The Handmaid's Tale

Toni Morrison 's The Bluest Eye and Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid 's Tale are novels that include many instances of violence in order to demonstrate how brutality informed the ideas and lives of their characters. The Bluest Eye introduces the character of Pecola Breedlove, a young girl whose life has been characterized by habitual exposure to violence. Pecola develops and maintains the idea that she is unworthy of better circumstances and the frequency of violence throughout her life foster…

The Wrongful Extinction of Sensuality In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, she creates a dystopian society where women are valued for their sexual functions instead of their attributes. Her novel is set in a post-United States era in a time where men control everything, from the jobs to women’s bodies. Offred, previously married, is a handmaid of a powerful Commander and his wife. It is her job to provide the couple with a child. Society has been trained to believe that all eroticism is…

In the novel The Handmaid's Tale by Margeret Atwood, the narrator, Offred, lives in a dystopian government which uses violence and totalitarianism to control the people. She is chosen to be a handmaid, a "baby -maker", for the Commander and his wife. In the the novel Offred expresses her emotional state and her deep desires to escape the society she lives in. She does so by mentioning the color red multiple times throughout the novel. In literature the color red is often associated to many…

The novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, takes place in the present day United States, although it has been overrun by a new society called the Republic of Gilead. The society is run by oppressive conservatives that have assigned all citizens into classes. When the main character, Offred, is assigned the role of a Handmaid, her individuality is taken away from her. Handmaids belong to men of a higher ranking class called Commanders, who use them the sole purpose of conceiving a child. In the new society,…

Jannelly Figueroa Mr. Sieker 1520-2150 20 March, 2016 Religion, Colonialism, Modernism, and Feminism in a Dystopian Society In the book, A Handmaid’s Tale, the author, Margaret Atwood, shows what a dystopian society consisting of very distinct classes is like through the eyes of a handmaid named Offred. Little by little, readers are informed on what has occurred in this state, how an act of rebellion led the breakdown of a whole nation, and to what extremes the whole formation of the society…

As hinted by the quotation, Offred felt guilty for having enjoyed the sex she had with Nick. At first, Offred agreed to have sex with Nick because of a pact she made with Serena Joy. Getting pregnant by Nick would save Offred from shipment to the colonies. However, after the act transpired, a revision occurred within Offred, which saw the return of her old identity. The identity that Offred had throughout most of the novel was a precarious one that Offred created to conform to Gilead society. It…

An Oppression Society Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale takes a deeper look at a dystopian society where women are treated inferior to men. The novel portrays the inner struggles of a handmaid by the name of Offred, who took for granted her fundamental rights and now she is paying the price for it, as she wishes to go back to her previous life where she had: a husband, a child and rights. My understanding of the novel’s meaning and of Offred is based on my experiences growing…

“The Handmaid’s tale” by Margaret Atwood is a dystopian novel, where women are being controlled and have no freedom. Women are expected to cover their body; they are subjected to being treated as the weaker sex that aren’t allowed to read or learn. In this dystopian, women are being controlled by men, by controlling women’s knowledge, feelings and attachment. Women in this society are not allowed to have freedom; they are controlled by the commanders or their wife’s. The women that are…

Education is the cornerstone of advancement and success. In The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, the women of Gilead are not allowed to receive an education. The regime does not allow the women to read and write because it makes them more dangerous and more likely to rebel. The lack of education gives men extra power over the women as they can feed the women information without the women having the opportunity to verify it for themselves. This practice is much like the works of the Catholic…

In the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the language established in Gilead promotes conformity. This language utilizes biblical and neologism appeals to get their citizens to conform and follow the new regulations. To begin with, the novel is littered with biblical names and phrases: “Jezebel”, “Martha”, “Milk and Honey”, “All Flesh”, “Lilies” and many more. All of these appellations come from the bible and are used to name the shops that the handmaid’s daily shop at, the housemaids, and the…