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The handmaid's tale margaret atwood essay
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How do you differentiate between right and wrong? Is it what you have been taught growing up, or how you have been raised? Is it your religion that shapes your beliefs, or is it the law that defines right or wrong for you? What if religion was used as law? In Margaret Atwood's “The HandMaid's Tale, the crude society of Gilead is a theocracy, a government at which church and state are combined. By fading the line between right and wrong, the vulgarity of the Giladean way serves as an example of how a society can be morally poisoned practicing religion as law.
Religion is a standard. Religion tells us how we are supposed to live and behave. Religion tells us how we are supposed to act and react. Religion even tells us how to think
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Women could not work. Women could not own property or money. Women were forced into sexual acts and brutally punished for infertility. Although these things are morally wrong, somehow they were still accepted.
In the book, “Handmaid's Tale”, freedom is only a hope. The society of Gilead is so bad, that faith and thought are the only things the handmaids have. In Gilead, even reading was forbidden. They could not read the bible, the book from which the law was derived. The fact that the bible could not be read, means that they did not want you to interpret the bible in your own way. They wanted you to follow laws based on how they interpreted and twisted the words of the bible. They did not want you to shape your own opinion and beliefs because then they would realize, that we know what they were doing was wrong. If you have no beliefs that shape your perception for what is right, is anything ever really wrong? Because they could not read the bible, the handmaids and citizens of Gilead did not have an opinion of what they thought the bible meant or how the laws should be. They had to just accept the harsh laws of Gilead as the way they were supposed to live because that is what they were told was
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.
The Gilead Society has segregated women into different caste systems. There are six main categories in the caste system. The first are the Wives, who wear blue dresses and are at the top of the female hierarchy. Their main purpose is reproduce with their husbands, if they are unable then Handmaids are used. Then there are Daughters, either the natural or adopted children of the ruling class. They tend to wear white until marriage. The next are the Handmaids, fertile women whose sole purpose is to reproduce children for the wives. Handmaids wear a full red dress outfit with red gloves, red shoes, and...
The threat of physical abuse is huge. Being woman is enough of a crime, but “any crime can result in an execution and a public hanging on ‘The Wall’” (Cameron 3). A woman can be hung for just about anything. If they defy the people in charge they can get hurt. The women are constantly abused. The Gilead government is in charge of what goes on in this society. If a woman has an affair with a different man they are taken and possibly tortured or hung. The Red Center, which is where they were taught how to be Handmaid’s, the women were constantly tortured. They had Aunts that looked over them. These aunts were not nice and, “they had electric cattle prods slung on thongs from their leather belts” (Thomas 91). The aunt’s view was all that was needed was the Handmaid’s baby making parts. The women did not need their feet, hands, or any part other than the torso. When the woman did something wrong or tried to run away th...
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...
In Gilead, censorship forces Handmaids into a narrow minded thinking regarding the Holy Bible. They are trained to be religious and then are
This principle from the Bible is used throughout ‘The Handmaids Tale’, the principles being that it is the idea of both assemblages that a women’s duty is to have children and that it is acceptable for a man to be angry if a women can not produce a child. Both these beliefs show that in jointly the Bible and ‘The Handmaids Tale’, women are completely defined by fertility and are classed as ‘walking wombs’. ‘The Handmaids Tale’ recreates the selected stanzas from the bible with Jacob, Rachel, Leah and the two handmaids. The tale is an Old Testament story about surrogate mothers, on which the novel is based. The section gives biblical precedent for the several practices of Gilead, by doing this it paves the way for Atwood to comment on patriarchy where women are undervalued and abused in all walks of life. The idea is also expressed later when we discover the ‘Red Centre’ governmentally known as the ‘Rachel and Leah Centre’. As the basis of the novel it is replicated many times throughout the text, for example, it is found in the family reading before the monthly ceremonies, and in Rachel’s plea ‘give me children, or else I die’. This clearly lays emphasis on the threat to the Handmaids life. By failing to produce a child, they will be classed as Unwomen and sent to the Colonies to die.
Having a child in Gilead was no longer a pleasurable activity, but a privilege, and children were considered valuable commodities as well. Like categories of fruits and vegetables, children were divided into two categories based on their health: “keepers” and “unbabies”, just as women were deemed “woman” or “unwoman” based on their fertility. “There are only women who are fruitful and women who are barren, that’s the law” (Atwood 61). In Gilead, procreation is industrialized and the handmaids are reduced to one essential function: reproduction. All other aspects of the women’s sexuality and individualism are outlawed and repudiated. When called to meet with the Commander, Offred ruminates:
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.
Also, religion is the basis for most of the gruesome laws that Gilead has such as the Handmaid’s job. Their only job is to reproduce which comes from the story of Rachel and Leah where servants can have relationships with their owners in order to give the infertile wives a family. “Humanity is so adaptable, my mother would say. Truly amazing, what people can get used to, as long as there are a few compensations.” (283). This illustrates that people can adapt to anything even just a job at reproducing which, in itself, is a gruesome way to live. In addition, before the ceremony where the Commander and Handmaid have intercourse the Commander reads from Genesis the story of Rachel and
In Some societies extreme religious laws and rules is followed as a solution to problems. Allowing religious fundamentalists to run a regime can lead to injustice, for certain people in the regime. In the Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaids tale such things like these take place where freedom is revoked and nightmares are reality for the women of Gilead. The novel presents as a totalitarian society where there is a governing system in which a ruling command holds all power and controls everything in the society. The regime takes it laws very strict because these laws are said to be of god and by disobeying the government the people are disobeying God. The narrator reminds us that there are freedom but
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.
Imagine a country where choice is not a choice. One is labeled by their age and economical status. The deep red cloaks, the blue embroidered dresses, and the pinstriped attire are all uniforms to define a person's standing in society. To be judged, not by beauty or personality or talents, but by the ability to procreate instead. To not believe in the Puritan religion is certain death. To read or write is to die. This definition is found to be true in the book, The Handmaid's Tale (1986) by Margaret Atwood. It is a heartbreaking story of one young woman and her transformation into the Gilead society, the society described above. In the book, we meet Offred, the narrator of the story. This story is not the first to create a society in which the only two important beliefs in a society are the ability to procreate and a strict belief in God. It is seen several times in the Old Testament, the Bible. The Biblical society is not as rigid as the Republic of Gilead, which Margaret Atwood has built, but it is very similar. The Handmaid's Tale holds several biblical allusions.
The society established by the Republic of Gilead in “The Handmaid’s Tale” is founded on and sustained by false doctrine. They intentionally twist and skew the Bible in order to justify their actions and brainwash the women who are involuntarily participating in their indoctrinated society. The Gilead does not treat the Bible as the divine word of God. Instead, they exploit its authority and use it as a tool for their own benefit. The very framework of the Gilead’s social hierarchy is in sharp contradiction to everything the Bible teaches, but because they are so corrupt and only use the Bible for their own advantage, they seem not to care. Instead of abiding by the teachings in the Bible and letting them shape how things are done, they hand-select and contort certain parts of it to match the framework of their own aspirations and beliefs, which are by no means Christian. Every piece of scripture that the Republic customizes is specifically suited to help them achieve their ultimate goal: indoctrinating an entire society for the purposes of personal power and authority. The end product is the unethical, dysfunctional society that is depicted in “The Handmaid’s Tale.” The Republic of Gilead is by no means a true religious group, but they do use religion and skewed religious text as a reference for the foundation, justification, manipulation, and enforcement of their new society.
The epigraph in The Handmaid’s Tale amplifies the importance of fertility in Gilead. The quotation at the beginning of the book ‘‘And when Rachel saw the she bare Jacob no children, Rachel envied her sister, and said unto Jacob, Give me children or else I die...And she said, Behold my maid Bilhah, go in unto her; and she shall bear upon my knees,that I may also have children by her.’’ makes it seem that Gilead wants to go back to traditional values, thus manipulates its citizens that their ideology is correct since it corresponds with what the Bible says. Consequently, this state is telling its citizens that a woman’s worthiness only depends if she is able to produce or not. In fact women who are barren, and are not of a high class are sent to the colonies. The handmaids’s only purpose is further amplified through the rights Gilead abolishes; they can not communicate with others, in fact Offred says, ‘How I used to despise such talk. Now I long for it’ and are no longer able to go outside alone or without being spied...
Within Gilead there is an authority that is much higher than is necessary or healthy for any nation. With such power comes corruption, which then spreads throughout the whole of society, slowly obliterating the nation’s people. This corruption of a powerful government can only be controlled by the force of the people which, in the Handmaid’s tale, is nearly non-existent, thus giving the militant Eyes – as well as the rest of the Gilead government – a stronger hold on the people by their indifference. The Eyes especially have an intimidating vigor which holds down the people by means of threat of punishment, in addition to the allusion of freedom to keep the people pacified. As stated in the novel, “A rat in a maze is free to go anywhere, as long as it stays inside the maze.” (Atwood 165). This shows how the government keeps ultimate control over the nation by way of intimidation, allusion, and roles in society. Status and class is vital in Gilead, showing the world who one is by their uniform, speaking louder than any voice. Of course, Gilead has given these roles in the society as another way to control the people, but due to their passivity, everyone decides to go along with it, never questioning the power of this supposed republic. This goes to illustrate just how corrupt a government can be if not frequently checked by its