More handpicked essays just for you.
Female status in the handmaid's tale
Female status in the handmaid's tale
Female status in the handmaid's tale
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood is a riveting dystopian tale that shows the journey of a young woman whose sole job is to produce children. Offred, the main character, is portrayed as a kind woman with a slightly twisted sense of humor. However, through the use of recurring motifs, Atwood reveals that while Offred does indeed go through a terrible journey, she inevitably is unable to learn and grow from it and therefor is stuck as a static character.
One of the most prevalent areas that Offred is passive and unchanging is through her relationships. Offred has been in a prior affair with a married man, named Luke, and has seen the destruction that unravels with it. However she begins yet another one in her new life. Although , as
…show more content…
Throughout the novel, many escape roots presented themselves to Offred. While it may have seemed like she was taking big risks, truley any progress that was made, was not of her own doing. Offred's “Knowing was a temptation. What you don't know won't tempt you,” statement shows that she wouldn't have even thought of certain escape plans if she wasn't tempted in the first place (47). While the handmaid's job was “to be gentle, expressive, homemakers,” as Jill Swale points out in her discussion of the politics in The Handmaid's Tale, Offred did not try to break that demeaning position (Swale). She once again was compliant to what the society had told her to be. Her only reference of freedom that didn't come from others was about suicide, “ It isn't running away they're afraid of. We wouldn't get far. It's those other escapes, the ones you can open in yourself, given a cutting edge,” (38). Even then she only briefly mentions it, trying not to dwell on it. This is because it would be against her static nature to change or evolve into gaining her own freedom. Later on in the novel she even says “ The fact is that I no longer want to leave, escape, cross the border to freedom,” (226). After months of dreadfulness and a horrendous quality of life, it all changed because of a boy. Offred is just willing to do whatever the man in her life wants her to do. This is repeated several times in the book with Luke and the …show more content…
"The Handmaid's Tale in context: a dystopian text such as The Handmaid's Tale can be seen as a commentary on the context in which it was written. Amanda Greenwood shows how the practical and philosophical choices available to women in the mid-1980s inform the novel." The English Review, vol. 20, no. 2, 2009, p. 10+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=avlr&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA210222997&it=r&asid=def760fa99b60e8d412b205ec7185a24. Accessed 5 Nov. 2017
Shead, Jackie. "Multiple reflections: Jackie Shead explores layers of meaning in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale." The English Review, vol. 15, no. 2, 2004, p. 18+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=avlr&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA125878392&it=r&asid=e8579a7a8247373eb4ef835bd15af2bf. Accessed 5 Nov. 2017. Swale, Jill. "Feminism, and politics in The Handmaid's Tale: Jill Swale examines the social and historical context of Atwood's novel. (Literature in Context)." The English Review, vol. 13, no. 1, 2002, p. 37+. General OneFile, go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?p=GPS&sw=w&u=avlr&v=2.1&id=GALE%7CA92950402&it=r&asid=0781a50c6cc4bde765382852d8e5c083. Accessed 5 Nov.
In the novel offred and others in that time was going through hardships, struggles and challenges.
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.
Offred is a handmaid, in the novel The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood, who no longer desired to rebel against the government of Gilead after they separated her from her family. When Offred was taken away from her family the Government of Gilead placed her in an institution known as the Red Center where they trained her along with other women unwillingly to be handmaids. The handmaid’s task was to repopulate the society because of the dramatic decrease in population form lack of childbirth. Handmaids are women who are put into the homes of the commanders who were unable to have kids with their own wives. The Handmaids had very little freedom and were not allowed to do simple tasks by themselves or without supervision like taking baths or going to the store. There was an uprising against the government of Gilead and many people who lived in this society including some handmaids looked for a way to escape to get their freedom back which was taken away from them and to reunited with their families which they lost contact with. Offred was one of the handmaids who was against the government of Gilead before she was put in the Red Center, but she joined the uprising after she became a
There are two possible events that can occur with Offred's arrest and readers have the ability to open the book to new possibilities. If Offred is arrested, she will likely be tried for treason and killed. However, if she escapes into freedom, she will have a new lifestyle away from Gilead. She is different from Winston as she only wants to survive and survives because of her memories of her past Conclusion:
Wisker, Gina. Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale: A Reader's Guide. London; New York : Continuum, c2010. Web. 02 Apr. 2014.
... the past, Offred continues to hope that her husband, Luke, is still alive. She reveals this as she observes the bodies hanging at the wall and comments that she feels relief because, "Luke wasn't a doctor. Isn't" (44). Not only does she defy the system be refusing to accept this society as the end of all things, but she also persists in hoping that she will someday awaken from this nightmare and things will be the way they used to be.
The ability to create life is an amazing thing but being forced to have children for strangers is not so amazing. Offred is a handmaid, handmaid's have children for government officials, such as Commander Waterford. Offred used to be married to Luke and together they had a daughter but then everything changed; Offred was separated from her family and assigned to a family as their handmaid. 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 change.
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 Handmaid’s Tale (Contemporary Classics). Journals Bertens, H. (2001) Literary Theory: The Basics, The Politics of Class: Marxism. Abingdon, Routledge. Sourced in AQA Critical Anthology LITB4/PM Issued September 2008.
Offred was captured and turned into a handmaid. Population and fertility rates were at an all-time low when Gilead took over. Handmaids’ job is to bear kids for couples. Offred isn’t our character’s
Neuman, Shirley. "'Just A Backlash': Margaret Atwood, Feminism, And "The Handmaid's Tale.." University Of Toronto Quarterly 75.3 (2006): 857-868. Academic Search Elite. Web. 24 Apr. 2014.
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.
The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a compelling tale of a dystopian world where men are the superior sex and women are reduced to their ability to bear children, and when that is gone, they are useless. The story is a very critical analysis of patriarchy and how patriarchal values, when taken to the extreme, affect society as a whole. The result is a very detrimental world, where the expectation is that everyone will be happy and content but the reality is anything but. The world described in The Handmaid’s tale is one that is completely ruled by patriarchal values, which is not unlike our society today.
In this manner, Atwood’s characterization of Offred through her individuality and defiant nature, ultimately allow her to present just how societal expectations go hand in hand with gender roles as Offred challenges them just to retain the most basic parts of her identity as a female.