Gilead

There is a distinct difference between the violence of the oppressed and the violence of the oppressor. Consider World War II, the violent actions of Nazi Germany (the oppressor) towards the Jewish people (the oppressed) are deemed incorrigible while violent actions with the goal of saving the Jewish people were fundamentally encouraged. Therefore, while violence may not always be justifiable it can be a means to an end. The justification of violence in the context of revolutions can also be…

John Ames live lives that bring them happiness as they attempt to live out their vocation. In doing this, they influence others and find meaning in their world. Ames, in preaching his countless sermons and baptizing those within his small town of Gilead, becomes a respected figure in the town, with great meaning to those who know him best. Farmer lives out his vocation in being a doctor for the underprivileged, whether in prisons or in developing nations, such as Haiti. By living out their…

choices will disappear and be taken away from woman and our society will transition to a society similar to Giliead. The people in charge say that women are better protected in Gilead, that they are treated well and kept safe from the horrors of the past. The official penalty for rape is public execution, yet, while Gilead says they eliminated these dangers for women we see at Jezebel's, the elite have access to…

The man asks what the raven’s name is “on the Night’s Plutonian shore”, alluding to another ancient god, the Roman deity Pluto, who guards the underworld. The man also references Jeremiah 8:22, when he asks if there is balm in Gilead. According to the verse, the Balm of Gilead is a medicine that traditionally heals all wounds (Jeremiah 8:22). Used in this sense, the man is asking if there is any hope to escape his grief. By using these allusions, Poe adds to the mood of the poem. By having the…

regime that seeks to erase her individuality and, the loss of context when her tale is reconstructed by humanity. The author’s use and restriction of narrative in the Republic of Gilead demonstrates the attempt to establish existence through the documentation of stories in a society that limits individuality. In Gilead, it is evident that handmaids’ discourses are silenced by the limitations…

autonomy? Both the novel The Handmaid’s Tale written by Margaret Atwood, and film The Island directed by Michael Bay, explore this question. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood uses a subgroup called Handmaids from a fictional society called The Republic of Gilead, as a means to examine the effects of objectification, forced servitude, and restricted access to education, in a totalitarian society. Alternatively, in The Island, the film depicts a subgroup of clones in a futuristic community controlled…

When read as an extrapolation of the context in which it was written, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is certainly a feminist novel in that it creates a dystopian vision of a patriarchal caste system. However, Atwood tends to dwell on the feminist positions that are at odds with each other, and critiques this by giving readers a dystopia in which women play a key role in each other’s subjugation. This lack of female solidarity is primarily due to polarized opinions among women regarding…

Everyone wants to escape from reality from time to time. Whether it's to simply daydream or get lost in a book, but one must always snap back to the real word and keep true to everyday human responsibilities. Although, in the novella Leaving Gilead by Pat Carr, Geneva Birdsong has been living a fantasy her whole life. She has regrets about her marriage and life with her husband Ian Birdsong and chooses to deal with them as if they weren't there. She doesn't enjoy being a mother, and doesn't love…

One cultural similarity between Big (1998) and modern day movies is how kids want to be older and mature faster. Often the actors who are cast as teenagers and children are at least 5 years older than the characters they play. This influences kids who think they should be more like these actors to dress and act more maturely, wear more makeup, etc. In Big, all Joshua wants is to be older. He’s tired of being treated as a child by his family and the kids at school. The obsession with…

The Raven Symbolism “The Raven” is a narrative poem written by Edgar Allan Poe. Many authors have used talking birds and ravens in their writing, but used in Poe uses the raven to represent a sad longing for his dead wife or lover with the emotions of loneliness, sadness, fear,madness, and death. “The Raven” was inspired by “A Tale of the Riots Eighty” by Charles Dickens. Throughout the poem, the narrator looks for some answers about seeing his wife, Lenore again in the afterlife as he stares…