Wait a second!
More handpicked essays just for you.
More handpicked essays just for you.
Handmaid's tale feminist analysis
Literary analysis of the handmaids tale
Essays the handmaid's tale offred's character and survival techniques
Don’t take our word for it - see why 10 million students trust us with their essay needs.
Recommended: Handmaid's tale feminist analysis
In her novel “The Handmaid’s Tale,” Margaret Atwood eloquently illustrates the horrid society of the Republic of Gilead, overrunned by a Theocracy. Offred, the protagonist, has been given the role of a handmaid in the newly established government were new rules and norms have been adopted following the word of God. In Gilead every inhabitant has an occupation based on gender and class and must devote themselves completely to their role. Offred recounts memories before Gilead and is shocked by the extreme changes she encounters in the present as a handmaid. Offred is a unique character who evolves and goes on a personal journey trying to escape and later understand and accept Gilead as her new reality. Offred is one of the many characters who …show more content…
At the Red Center all the women are conditioned and prepared to bare children for the future commanders that they will serve because their ultimate purpose in Gilead is their fertility. Aunt Lydia is the one responsible of implementing rules and values to all the handmaids and punishing them if they refuse. Aunt Lydia uses brainwashing to subjugate the handmaid's such as when she tells them that Gilead is offering them a better world where they are safe and respected and therefore should be grateful, “There is more than one kind of freedom, said Aunt Lydia. Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of anarchy, it was freedom to. Now you are being given freedom from. Don't underrate it”. Furthermore, Jeanine is another handmaid who represents all of the handmaids that have accepted their role. When Jeanine speaks of the time when she got gang raped, she is bullied by Aunt Lydia and the other handmaids who chant that it was “her fault”, “she deserved it” and “it's a lesson from god”. This is the cruel treatment they receive because before Gilead women were immoral and therefore were punished by God. The aunts at the Red Center surpass their role and transform into a consciousness for the handmaids specifically Offred that maintains them restrained by their own actions. During her …show more content…
Atwood vividly highlights and cultivates the ability of a government system controlled by God that possessively limits and deprives its citizens from equal rights. In the Republic of Gilead the government uses coded language to suppress and manipulate people to resign to its totalitarian rule. The use of coded language allows evil events to take place because they are belittled by society. Language is limited specifically to women because they are not allowed to read, write and communicate freely. This limitation and form of brainwashing is why the residents of Gilead have conformed to their ideals and norms out of fear. They are restrained by being given roles and occupations they must follow. Atwood cultivates this reality by the character of Offred who recounts memories and her present reality. The Republic of Gilead was able to make people accept a Theocracy by instilling fear, limiting the use of language, and using language to minimize the
Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale is a story heavily influenced by the Bible and has many biblical themes that are used to prove Atwood’s belief in balance. The novel is set in the Republic of Gilead, which was formerly the United States. The story is told through the perspective of a handmaid named Offred and begins when she is placed at her third assignment as a housemaid. Offred describes her society as a fundamentalist theocracy where the Christian God is seen as the divine Ruler over the Republic of Gilead.
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
To convey her argument, Atwood uses the point of view of a women named Offred to demonstrate the morals and struggles of women in this male-dominated society known as Gilead. Men have always been given the most important positions in the world whether it be at home or in politics. Just like a match, all we need is something to spark it to bring about the evil of Atwood’s dystopian fantasy into reality.
In The Handmaid 's Tale by Margaret Atwood, readers are introduced to Offred, who is a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. As this novel is
Many texts that were published from different authors have introduced topics that can be related in today’s society, but Margaret Atwood’s creation called, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, gives voice to the thoughts and revolves around the narrator Offred, a woman whose rights have been deprived due to political issues. However, the information shared by Offred to the reader to the text is not reliable for the reason that she only touches upon her own perspective. Through the text, Atwood depicted what the United States of America would be in the future based on the actions of humanity during 1980’s. The text is set up in an androcentric and totalitarian country called Gilead, where the government attempts to create a utopian society. Thus, in order to attain this society, the authorities generated their legislation from the teachings of the Holy Bible in an attempt to control humanity. The governing
In the novel The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood the themes of Religion and inter-human relationships are the themes that are most evident in the text. This novel shows the possibility of the existence of an all-powerful governing system. This is portrayed through the lack of freedom for women in society, from being revoked of their right to own any money or property, to being stripped of their given names and acquiring names such as Offred and Ofglen, symbolizing women’s dependant existence, only being defined by the men which they belong to. This portrayal of women demonstrates the idea that individuals are unimportant, that the goals of the society as a whole are more pertinent. “For our purposes, your feet and your hands are not essential” (chapter 15) is a quote revealing that Gilead denies rights to individuals and to humankind. In The Handmaids Tale, handmaids are only considered of value for their ability to reproduce, otherwise they are disposable. Religion is an aspect very prominent in the society of Gilead. We see this in chapter 4, where Ofglen and Offred meet and th...
Early on it is evident that the authority of this society has been changed from a theocracy to a totalitarian government. The first sentence reveals that the current living quarters of the main character, Offred, are located in "what had once been the gymnasium" (3). The narrator recounts the past fifty years in this place from felt skirts of the fifties to the green spiked hair of the nineties. Then she turns to describe its transformation into what resembles an army barrack but is actually functioning as a kind of prisoner of war camp. In these few short sentences, Atwood has described the conditions of a place called Gilead, which is located in what used to be called the United States. In chapter four the author reveals that the current government is waging a war against the church. This is evidence that this society has shifted away from recognizing God as its supreme authority. The narrator then mentions that church song...
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.
Control dominates all aspects of Gileadian society, from minor, seemingly petty normalities such as the clothes allowed, all the way up to how and who to have sexual relations with. Unimaginable in this day, Atwood represents modern society gone sour, something which is chillingly close enough to reality to get worried about.
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.
To begin with the so called Handmaids are girls who have only one purpose in life which is to reproduce. They are women who when have reached the age and maturity to reproduce have been taken to Gilead where they are tattooed with four digits and an eye (Gilead's tattoo which works as a passport in reverse) which immobilises them, in contrast to the winged male eye which is the state symbol. Then they are re-educated at the so called Red-centre, the name emphasises female sexuality and how they are taught there can be linked with brainwashing. They are told how lucky they should feel because they have been saved from the primitive and cruel outside world where women are being raped and maltreated. Other things they learn are numerous sayings and mottos of the Red-centre like "Pen is Envy" which is based on a Freudian psychoanalytic theory which presents "penis envy" as an essential element of femininity, and a mark of "woman's natural inferiority to men". So knowing this, are they actually better of in Gilead? There they are "valued only in terms of their biological usefulness as child bearers" due to that the birth rate in the society has fallen to a catastrophically low level because of deadly pollution and sexually transmitted diseases which cause sterility and infertility. They are known by their Commanders first names, Of -(name of commander), this to underline their function as sexual objects without individuality.
In Margaret Atwood’s ‘The Handmaids Tale’, we hear a transcribed account of one womans posting ‘Offred’ in the Republic of Gilead. A society based around Biblical philosophies as a way to validate inhumane state practises. In a society of declining birth rates, fertile women are chosen to become Handmaids, walking incubators, whose role in life is to reproduce for barren wives of commanders. Older women, gay men, and barren Handmaids are sent to the colonies to clean toxic waste.
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 of each 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. Atwood bases the irrational laws in the Gilead republic on the many
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.
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