Power In The Handmaids Tale

Margaret Atwood emphasises through her novel possible negative outcomes that may occur when an individual or society continuously live negligent lives in the twenty first century. This may include negligence of the environment, physical health, and toxic chemical usage. She uses narrative construction in The Handmaids Tale to depict one of the many grotesque situations which may arise in the upcoming future; a formation of a totalitarian theocratic society which controls political, social, and individual power. In this novel, Atwood portrays the living conditions people in Gilead are in through the view of a handmaid named Offred; a woman used as a commodity. Gilead leads a totalitarian Christian theocracy where individuals are constantly …show more content…
In Margaret Atwood’s novel, a totalitarian Christian theocratic society is present, where handmaids, as well as the upper echelon, are repressed from having power; Gilead originally took away their legal rights in order to refrain woman from having power. According to the Historical Notes, Professor Pieixoto as well as Professor Knotly Wade, woman were “recruited for reproductive purposes” by declaring “all second marriages and nonmarital liaisons adulterous, arresting the female partners”, and men will choose which woman deems fit for “reproductive fitness” (Atwood 378). By referring to the Historical Notes, Atwood foreshadows the lives woman will live if they continue to neglect world issues. Atwood uses her narrator, Offred, to describe what happens to women who are powerless in a totalitarian Christian theocracy; “Serena has begun to cry. I can hear her, behind my back. It isn’t the first time. She always does this, the night of the Ceremony. She is trying not to make a noise. She’s trying to preserve her dignity, in front of us (Atwood 112).” This quote defines the meaning of