Iconic Netflix series Stranger Things depicts the typical American small town of Hawkins, Indiana, where tucked away inside the innocent town lies the Hawkins National Laboratory, an insidious facility where main character Eleven is experimented upon because she was born with powers of telekinesis, among other supernatural abilities. Many argue that because the lab is her home, and her Papa takes care of her there, that she is safe, despite the testing she is forced to endure. When she escapes into the real world and becomes adopted into a band of three boys, she finally receives real protection and safety, coupled with freedom to express her abilities and experience life. Despite its paranormal themes, this fictional reality mirrors our own.
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In The Handmaid's Tale, women who play the roles of Handmaids, Marthas and Econowives are seemingly safe in the new totalitarian society, Gilead. They all have homes, food, and all they have to do is fulfill their given roles and comply with the rules of the society. Although outwardly well taken care of, no one in the nation is safe, even more powerful men. They are constantly being watched and executed for any wrong move or assumed suggestion of rebellion. A safe society is one where its inhabitants can live, worship, and love as they please without fear of death if they so dare to disagree. Freedom means safety in going against what is put in place if it is unjust. The Crucible offers a similar situation, though this story is a real piece of American history. The play recounts the Salem witch trials, where several people were hunted down and hung because people thought they were working for the devil. Paranoia and oppression led to this atrocity taking place. The women, and in some cases men, were heavily oppressed by their society’s rigid, unequal structure, and because of it they reached a breaking point. No one in that society was free either, and we can see that without freedom, these people were able to instigate a mass murder witchhunt where eventually no one was safe. Freedom and safety so clearly go hand in hand; we see this represented in fiction and real human history. Small freedoms give the illusion of liberty and safety, when really all they do is distract the oppressed from the lack of freedom and protection they actually have.Without liberty, a populous will remain unsafe in the chains of oppression and unremitting silencing, even if their society provides them an outward shell of baseline
In The Handmaid's Tale, women who play the roles of Handmaids, Marthas and Econowives are seemingly safe in the new totalitarian society, Gilead. They all have homes, food, and all they have to do is fulfill their given roles and comply with the rules of the society. Although outwardly well taken care of, no one in the nation is safe, even more powerful men. They are constantly being watched and executed for any wrong move or assumed suggestion of rebellion. A safe society is one where its inhabitants can live, worship, and love as they please without fear of death if they so dare to disagree. Freedom means safety in going against what is put in place if it is unjust. The Crucible offers a similar situation, though this story is a real piece of American history. The play recounts the Salem witch trials, where several people were hunted down and hung because people thought they were working for the devil. Paranoia and oppression led to this atrocity taking place. The women, and in some cases men, were heavily oppressed by their society’s rigid, unequal structure, and because of it they reached a breaking point. No one in that society was free either, and we can see that without freedom, these people were able to instigate a mass murder witchhunt where eventually no one was safe. Freedom and safety so clearly go hand in hand; we see this represented in fiction and real human history. Small freedoms give the illusion of liberty and safety, when really all they do is distract the oppressed from the lack of freedom and protection they actually have.Without liberty, a populous will remain unsafe in the chains of oppression and unremitting silencing, even if their society provides them an outward shell of baseline