Essay Comparing The Handmaid's Tale And The Island

Can a utopia, as necessitated by its definition, actually be perfect if in insuring the future of the human race, its people are required to lose their autonomy? Both the novel The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood, and film The Island directed by Michael Bay, explore this question. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood uses a subgroup called Handmaids from a fictional society called The Republic of Gilead, as a means to examine the effects of objectification, forced servitude, and restricted access to education, in a totalitarian society. Alternatively, in The Island, the film depicts a subgroup of clones in a futuristic community controlled by a corporation called Merrick Biotech, to explore these common issues. Both stories come to the …show more content…
In the The Handmaid’s Tale, the Handmaids are forbidden from reading, writing or learning, whatsoever. The Handmaids are not even allowed to read the bible, despite living in a theocratic society, or play scrabble if they had learned how prior to the takeover of the regime. This level of information control further restricts the Handmaids from obtaining any autonomy. They are unable or forbidden to communicate with their peers in written form, and their spoken communication is carefully monitored and controlled, to deter unapproved or rebellious activities. In The Island, clones bypass youth as they are born into an adult form. Then, they are only educated to the level of a fifteen year old, a level deemed necessary to permit them to help with the low-level work they are assigned in the operations of the corporation. As they are not given any knowledge of the world around them, as well as incomplete education, the clones are not given the skills essential to effectively asserting their autonomy. Thus, the control of information through the restrictions on education for the Handmaids and the clones, prevent them from becoming independent