Oppression In The Handmaid's Tale

In Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid’s Tale, one is given a look into a society where women are deprived of power and live out lives of enslavement under a very strict and vigilant government. The government uses the Handmaids and other people, such as the commanders, in the society to ensure that everyone in the society is complying with its rules. The methods of Gilead’s government are absolutely archaic, “The Handmaid 's Tale brings together pre-Christian notions of absolute patriarchal authority-omniscient and avenging God” (Cooper 50). Woman have been depleted of almost all of their rights except a few domestic ones, and human fertility is so rare that individuals with “viable ovaries” (Atwood 143) are now in demand as Handmaids to bear …show more content…
This only increases the lack of sexual pleasure anyone in the community can receive. Under the enslavement of the Gilead government, sexual oppression is the means of control over everyone in the society. By this oppression and control, no one is capable of feeling any sexual pleasure. Therefore all enjoyment people can get out of sex is eliminated. This pleasure is eliminated out of resentment, envy, regret, the inability to love, and most importantly the necessity to conceive and have a child. When Offred and the Commander discuss Gilead, they also discuss the things that are wrong with it. The commander asks the question, “‘What did we overlook?’ with which Offred replies with, ‘Love’” (Atwood 220). Offred believes that with love, sexual pleasure is possible. That is why she does not have any bit of sexual pleasure with the commander. It is not possible for her to have any intimacy because she simply cannot, and will not love him. Serena also stops any form of pleasure for the two, because of how she dehumanizes Offred. With the government keeping a close eye on everyone and killing people who have sex with others, there is also the threat of them finding out about it and executing them. With the need for babies and so few women being able to have them, one can easily see how a society with dire needs to create children, can turn on itself. With this need, one can see how sexual pleasure can be disregarded for the actual necessity of conceiving a child. Also with Offred finding a sexual partner, that she is not supposed to have sex with but likes, creates an awakening for Offred. This shows her just how unbearable having sex with the commander is and, just how important intimacy,