The Role Of Women In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale

It seems that more often when a group of people or a nation encounters calamity, some great “act of God,” or even just change, collectively, we begin to seek answers from a higher power. We tend to either blame or seek solace in this higher power or we seek what it is we can change to please this higher power. Without realizing we begin to adjust laws, limit freedoms, and become despotic fascist, all in the name of God. This fear of conforming and reverting back to the “dark ages,” constraining women to “know their role or place” is what seems to have driven Margaret Atwood to write her satirical novel “The Handmaids Tale.”
“The Handmaids Tale,” written by Margaret Atwood is a futuristic novel that takes place in the northern part of the

The opening epigraph, Genesis 30:1-3 denotes how women within the biblical era were used as surrogates as Bilhah, a handmaid, was used to birth children for Rachel. She infers greatly how demeaning and objectifying the treatment of women was not only then, but also as it is now in today’s society and further could be in the future. Within the story there are numerous biblical influences understood. Names and titles for instance, men are known as “Commanders of the Faithful, “Guardians of the Faith”, “Angels” or “Angels of the Apocalypse,” these men are soldiers and fight in the name of God. The women are referred to by their grade of service as well; “Marthas” work in the kitchen as did the actual Martha in the Bible (New International Version, Luke 10:38-42) “Handmaid” was used to distinguish women who were used for their fertility skills as was Bilhah in the Bible. Additional biblical references were noted in objects and institutions, the area in which the Handmaids were trained, was known as the “Rachel and Leah Center,” cars were referred to as “chariots”. All of these changes be it ever so small, are ways in which the Republic of Gilead could control and submerge and condition its people into their doctrine of

And not to make light or detract in any shape or form, the seriousness of his statements, he has exercised his right to free speech but has made some very controversial statements. Regardless of what he has said, does that give the state, government, or any other entity put in place, the right to take his property away? Many times we get caught up and so angry, we demand immediate action and change that we do not realize we may be infringing upon our own freedoms by taking away someone else’s freedoms. This is exactly the essence of Atwood’s message, she further validates her point through the character of Serena Joy, the commander’s wife who was a well-known television personality whose speeches, as Offred, the main character recalled, "Were about the sanctity of the house, about how women should stay home" (45). Offred found these speeches and Serena 's earnestness frightening (46). One of her most significant reflections about Serena 's promotion of these traditional values is how Serena reacts to the reality of being a Wife in Gilead: "She doesn 't make speeches anymore. She has become speechless. She stays in her home, but it doesn 't seem to agree with her. How furious she must be, now that she 's been taken at her word" (46). Atwood’s main character Offred, is at first, depicted as the ideal conformist, unlike her friend Moira as well as her mother who asserted herself