Margaret Atwood

The Power of Narrative Narrative is the central element in storytelling. As existence is constructed through the narrating of stories, the ambiguous nature of narrative is a position of real power to interpret history. In Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale, the author demonstrates the power of narrative through Offred’s resistance in a totalitarian regime that seeks to erase her individuality and, the loss of context when her tale is reconstructed by humanity. The author’s use and…

society. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood takes our current society and values and makes it the past or history of Gilead. In Gilead, women no longer have a freedom to do anything. Instead, they have freedom from. This shift in the type of freedom available for women was also an attempt to better the lives of women. Women’s lives are constantly changing, for better or for worse, based on the past and the present in both our world and the world inside Margaret Atwood’s novel, The…

Margaret Atwood uses a variation of figurative language to reveal the underlying sexual and manipulative ways of the Commander’s desires. In the Handmaid’s Tale, Gilead is a society where power is imposed entirely from the top. Atwoods characters demonstrate that even if substantial power is taken away from them, they will find a way to manipulate others. Atwood compares positional power to warfare and animal confrontations and emphasizes reward power with sexual language. Figurative language is…

Margaret Atwood is a Canadian author mostly known for another of her titles, The Handmaid’s Tale, but she has also written pieces that explore the other fundamentals of writing and how to approach and subvert the craft to expand its horizons. This particular short story, “Happy Endings,” is in the genre of metafiction, where a writer breaks what is called “the fourth wall” and destroys the barriers between the world that is created and its creator. Examples of this have been seen throughout the…

In Margaret Atwood’s “Happy Endings” and David Ives’ Sure Thing, both stories share a common theme of trying to find a happy ending in a romantic relationship. Furthermore, most of the characters in both “Happy Endings” and Sure Thing focus on finding the perfect person to settle down with or are trying to make a relationship work and lead to the perfect life with their significant other. Also, both the short story and the play have various similarities and differences. In addition to this, the…

Authors portray social issues that are sensitive to the public by placing them in their literary works in order to display their importance. Authors such as Atwood and Roth utilize this technique in order to bring forth social issues that deal with race, gender, love, religion, and other issues that people are scared to discuss. These authors bring these topics to light through the use of vivid imagery, detailed characterization, and a well developed setting. The main issues that are touched on…

Rhetorical devices such as diction, satire, and sarcasm are heavily scattered throughout the Handmaid’s Tale, however, the paramount device present in the book the extreme use of symbolism. Margaret Atwood has made most everything in the story, whether on purpose or happy accident, into a symbol for some item of the past. In the story, the narrator, Offred, spends her life in a civilization known as The Republic of Gilead. While there, she discusses the trials and tribulations of all women to…

exaggerating aspects of reality to expose their flaws and uncover cultural fantasies. Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale is a perfect example of fantasy attempting…

Underneath the color and beauty of flowers lurks a symbol that is representative of the abuse of the handmaids occurring in Gilead. The book The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood is a literary masterpiece containing a multitude of symbols concealed throughout the text, from the flowers to the clothes worn by the characters. These symbols are used to represent the purpose of the characters in Gilead, the setting of the book. The flowers are a symbol for the sole reproductive role of the handmaids…

The book The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood is a literary masterpiece containing a multitude of symbols concealed throughout the text, from the flowers to the clothes worn by the characters. These symbols are used to represent the purpose of the characters in Gilead, the setting of the book. The flower is a symbol for the sole reproductive role of the handmaids and the colors are used to symbolize how the characters are meant to behave; red meaning fertile, white for purity, green for service…