Colleen Atwood

Margaret Atwood’s reflections on the short fiction of Alice Munro represent commentary from one Canadian literary great on another. Fittingly, Atwood provides any number of insightful reflections on Munro’s work, each of which could be the basis for further study. I would like to focus briefly on just two of these: sex and sexuality as they are represented in Munro’s works, and Atwood’s observation that in Munro’s works “a thing can be true, but not true, but true nonetheless.” Taken together,…

While the first chapter of The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is not even two pages long, it introduces two key components to the story--oppression and women. The novel takes place in the Republic of Gilead, a dystopian society that has taken over the United States of America. Where there are oppressors, there are the oppressed, and this group is primarily made up of women. Offred, the narrator, gives insight into her new life, as well as the lives around her. While they are sent to Red…

Context: After the exhausting birth event, Offred comes home to the Commander’s household all wiped out, only to find herself asleep. With the help of Cora, Offred is wakened up for dinner and realizes that Cora really hopes for the arrival of yet another baby, meaning Offred’s. Meanwhile, this conversation is going on, Offred remembers Nick informing her that the Commander wants to see her in his office. A meeting that surrounds itself around playing Scrabble and a goodbye kiss, in favor by the…

Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” depicts a dystopian society in the Republic of Gilead in which the government considers women as property and valuable if their ovaries are viable. The new society now stresses the conformity of women in the household and reinstated domestic roles which they must accept. The “Colonies”, an area that supports limited life, and group hangings exist as scare tactics to suppress any rebellion amongst the handmaids and in the household. This society is believed…

Memories are things that everyone has and they are constantly replacing one another as life goes on. The book, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margret Atwood, is about a futuristic way that people live their lives. The protagonist of this book, Offred, is one of the many handmaids in the society of Gilead and she is forced to be a handmaids and has to deal with the problems that being a handmaid lead to. One of the main problems she faces is trying to keep the memories she created before she became a…

Atwood follows this pattern of exaggeration and begins to critique the complicated issue of bioengineering within contemporary society by projecting this into her dystopian world with the genetic manipulation of animals. William Deresewicz, a literary critic, suggests that dystopias are based on societal issues and advances and that, “Ours will be the century of biology.” (Deresewicz, 2009) Atwood’s commitment and knowledge towards science and environmentalism, has followed this idea and has…

Freedom is a major theme in dystopian literature. The suppression of the human rights of the women in “The Handmaids Tale” by Margaret Atwood follows the Freedoms the woman both possess, and lack in their roles as handmaids in Gilead. The speakers of the quote are Offred and aunt Lydia. Offred is the novels narrator and protagonist; the person addressed was the reader as Offred recounts her thoughts on a conversation with aunt Lydia. The passage takes place early on in the story when two…

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margret Atwood explores the limited freedoms available to women in the newly formed dystopian society of Gilead. The Handmaid’s Tale follows Offred, the protagonist and a Handmaid in Gilead, a society that assigns roles and divides women from one another. Gilead values women solely for their ability to fulfill certain roles assigned to them by the men. These include the ability to reproduce, and fulfill stereotypically feminine roles, such as doing housework or being a…

Margaret Attwood uses her gift for fictional writing to explore the powerful theme of control. She does this through the medium of The Handmaid’s Tale (1985), which won the Governor-General’s award in 1985, and the first Arthur C. Clarke award in 1987. The dystopian novel portrays a current day North America being occupied by the religious extremists the Sons of Jacob. The religious leaders that are aiming to enact its idea of a perfect world heavily control the dystopia’s population. Attwood…

In both, The Handmaid’s Tale and Oryx and Crate, Margaret Atwood creates societies where government control is omnipresent. The Handmaid’s Tale is set in a future dystopian society named Gilead in which people use their power to take advantage of others. In the novel, all aspects of life are watched by The Eyes. They are everywhere and their presence and identities are unknown. This is a main fear for the public. They are used to create a sense of control over the citizens and are used as…