Masculinity In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

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Campbell later also creates an image of the girls are watching Frankenstein, which in a way exemplifies how the boys merely using and objectifying these young ladies. Cutting one head of a body and putting it onto another's, creating what one boy happens to mention would be ‘the perfect girl’ yet in reality would be a monster of human creation, or in this case a boys wet dream. Sexual and abusive advances as such that these teenage boys have been taught by their elders and have been allowed to be brushed off are starting to turn into violent and dangerous acts and treated like they’re merely stealing from the cookie jar. Young men have been accused to having sexual and abusive motives towards young women in “colleges, [and] are struggling …show more content…

In some cases, this ideology of masculinity could be taught to be honorable but most of the time these young men are using it as an excuse to perform misguided acts, and are getting away with it too. In the novel, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Margaret Atwood creates a life in which men have complete control due to their new and improved totalitarian government, the Republic of Gilead, and the grace of their ‘God.’ In this new lifestyle, the society justifies the raping of woman as a form of reproduction and a way of giving men a new purpose in life. Previously, they were lost without being the protectors of the woman since all were created to be equal. Being able to have sex with whomever you pleased man the act lose all true meaning, and solely be an act of lust rather than love and …show more content…

The main problem was with the men. There was nothing for them anymore, I’m not talking about sex... That was part of it, the sex was too easy. You know what they were complaining about the most? Inability to feel. Men were turning off on sex, even. They were turning off on marriage. Do they feel now? Yes… They do,” (Atwood, 210). By crafting themselves into being providers for the woman and overall for the society once more, the men of their world have once again found an honorable purpose. This was their way of letting masculinity become more important than femininity, and was the result of letting masculinity poison their egos for so long. After reading the novel, many readers have different critiques towards her written work. Personally, I agree with The New York Times Companies form of literary

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