and not just a sexual relationship. He hides away with her and they play board games, which is double forbidden as women are strictly not allowed to read, and normal friendships between men and handmaids are also forbidden. The Commander’s wife is unable to have children, so his relationship with her is supposed to be only sexual and only for the good and existence of the population. Offred is happy to rebel against the Gilead rules and happy to do so with the Commander. He gives her forbidden presents and asks for romantic gestures as to hint as his true feelings towards her.
The Columbian Exchange was a period where exchanges between the New and Old Worlds took place. There were cultural and biological exchanges and these included plants, animals, diseases and even technology (Crosby, A.). These exchanges not only transformed the European and Native American ways of life but made it easier. The Columbian Exchange not only transformed life but impacted the social and cultural structure of both sides of the World. Advancements in agricultural production was seen, there was an evolution of warfare, an increased mortality rates and education was also effect by the Columbian Exchange on both the Europeans and Native Americans (Crosby, A.). This exchange began in 1492 with Columbus ' discovery but afterwards, the trade
Before the war handmaids had their own lives, families, and jobs but that’s all gone now; They have all been separated from their families and assigned to A Commander and his wife to have their child. Handmaids did not choose this life but it was forced upon them. The society which Offred is forced to live in shaped her in many ways. In The Handmaid's Tale, Margaret Atwood uses cultural and geographical surroundings to shape Offred's psychological and moral traits as she tries to survive the society that she is forced to live, in hopes that she can rebel and make
In Franz Kafka's The Metamorphosis, Gregor Samsa's sudden transformation into a cockroach is appalling to all that encounter him, but none attempt to cure him of his affliction. The acceptance of his condition by Gregor and those around him highlights the underlying existentialist and absurdist perspective within the characters' attempt to come to terms with this circumstance. In the face of this dramatically absurd metamorphosis, Gregor does not blame a higher power, nor himself. As time wears on, he not only refrains from questioning his transformation but, at times lavishes in it and embraces it. His adjustment, and the adjustment of his family members, is not one of questioning his new life, but rather attempting to accept it for exactly what it is. In this way, Gregor and his family, particularly his father and sister, epitomize rationalization and freedom of choice in the face of absurdity.
Offred, among other women depicted in this novel, tries to overcome this dominion. In her own way, she attempts to do this by ensuring the Commander’s expectations of her behavior which could result in her freedom. Thus, there is a present power struggle between the Commander and Offred throughout The Handmaid’s
In Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale, women are subjected to unthinkable oppression. Practically every aspect of their life is controlled, and they are taught to believe that their only purpose is to bear children for their commander. These “handmaids” are not allowed to read, write or speak freely. Any type of expression would be dangerous to the order of the Gilead’s strict society. They are conditioned to believe that they are safer in this new society. Women are supposedly no longer exploited or disrespected (pornography, rape, etc.) as they once were. Romantic relationships are strongly prohibited because involving emotion would defeat the handmaid’s sole purpose of reproducing. Of course not all women who were taken into Gilead believed right what was happening to their way of life. Through the process of storytelling, remembering, and rebellion, Offred and other handmaids cease to completely submit to Gilead’s repressive culture.
It seems that more often when a group of people or a nation encounters calamity, some great “act of God,” or even just change, collectively, we begin to seek answers from a higher power. We tend to either blame or seek solace in this higher power or we seek what it is we can change to please this higher power. Without realizing we begin to adjust laws, limit freedoms, and become despotic fascist, all in the name of God. This fear of conforming and reverting back to the “dark ages,” constraining women to “know their role or place” is what seems to have driven Margaret Atwood to write her satirical novel “The Handmaids Tale.”
There are various moments in this book where the personal discovery of the Handmaid, Offred, is displayed. In almost every chapter there is a moment where she recognizes the everyday changes that have happened in her life. Gilead changed the lives of many different people. From having all the freedom one could ever want to having to obey the government’s every order; most people were not happy with this change. Offred was one victim in particular who did not like the new changes. It split her family apart. Her husband Luke was either taken to an unknown place or killed, her daughter was given to a different mother, and she was put to use as a Handmaid. Offred’s life was changed in many detrimental ways. Her job is to now be placed in the home of a Commander and his infertile Wifeand be a “two-legged womb(s), that’s all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices” until they give birth to a child (Atwood 136). After they give birth to the child, they are allowed to stay for a short while to nurse the child. They are then moved into the next home of a Commander to rep...
In the play, Hamlet is a tragic hero since he does not try to stop the war but conduct a revenge that becomes a vicious circle. He is unable to make a decision whether he should revenge on the death of the elder King or not, losing the characteristics that heroes have. Surprisingly, Hamlet kills Polonius in a moment, meaning he kills other people’s father as well. He detests the behavior of Claudius, now he has become another Claudius. Thus, Polonius’s son, Laertes starts getting revenge for his father’s murder. Laertes states, “To hell, allegiance! Vow, to the blackest devil! Conscience and grace, to the profoundest pit! I dare damnation. To this point I stand that both the worlds I give to negligence. Let come what comes, only I’ll be revenged most thoroughly for my father.” (4.5 129-134) Hamlet wants to get revenge for his father because he is experiencing the loss of a loved one; however, he causes other people suffering the same pain. Comparing the two people taking revenge, Laertes displays more characteristics of a hero and is more manly than
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.
Both Laertes and Hamlet firmly associate themselves with their families. Laetres highly respects his father and loves him very much. Similarly Hamlets conveys this by comparing his father to “Hyperion” a sun god. “This visitation Is but to whet thy almost blunted purpose” They both share a strong but different love for Ophelia. Laertes departing of advice onto Ophelia concerning her relations with Hamlet can be explained as a wish for safety, emotions and virtue which he considers to be at threat by Hamlet, ”But you must fear, his greatness weighed, his will is not his own”. With Hamlet it can be clearly seen in the scene of Ophelia’s funeral where he declares his love for her and his distress of the departure of her soul, “forty thousand brothers could not with all their quantity of love make my sum!”. Just before this both Hamlet and Laertes jump in her grave for a scuffle, without even a consideration. This is also an example of the two characters rashness.