Margaret Corbin

Baroness Thatcher, the first female prime minister of the United Kingdom. She was famously called the Iron Lady. She was born on October 13 1925 and she was the Conservative Party’s leader. 1979 she was elected as prime minister. Her beliefs and policies caused her to become unpopular with her party and many citizens of the UK. Baroness Thatcher resigned from her position due to her unpopularity in 1990. She died on April 8 2013 at the age of 87 years old. Similarly Boris Johnson is also a…

In the book The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, desire is key. Throughout the novel, desire controls a majority of people and how they behave. Offred risks her life when she goes to Jezebel’s with the Commander. Offred risks her life when she sneaks off to Nick’s room every night, even though she is forbidden from doing so. Serena Joy, the Commander’s wife, risks her life when she desires a child so much that she suggests to Offred that she and Nick try to have a child together which is…

"If we value the pursuit of knowledge, we must feel free to follow wherever the search may lead us," (Adlai E. Stevenson Jr.). Throughout the book Oryx and Crake, written by Margret Atwood, many experiments and scientific discoveries have not turned out the way the creator(s) have intended them to. There are handful examples throughout the story that shows that knowledge is a double edged sword. These examples include: the Crakers, the Pigoons, and the BlyssPluss pill. To begin, the Crakers…

To hold people to oppression, you must convince them first that they need to be oppressed. Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, a dystopian novel, takes substantial efforts to depict this very scenario. She portrays a patriarchal society where women’s bodies are exploited, reading and writing by women are forbidden, and women are strictly monitored and oppressed. Along with other subjects, Atwood explores the social myths defining femininity, the social and economic exploitation of women, as…

These articles cited above were written before the television show was even a thought and before The Handmaid’s Tale was extremely relevant to what is happening in today’s world. In an interview by TIME magazine with Margaret Atwood and Elisabeth Moss, the actress of Offred in the television show, talk a little about what the book and television show’s ideals really mean with today’s society. The interview starts with TIME asking why the show now? Atwood responds with, “The control of women and…

At first, I did not expect much of The Handmaid’s Tale. Bearing the word “Tale” in its title, I initially thought the book would be a simple fantasy novel, far from reality, but I was wrong. The Handmaid’s Tale was one of the only fiction books that got me thinking about real life. The situations addressed in the book are not as far-fetched as they seem and I learned a lot about the fictional gloomy future it presents. Aside from what the author presents to the reader, the way the author…

Margaret Sangers, founder of the first birth control clinic in 1916, saw it close down after just ten days of being open because she was trying to give women a chance to control their bodies and their lives. Planned Parenthood has been constantly attacked by critics and has been a ginormous part of women’s lives due to the services the clinic provides. There is a tremendous amount of arguments/controversy towards Planned Parenthood and it’s been the topic in social media and in candidate…

The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood recounts the establishment of a theological state, Gilead, in place of the United States of America. Gilead uses the Bible to justify a misogynistic, hierarchical and racist society. Offred, the narrator, is a woman forced to become the “Handmaid” of a Gileadean Commander, Fred. Handmaids are supposedly a position of honour for fertile women; in reality, they are sex slaves, allowing only the leaders of Gilead to reproduce. In the novel, education is…

The concept of femininity is reinforced in The Handmaid’s Tale, as it presents the belief that women are for reproduction and menial household chores that “The Republic of Gilead” is built upon. In the novel handmaids are not meant to use their minds, they are treated as inferiors to their male counterparts and are denied any sort of literature, this reinforces the stereotypical notion of men going out and earning the money while women stay home to perform household chores such as cooking,…

In the novel Oryx and Crake by Margaret Atwood, Crake knowingly caused a plague that led to the death of the majority of humanity. His intentions behind this act were to help the world from human suffering by creating a pill and modifying embryos to create a better population. Unknowingly to Snowman and Oryx, this pill called BlyssPluss would eventually cause a worldwide epidemic killing those who were not immunized beforehand. This act of deceit was intended to “help” make the world a better…