Arthur C. Clarke Award

When people think of someone being held against their will they associate that with people being treated like property, but that is not the case in the book Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood. It is a story about a dystopian society where everything is regulated and people do not have the ability to make free choices. The story takes place from a point of view of a specific handmaid named Offred, a handmaid is a woman who is brought into a household for the sole reason of reproduction. They are…

In the book “Handmaid’s Tale”, written by Margaret Atwood, explore Offred’s view on the world and how totalitarianism and theocratic is now taking over the United States because of the low reproduction rates they created the Handmaid’s to give birth to elite couple who are having trouble conceiving. The women are subjective to prostitution, pornography and violence during the republic of Gilead. As the author states “Atwood’s protagonist, Offred, is a Handmaid—a fallen woman who is forced to…

The Jewel. In the series “The Jewel” by Amy Ewing, the dystopian genre shows itself through many dystopian characteristics such as a totalitarian government using propaganda to control its citizens. In these novels propaganda contributes to controlling the citizens and crushing dissent. Propaganda is used to hide the murder of surrogates through unwanted pregnancies with babies they are not compatible with. It is also used to convince the citizens that everything is fine and that the royalty…

In “The Handmaid’s Tale” the author Margaret Atwood's use of language represents how power restricts women from their freedom. In the novel the women are stripped of their real names, their voices and their rights. The Handmaid's work in a house in Gilead run by a married commander, whom they must have sex with to become pregnant and provide the household with a child. The narrator, Offred uses her language as a tool to escape the plight of her existence by manipulating things to her…

The novel The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, is a dystopian novel in which the protagonist Offred is cut off from any outside information and is supposed to assume that she is constantly being spied on. Offred is a handmaid and is only valued for her ability to produce offspring as the world she lives is suffering from declining birth rates. Atwood incorporates several features of dystopia such as the idea of power, totalitarianism, and war. Atwood also includes the features…

Offred’s struggles throughout Margaret Atwood’s dystopian novel The Handmaid’s Tale illustrates the effects that relationships and experiences have on an individual’s sense of self and hunger for freedom. The Republic of Gilead is a warped modern-day rendition of Puritan life, a “fertility cult” (Nakamura 3) under the guise of a religious society. Like the Puritans and many other historical cultures, the women of Gilead are treated like objects to be issued, thus robbed of their voice and their…

Dystopian Critical Analysis “Whether this is my end or a new beginning I have no way of knowing” (Atwood 295). In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale a young women named Offred is trapped in a dystopian microcosm being forced to do the unthinkable. In the United States an outbreak of syphilis occurred causing many people to become infertile. The population is declining and the country is scared as a whole. Then, a group of extremists break into the congress building during a session and…

Unorthodoxy In The Handmaid’s Tale In a world where everything is in order, individuality will not go unnoticed. The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, is set in a totalitarian theocracy called the Republic of Gilead. The main character and narrator, Offred, presents her story as an audio diary, which is transcribed into book form by Professor Pieixoto. Offred tells of her life before Gilead, when she has a steady job and a loving family; during the revolution, when she loses her job, money,…

In the novel The Handmaid's Tale by Margeret Atwood, the narrator, Offred, lives in a dystopian government which uses violence and totalitarianism to control the people. She is chosen to be a handmaid, a "baby -maker", for the Commander and his wife. In the the novel Offred expresses her emotional state and her deep desires to escape the society she lives in. She does so by mentioning the color red multiple times throughout the novel. In literature the color red is often associated to many…

The Handmaid’s Tale is an effective satire in which Atwood underlines specific themes and issues present in society. Throughout the extensive reading and analyzing of the Handmaid’s Tale, the satirizing of many elements in our society becomes increasingly obvious throughout the progression of the novel. Margaret Atwood uses her literature to express her opinions towards the way society is run through the use of satire. Although most satirical works are meant to be humorous, we can clearly see…