Survival through Escape

“The bigger the real-life problems, the greater the tendency […] to retreat into a reassuring fantasy-land” (Naylor). When the difficulties of life are unbearable, people often escape through various forms, such as an imaginary world where such problems do not exist. This is a form of escape and a way of ensuring that the difficulties at hand do not overpower their lives. This idea is explored through various characters in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The district in which these characters are imprisoned, Gilead, is controlled by a radical Puritan government. There exists a regulation for every aspect of the characters’ lives: from religion to sexuality, from language to occupation, from meals to marriages. With such absolute laws, one would imagine that suicide is the only escape; however, numerous characters within the novel learn to escape in a manner which does not cause them harm. In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, government extremists cleverly employ various forms of control to manipulate the characters into feeling powerless and isolated; ultimately, this forces them to depend on temporary escapes to survive in Gilead.

Being manipulated into believing her body is simply a means of reproduction, Offred escapes the regime’s control of sexuality through her unlawful affair with Nick. Gilead’s methods of sexually manipulating women successfully instill powerlessness and isolation within Offred. She finds herself shifting from the belief that “[her] body [is] an instrument, of pleasure, or a means of transportation, or an implement for the accomplishment of [her] will” (Atwood 38), to viewing herself as “a cloud congealer around a central object” (38). She compares herself to an inanimate cloud which only exi...

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...ivation must be absolutely compelling in order to overcome the obstacles that will invariably come [one’s] way” (Brown 53). With such a belief, they would have attempted to permanently overcome the obstacles and would not have hidden behind temporary escapes. Although escaping through temporary means may appear beneficial, it is not a permanent solution to difficulties.

Works Cited

Asgedom, Mawi. The code: the 5 secrets of teen success. New York: Little, Brown and Company Books for Young Readers, 2003.

Atwood, Margaret. The Handmaid's Tale. Toronto: Double Day Canada, 1998.

Campbell, Bebe Moora. Ebony. New York: Johnson Publishing Company, 1981.

Gupta, Gopal. Everything You Wanted to Know About an Academic Research Career but Were

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