Gilead

features throughout the novel. The Republic of Gilead is a totalitarian and theocratic state that has overthrown the United States government. The creators of Gilead used military as they assassinated the United States president and launched a coup. Everyone in the Republic of Gilead believes that they are constantly spied on. For example, Offred tells Ofglen, “’Under His Eye’” (page 45) The “Eye” are the spies of this society constantly monitoring Gilead. This creates the assumption that…

society was founded on the ideas featured in the Bible, and on the idea of Christianity's God being the one true religious being. The name “Gilead” itself is a reference to the Bible, named after a fertile land in Palestine. This meant that there was absence of any separation between Church and State; which in turn created the social system that established Gilead. The founders worked to create a social structure using biblical terms, that would organize the new society and allow it to remain…

In this totalitarian society named Gilead, the people have reverted to the biblical historic ways that women lead. In the novel, women are not allowed to express or have a creative thought,…

having a new change in the Gilead people’s society while having their lives being ripped of them, Atwood presents a new type a Dystopian fiction. Offred is the main character who goes through terrifying times throughout her new, unwanted life. The primary situation that Offred and her peers go through is the struggle for freedom and sexism. Offred was brainwashed and manipulated into doing activities that are only beneficial to the Commander, Aunt Lydia, or the society Gilead. Offred has lost…

In “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Margaret Atwood describes a new society, Gilead, formed from the ruins of the modern day the United States. Although theoretically this society is built to foster women and protect them from fear of sexual harassment and rape, Gilead takes feminism back hundreds of years. Women are either sexless wives and Marthas or childbearing Handmaids. With a distorted version of the Bible as a model, the Gilead leaders formed a republic founded on fear and oppression. Atwood…

Margaret Atwood's, The Handmaids Tale is a dystopian style novel published originally in 1985. Set in a city in what used to be in the United States, now called the Republic of Gilead, this alternative future state had the democratic government overthrown and replaced by a theocratic fundamentalist governing force. In this society of declining fertility rates, fertile women are elected to become Handmaids; 'ambulatory wombs' that reproduce for the 'infertile' wives of privileged couples that…

Xavier Vazquez Ms. Milliner EES21QH-04 October 18, 2016 The Handmaid’s Tale The Handmaid’s Tale is a book about a man dominated old testament inspired theocratic military government, called Gilead. In Gilead there is a hierarchy of women and the women are categorized to do different roles, the different categories are the wives, aunts, econowives, marthas, handmaids, and the unwomen. The handmaid's wear red colored clothing and are only used to produce children for the wives who can’t produce…

put another pharmaceutical company in the spotlight. Gilead Sciences Inc. apparently knew that their Hepatitis C treatment would be too expensive for most patients and would cause “extraordinary problems” for government health programs, Wall Street Journal noted. The 144-page US Senate report on Gilead's pricing practices is the latest in a chorus of criticisms launched against big pharmaceuticals. The committee overseeing the overpricing by Gilead focused on their drug Sovaldi and its partner…

theocracy, a female’s status is assigned to her by the Republic of Gilead. This government is categorized as such for its “regime that reduces its female subjects to mere voiceless, childbearing vessels [in the name of God] … vividly display[ing] the dehumanizing effects of ideological rhetoric, biological reductionism, and linguistic manipulation.” (Jeffrey and Hunter 1) In the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, the importance of…

up to many different interpretations and one of the many includes women's fertility. Women in the society of Gilead are only valued based on their fertility and whether or not a woman is able to give birth to a healthy human life determines their ranking in the system. When Janine had given birth to “unbabies”, she was shamed at and her babies were deemed sinful. This goes to show that Gilead will only accept healthy babies or else women have no purpose as a handmaid. The act of conceiving a…