Analysis Of The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

In Atwood’s interview for Ms. Magazine, the author discusses her appreciation for inclusive thinking as well as her disapproval for intolerant authoritarian groups by discussing women’s rights and power and how they are both interconnected with each other. Some specific acts of intolerance that Atwood wants to end are reflected in her book, The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel discusses issues primarily focusing on gender roles in the Gilead society. As mentioned before, Atwood discusses her hopefulness to end the intolerant authoritarian groups, especially for the freedom for women. In the novel, Offred, the protagonist in the story, refers to her limited freedom by stating how “We yearned for the future. How did we learn it, that talent for insatiability?” (Atwood 3). She talks about how the Gilead society really limits women’s freedom and their ability to have their own lives. In addition, Offred says how she “enjoys the power; power of a dog bone, passive but there” (22). Offred talks about how there can potentially be some power for women, like Aunt Lydia, but it’s not being utilized since women during the time weren’t taken seriously. In the novel, Aunt Lydia was one woman who had some sort of recognized authority. She discusses how there are different types of freedom saying that there is “Freedom to and freedom from. In the days of …show more content…
Being able to have freedom and choices is essential to living a “happy” life. Offred and other women like her that don’t understand what a happy life is should be able to experience something that will benefit them in the future instead of living under rules which degrade women. Having the freedom they want would allow a society as whole to escape the terrors of a dystopian world because everyone would be able to live under the same standards and avoid the idea of having an unjust society that is evidently belittling