Gender Performativity In Handmaid's Tale And The Hunger Games

Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel about a society, Gilead, that has been formed in the former Boston, Mass. area. The society is theocratic and patriarchal with all woman’s rights stripped away. A quote that briefly describes how women are viewed within in the society is "Gilead constructs women as seen objects instead of seeing subjects." (Kirkvik, Anette. "Gender Performativity in The Handmaid’s Tale and The Hunger Games." University of Norway, May 2015. Web). Men try to not only control women but also how women are viewed, to have total control. The society preaches its main focus is to repopulate the decimated population. Despite women having a less crucial role in society than men, women play a more significant role in the development

These people are the aunts and commanders wives. Often the aunts will use bible quotes to back up there points. However most if not all of the quotes are false, contorted or selectively incomplete.“In the guise of a re-population program, Gilead reads the biblical text literally and makes it the basis for the state-sanctioned rape, the impregnation ceremony the handmaids must undergo each month” (Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale." Irigaray, Incarnation and Contemporary Women’s Fiction 1.2.Nebula (2004): n. pag. Noble world, Sept. 2004. Web.).This is another attempt to keep there civilians under there control and do as they please. They took away reminders of anything that were against there beliefs such as pillows in Offreds room which had the words hope, and love on them. There is no caring and loving part of Gilead. Brutal punishments are in store for those who go against the government in anyway. Even the women who go against the government and get punished have significance on the novel. Some are symbols of survival, some are doing there best to put this to and end in the colonies. We never directly meet Offreds mother, we never learn her name, the only time she appears in the novel is during Offreds flashbacks. These flashbacks are the way the mother affects the novel. Offred remembers her mom as a strong feminist who would never give up

Many handmaids, other classes of women, guards and other classes of men were involved in the rebel force. Ultimately it was started and run by women. Although the narrator, Offred is already aware of the rebel force, it is first mentioned to her by another handmaid who was trying to see if she knew the secret word, Mayday. However Offred does not do anything to inform her that she is aware of what it meant, incase it was the society trying to identify members. Another time it is involved in the novel is when a man is brought in and more powerful members of the society tell some handsmaid he has raped another of there own. After this it is revealed he was actually a member of Mayday who was caught.The most important involvement the rebel group had was when we assume Offred was saved by them. Through being setup with Nick, by Serena she discovered Nick shared her beliefs that the society has wrong, and he felt terrible for technically being a part of the society. In what we assume was an attempt to save her, Nick one day burst in and informed her a van was coming and she was to get on, follow orders and say nothing. She did as she was told and thats the last we know. We assume since he had such empathy for her situation he handed her off to Mayday to go