In “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Margaret Atwood describes a new society, Gilead, formed from the ruins of the modern day the United States. Although theoretically this society is built to foster women and protect them from fear of sexual harassment and rape, Gilead takes feminism back hundreds of years. Women are either sexless wives and Marthas or childbearing Handmaids. With a distorted version of the Bible as a model, the Gilead leaders formed a republic founded on fear and oppression. Atwood leaves hints throughout her novel, connecting the life of our heroine, Offred, to the Bible. Like everything else in this society, these biblical references are warped to fit the Gileadean leaders’ needs. In addition to biblical allusions, Atwood includes
…show more content…
In a society with low birth and high death rates, women needed to resume their role as child-bearer and mother. They were denied the right to read and hold a job so they could fully embody their pre-biblical role. The Angels, the creators of Gilead, turned to the Bible for the answers to their problems. The foundation of Gileadean society is formed from Biblical laws, morals, and themes, yet the religious ideologies are based on a few select Biblical passages and are taken too literally. They selected specific passages to help control and manipulate women into becoming enslaved and give them a false sense of justification for the treatment they endure. The story of Jacob and Rachel was warped by the Angels and used as one of the main pillars in Gileadean society. In the story, Jacob and Rachel are unable to conceive a baby and Rachel offers her handmaid to bear a child instead. In Genesis 30:1-3, Rachel states, “Give me children, or else I die. Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb. Behold my maid Bilhah. She shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her?” In this story, Jacob never blames himself for his wife’s failure to conceive. This mirrors Offred’s situation with the Commander and Serena Joy. Both Offred, Serena Joy, and other handmaids have tried to conceive a child with …show more content…
Gilead was originally created as a way to protect women from sexual harassment and rape. At the handmaid education school, the women are taught of the dangers women faced in the time before and how they were always scared for their lives. The Aunts explain the unwritten rules in the time before us, “Don’t open your door to a stranger, even if he says he is the police. Make him slide his ID under the door. Don’t stop on the road to help a motorist pretending to be in trouble. Keep the locks on and keep going. If anyone whistles, don’t turn to look. Don’t go into a laundromat, by yourself, at night.” (pg 24) Women have always faced sexual harassment, but in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, there was more awareness about it through the feminist movement. A study showed that 18 million American females were harassed sexually while at work in 1979 and 1980, only five years before Margaret Atwood wrote “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Even today, sexual harassment and rape are very relevant issues. One in every six American women will be the victim of rape in her lifetime and every two minutes an American is sexually assaulted. It is understandable that a society would go to such extreme lengths to protect people from experiencing such a horrible crime. By adding this to her novel, Atwood shows the possibility that a society like
In a society with low birth and high death rates, women needed to resume their role as child-bearer and mother. They were denied the right to read and hold a job so they could fully embody their pre-biblical role. The Angels, the creators of Gilead, turned to the Bible for the answers to their problems. The foundation of Gileadean society is formed from Biblical laws, morals, and themes, yet the religious ideologies are based on a few select Biblical passages and are taken too literally. They selected specific passages to help control and manipulate women into becoming enslaved and give them a false sense of justification for the treatment they endure. The story of Jacob and Rachel was warped by the Angels and used as one of the main pillars in Gileadean society. In the story, Jacob and Rachel are unable to conceive a baby and Rachel offers her handmaid to bear a child instead. In Genesis 30:1-3, Rachel states, “Give me children, or else I die. Am I in God’s stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb. Behold my maid Bilhah. She shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children by her?” In this story, Jacob never blames himself for his wife’s failure to conceive. This mirrors Offred’s situation with the Commander and Serena Joy. Both Offred, Serena Joy, and other handmaids have tried to conceive a child with …show more content…
Gilead was originally created as a way to protect women from sexual harassment and rape. At the handmaid education school, the women are taught of the dangers women faced in the time before and how they were always scared for their lives. The Aunts explain the unwritten rules in the time before us, “Don’t open your door to a stranger, even if he says he is the police. Make him slide his ID under the door. Don’t stop on the road to help a motorist pretending to be in trouble. Keep the locks on and keep going. If anyone whistles, don’t turn to look. Don’t go into a laundromat, by yourself, at night.” (pg 24) Women have always faced sexual harassment, but in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s, there was more awareness about it through the feminist movement. A study showed that 18 million American females were harassed sexually while at work in 1979 and 1980, only five years before Margaret Atwood wrote “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Even today, sexual harassment and rape are very relevant issues. One in every six American women will be the victim of rape in her lifetime and every two minutes an American is sexually assaulted. It is understandable that a society would go to such extreme lengths to protect people from experiencing such a horrible crime. By adding this to her novel, Atwood shows the possibility that a society like