The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

1963 Words4 Pages

Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale deals with how women are forced to accept roles based on extreme biblical laws distorted by a male dominated society; yet, there are women who willing participate in the reinforcement of these sexist and misogynistic values that subdue women. Gilead's government controls and shapes women's identities through oppression, however, indoctrinates women into believing that the roles stripping them of their independence are designed to protect and support them in fulfilling their biological purpose; fear of the Colonies and the Salvaging has intimidated women into becoming passive in order to survive, and forces them to report anyone failing to comply to the imposed hierarchical society. The new regime claims …show more content…

Since Gilead has emptied every woman’s bank account and fired every employed female in the workforce, wives are now dependant on the men chosen as their husbands for their well-being. Stripped of independence and power wives are forced to focus on running the home, tending to their husband, and producing children “…you aren't expected to love him. You'll find that out soon enough. Just do your duty in silence. When in doubt, when flat on your back, you can look at the ceiling.” (263). Fertile women are seen as a “national resource” (74) and are given the choice to either accept their role as Handmaids in society or be disposed of: “We are for breeding purposes: we aren't concubines, geisha girls, courtesans…We are two-legged wombs, that's all: sacred vessels, ambulatory chalices” (156). Handmaids are made to pray for worthiness to be fruitful so that they may fulfill their biological purpose (215), and indoctrinated to believe the Commanders are not committing adultery or raping them but simply “doing their duty” without any enjoyment (108): “I do not say making love, because this is not what he's doing…Nor does rape cover it: nothing is going on here that I haven't signed up for. There wasn't a lot of choice…” (107). “In the case of Gilead, …show more content…

The new identities given to the women create a facade designed to separate them from their former selves, by forcing women to become defined by their gender roles, uniform, and new names instead of their individuality. Handmaids are forced to have children fathered by men they despise and unable to keep the babies they give birth to, while wives and Aunts serve Gilead with gender assigned roles until they are no longer beneficial to the new regime. The unforgiving punishment offenders fear to receive if caught defying the discourse of Gilead guards against women discovering an alternate lifestyle, which would hinder the survival of the new regime. There is a powerful resentment between women within the positions of the social hierarchy that prevents a united retaliation against Gilead, combined with their passivity and indifference the women fail to oppose the manner in which they are

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
1236 Words | 3 Pages
In "The Handmaid's Tale", Margaret Atwood tells a saddening story about a not-to-distant future where toxic chemicals and abuses of the human body have resulted in many men and women alike becoming sterile. The main character, Offred, gives a first person encounter about her subservient life as a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, a republic formed after a bloody coup against the United States government. She and her fellow handmaids are fertile women that the leaders of Gilead, the Commanders, enslave to ensure their power and the population of the Republic. While the laws governing women and others who are not in control of Gilead seem oppressive, outlandish and ridiculous, they are merely a caricature of past and present laws and traditions of Western civilization. "The Handmaid's Tale" is an accurate and feasible description of what society could be like if a strict and oppressive religious organization gained dominant power over the political system in the United States.
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Class Discrimination in Gilead
1196 Words | 3 Pages
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.
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The Handmaids Tale: Oppression of Women for Male Political Gain
1779 Words | 4 Pages
The Handmaids Tale is a poetic tale of a woman's survival as a Handmaid in the male dominated Republic of Gilead. Offred portrayed the struggle living as a Handmaid, essentially becoming a walking womb and a slave to mankind. Women throughout Gilead are oppressed because they are seen as "potentially threatening and subversive and therefore require strict control" (Callaway 48). The fear of women rebelling and taking control of society is stopped through acts such as the caste system, the ceremony and the creation of the Handmaids. The Republic of Gilead is surrounded with people being oppressed. In order for the Republic to continue running the way it is, a sense of control needs to be felt by the government. Without control Gilead will collapse.
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The Threat of Physical, Emotional, and Mental Abuse if you Disagree: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
1456 Words | 3 Pages
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...
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The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood
1401 Words | 3 Pages
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.
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Gender Roles In The Handmaids
1179 Words | 3 Pages
In the gilead society, women are placed in a social hierarchy in which they are defined by their role. The wives are the elite members. The handmaids are the people who produced babies. Marthas are the house servants. Aunts are a prestigious group of people who trained handmaids. Econowives are low class women. However, none of the women are defined as people with their own personalities and interests. Instead, Women are seen as objects that belong to men. Econowives belong to the Guardians. The wives, marthas,
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Handmaids Tale
2961 Words | 6 Pages
The Apocalyptic themes and situations found in Atwood's fictional city of Gilead focus around the mistreatment of all females. Women in this city, set 200 years in the future, have no rights, and get little respect. The rule by way of theocracy in Gilead also adds to the sense of regression and hopelessness in the future. The way babies are brought into the world, only through pregnant handmaids, the idea of a black market for things considered luxuries and privileges all add to the fact that society in this novel is in a desperate state of disrepair.
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Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale
878 Words | 2 Pages
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.
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Handmaids Tale Analysis
917 Words | 2 Pages
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.
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Handmaid's Tale - Conventional Relationships and Love
1566 Words | 4 Pages
The setting of The Handmaid’s Tale – known as Gilead – is a totalitarian government, originally based on Old Testament patriarchy. This structure forbids rival loyalties or parties, so all loyalty must be for the group of men that govern the State. Such a structure means that women are assigned ‘roles’ according to their biological ‘usefulness’.
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The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood
1151 Words | 3 Pages
In The Handmaid's Tale, the handmaid’s lack many human rights, as most of the women believe that it is normal to be disrespected. These women are forced to train to become an opinionless handmaid, who are mentally strained. Offred recalls being shown pornography depicting rape, abuse, and murder by Aunt Lydia. Aunt Lydia then says, “You see what things used to be like? That was what they thought of women, then” ( The Handmaid’s Tale, 112).
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The Handmaid's Tale
904 Words | 2 Pages
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.
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Atwood's Handmaid's Tale
896 Words | 2 Pages
In recapitulation, then, Margaret Atwood's "The Handmaid's Tale" presents misogyny within Gilead as a government policy that debases women in order to promote functionality. Such extreme implications, as Atwood suggests, are echoed in the cultures preceding Gilead, and even those cultures that are present in our world. Atwood's writing also proposes that sexism is prevalent and deeply embedded in society, even outside of Gilead where it's embedding may not be intentional.
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Fertility and Motherhood in The Handmaid´s Tale by Margaret Atwood
665 Words | 2 Pages
Margaret Atwood sheds light on two concepts that are intertwined; fertility and motherhood. Nevertheless in Gilead these notions are often viewed as separate. The Republic State of Gilead views women as child-bearers and nothing more. In Gilead, these women are known as handmaids, who’s function in society is to produce children for barren females of a high status. Gilead also prohibits the handmaids from being mothers to their previously born children, meaning before Gilead was created, for instance, Offred, who is separated from her daughter. Thus it is evident that Margaret Atwood generates a state that views birth only as growth in population rather than the beginning of a relationship between mother and child.
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Passivity In The Handmaids Tale
1042 Words | 3 Pages
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
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The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale

Class Discrimination in Gilead

The Handmaids Tale: Oppression of Women for Male Political Gain

The Threat of Physical, Emotional, and Mental Abuse if you Disagree: Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale