Power In The Handmaid's Tale

The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood that explores the idea of a society based around reproductivity. In this novel a group of people called The Republic of Gilead, come together and through power they create a completely immoral society. They gain and maintain power by separating the people and creating conflict, instilling fear in the citizens, and normalizing wrongdoing. These three things all play an important role in creating a successfully dark society.
The women hold little power in this society and are divided into different groups to keep order. Conflict is created between differing groups of women to help The Republic of Gilead keep control of its citizens. This separation makes women blind to the fact that they are being mistreated. Their segregation from society is hidden by the separation amongst the women themselves. This makes it impossible for women to stand up for their rights and causes them to remain in seperation. Two major groups are The Marthas and The Handmaids. The Handmaid's job is to

Overtime Gilead becomes more and more powerful and people get used to the way society is run. When Offred is shown the dead hanging bodies of homosexuals, Aunt Lydia states “Ordinary, said Aunt Lydia, is what you are used to. This may not seem ordinary to you now, but after a time it will. It will become ordinary”(33). This quote shows how Gilead is able to transform a humans natural response to a situation through power. Offred’s natural emotion is to be disturbed but instead she just observes it as though she was looking at any ordinary object. Overtime things that were once inappropriate and wrong become normal and socially acceptable. This allows the citizens to believe the way that society is run is morally correct. If the people believe things are the way they should be then it is simple for The republic of Gilead to do as they