There is a clear demonstration throughout both novels of how supremacy can have an immense impact on social construction. In many societies within the world, religion has a significant influence on the way civilization is shaped. This is apparent within The Handmaid’s Tale since the social structure of Gilead is a theocracy, so religion would have an effect on civilisation. There was a dramatic decrease in birth rates …show more content…
Kazuo Ishiguro cleverly presents this throughout his novel Never Let Me Go. The dominant conflict which the characters face throughout the novel is the yearning to discover oneself and find belonging. Although the main characters, Kathy, Tommy and Ruth accept their inescapable donations and unfortunate deaths, the moments in their lives which are most emotionally traumatic are centred on this lack of belonging. The narrator of the novel, Kathy, realizes that she is different from the people outside of the enclosure, ‘’the moment when you realize that you really are different to them; that there are people out there, like Madame, who don’t hate you or wish you harm, but who nevertheless shudder at the very thought of you…’’. Madame is a woman who comes and visits Hailsham and shows little interest in the students, this conveys that the world outside of Hailsham condemns Kathy’s kind and that she will constantly be fighting a predetermined identity that civilisation has formed for her. In contrast, Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, portrays the progression of finding identity in extreme circumstances. The name of the characters reveals early on in the novel that people within Gilead society don’t have a sense of individualism, for example ‘Ofglen’ or ‘Offred’’, carries on the theme of loss of identity, since the ‘Of’ portrays how they are a possession of another person. It seems to be that powerless women fit much better into this patriarchal society. Confined at the Red Centre in Gilead, Offred, the narrator and all females are prohibited from speaking to the other women or using personal names. They go against the procedures and assert their minimal power to reclaim a small but significant piece of themselves, “They learned to lip read, their heads flat on the beds, turned sideways, and watching each other’s mouths. In this way, they exchanged names from bed to bed. ’’ Offred becomes reminiscent a