Dystopian societies can often be characterized by the betterment of the livelihoods of a group at the expense of that of the individual. These societies usually arise due to some combination of natural and man-made disasters that brings the human population close to its end. While the governments that rise to power in such scenarios create their individual ruling systems in order to reestablish man’s placement on the Earth’s social ladder, many times minority groups are subjugated in order to do so. The philosophy of the oppression of few for the supposed good of the greater society is one that has been prevalent throughout literature and history. Most likely due to increased fear of an apocalypse, there as been significant exponential growth
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The Handmaid’s Tale outlines the philosophy of the dystopian nation, the Republic of Gilead, through the eyes of Handmaid, Offred. In the Republic of Gilead, the social structure is broken down by gender, with the males holding a significant amount of power over the females. Among the females, however, women are divided by social class, determined by their wealth and ability to reproduce. Before the formation of the Republic of Gilead, there was a significant under population problem wracking the human race. Women and men, alike, ceased to find the motivation to reproduce, causing the population to decline. With the government placing the responsibility for this tragedy on the women, the female population was divided into three subsections at the rise at the Republic. Although the lower and upper class occupied relatively the same niches as prior to the formation of the Republic (servitude and the matriarch, respectively), a third class called the Handmaid class was introduced, in which the women were treated as inanimate objects whose sole purposes were to carry children. The ruling government of the Republic of Gilead expresses the common dystopian philosophy when they opt to sacrifice the freedoms of the Handmaid class in order to repopulate the nation in a hope to rebuild the
The Handmaid’s Tale outlines the philosophy of the dystopian nation, the Republic of Gilead, through the eyes of Handmaid, Offred. In the Republic of Gilead, the social structure is broken down by gender, with the males holding a significant amount of power over the females. Among the females, however, women are divided by social class, determined by their wealth and ability to reproduce. Before the formation of the Republic of Gilead, there was a significant under population problem wracking the human race. Women and men, alike, ceased to find the motivation to reproduce, causing the population to decline. With the government placing the responsibility for this tragedy on the women, the female population was divided into three subsections at the rise at the Republic. Although the lower and upper class occupied relatively the same niches as prior to the formation of the Republic (servitude and the matriarch, respectively), a third class called the Handmaid class was introduced, in which the women were treated as inanimate objects whose sole purposes were to carry children. The ruling government of the Republic of Gilead expresses the common dystopian philosophy when they opt to sacrifice the freedoms of the Handmaid class in order to repopulate the nation in a hope to rebuild the