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Examine how Atwood and Chaucer expose corruption within society. This will involve a discussion of conditions both before and during the regime in Gilead. In the course of your writing show how your reading has been illuminated by your response to Zephaniah/Larkin as well as by other readings of the core text.

Both Margaret Atwood and Geoffrey Chaucer illuminate in their texts corruption within society. Atwood, in The Handmaid’s Tale uses an alternate condition of life, the dystopian Gilead regime to represent a plausible society of political control, while Chaucer just describing the worst of what he saw in society in the thirteenth century in ‘The General Prologue’ to the Canterbury Tales.

One way that Atwood has exposed the corruption within the society of Gilead would be the corruption of the leaders. This can be seen with, Offred's Commander, who is oppressive and limiting with the population, especially women. The whole structure of Giliad ensures every female is dominated by a higher up male figure. An example of where this can be seen is simply by the way Serena Joy is addressed, as a 'Commander's Wife'. This indicates she is a possession of the male commander and clearly shows to the reader who has authority. It also can be seen in how the Handmaids are addressed, with names like Offred and Ofglen. The names are made from adding the preposition 'of' to their respective commanders name again showing total control and ownership to a male. Atwood was trying to illuminate an extreme that the western world might be heading for, with the sexism around certain professions, this is supported by the literary critic, Mary McCarthy who stated, “Atwood warns us by showing our present selves in a distorted mirror,” with politics bei...

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...r in the thirteenth century, how he would have seemed like a good person who could help people with redemption and make a fresh start, but intermingled with this false outlook Chaucer has shown the true nature of pardoners.

Another way Chaucer has shown the divide between honourable and honest characters would be that hugely corrupt characters such as the summoner and pardoner who we have discussed get large descriptions in The General Prologue with them both getting 45 lines of description whereas a genuinely pious character that actually has integrity such as the Ploughman gets only 12 lines. This is Chaucer showing that bad gets more attention than good, that people focus on negatives rather than positives, the corrupt people get all the attention and are often the ones to get the payoffs and this would be Chaucer criticising the society around him for this fact.