How Does Margaret Atwood Use Feminism In The Handmaid's Tale

For my ISP I have chosen to cover the topic of men and women being reduced to political objects or instruments by the misuse of power. From the first chapter of The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood makes it clear to the reader each character introduced has a distinct role in the society the novel is set in. Gender roles seem to play a major part in the class division of the totalitarian government style of The Handmaid’s Tale and although our government style is very different, class division and gender roles still present major issues in our world today. Throughout the beginning of the novel language is used as a tool to oppress peoples rights and freedoms leading to class division and specific gender roles.

Women are often looked down upon or even portrayed as the weaker partner in a relationship or in society. However, there’s the idea of feminism: women having equal social, political, and economic power in relations to men. There are women who believe in equality between genders while there are those who are simply ashamed of their gender and in result try to take away others masculinity. Nathaniel Hawthorne’s The Scarlet Letter includes an important feminist, who is characterized as a powerful female in literature with strong ideals based on feminism. In contrast, Ken Kesey’s One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest includes a female character who does not seek equality between her and the men in the mental hospital. Hester Prynne of The Scarlet Letter

Oppression has happened all over history and still happens in recent days. Even though issues of oppressions haven’t been allowed but it’s still prone to happen daily. In the Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood, it describes the oppression and power the nation of Gilead makes rules takes control over it’s citizens. The manipulation of using certain laws or objects to make people obey the rules. The Republic of Gilead gains and maintains power over its citizens by using the bible in order for people to follow the regulations, make citizens believe that this society is better, and women defined by their functions (you’re not a woman if you can’t have a baby).

In the Book a “The Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood the use of language is different all throughout the book because of the use of tone. The author uses different elements of language to display the circumstances in the book. She uses different terms in the book to show how freedom of speech was taken away from characters. The author uses a different approach towards power in the book, rather than in the real world.

Throughout Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale an imagined place or state in which everything is unpleasant or bad, typically a totalitarian or environmentally degraded state is created through the use of multiple themes and narrative techniques. In a dystopia, we can usually find a society that has become all kinds of wrong, in direct contrast to a utopia, or a perfect society. Like many totalitarian states, the Republic of Gilead starts out as an envisioned utopia by a select few: a remade world where lower-class women are given the opportunity interact with upper-class couples in order to provide them with children, and the human race can feel confident about producing future generations with the potential to see past divisions of

Literary Analysis In a world that is created of men and women, all must equally work together in order to achieve a functioning society on Earth. However, in the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, a dystopian society is created where men have complete authority over women. Thus, the women in The Handmaid’s Tale are not subject to any rights or freedoms. A matter of a fact, the only women that have any place in the society are the handmaids that reproduce children for the elite men of the Republic of Gilead.

Although it may not be in the extreme of the Handmaids in the novel, women in today’s society are none the less subject to marginalization. Examples of this can be seen from third world nations to even the most forward thinking nations in the world. A clear example of how women are marginalized in today’s society is the gap between the male and female pay cheque in the United States. Currently women only earn 77 cents for every dollar earned by a man, according to the US Census Bureau. Another example is the abortion bans and difficulty in attaining female contraceptives that is sweeping the United States.

Novel and Film Analytical Paper: The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood Thelma & Louise by Ridley Scott Sexism and gender roles have divided societies for centuries while the great feminist movement has impacted everybody. How women from the past and from the present struggle to managed their position in society as gender roles define their lives. Analyzing the novel The Handmaid’s Tales and the movie Thelma & Louise, I will evaluate, compare and contrast the advantages and drawbacks of the feminist movement. With completely different settings and scenarios, these two stories will have a struggle that will defined their ends. Analyzing these diverse turnouts; from a handmaid that wishes to get pregnant so her life has a meaning as a women,

But the worst was using women as breeding machines. In Gilead, women were divided into levels, where Wives have most of the power, then the Aunts, Econowives, Marthas, and Handmaids came after. The book tells the story of a handmaid called Offred showing how she lost her normal life and living as a handmaid in her commander’s house. The author, based these events upon real events that has happened somewhere at sometime in history, where many of them are rooted and still exist in our world today, as she explained, “One of my rules was that I would not put any events into the book that had not already happened in what James Joyce called the ‘nightmare’ of history, nor any technology not already available”(Atwood XIV). Many feminist movements have been found, and some rights have been gained, but not everywhere and not for everyone.

In the year 2008, the Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) conducted a survey on workplace sexual harassment. Out of 500 respondents from 92 companies, seventy-nine percent of sexual harassment victims were females. In the Republic of Gilead of Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, the protagonist and narrator, Offred is a handmaid with a ticking biological clock. A Handmaid’s purpose is to repopulate the world by having sex with their respective Commander’s but at the age of 33, Offred does not have that much time left. If she remains infertile then a cruel fate would be awaiting her, All the while during this crisis, Offred reminisces back to

Margaret Atwood’s text, The Handmaid’s Tale, centers around the potential outcome of a world ruled under an austere theocratic government, whose power is sustained through harsh violence, incessant observation of the people, and the re-educating of the people being governed. With the creation of this fictional, dystopian society, Atwood addresses prospective issues that would be related to a society such as the Republic of Gilead. One of the more significant issues that arises early in the novel and continues for the duration is the concern of females and their roles in society, from a highly sexual standpoint. Atwood touches upon a plethora of issues throughout the novel, as told through the viewpoint of Offred. Using a feministic approach to analyze the text, combined with research in regards to the major feminist movements taking place between the 1960s and 1980s in America—the time at which this book was written and published—Atwood magnifies and popularizes feminist rights in politics.

How one is perceived heavily determines how one will be treated by society. In the novel “The Handmaid’s Tale” written by Margaret Atwood, identity and how one appears heavily determines the extent to which one is confined and how much freedom one has. This idea is developed throughout the novel through various characters and the symbolism of colours seen in the clothing worn by them. The degree to which identity decides freedom is illustrated mainly through the female characters in the book. Furthermore, the extent to which one is restricted is revealed through the lives of the Handmaids.

In this society of The Handmaid’s Tale, which is Gilead overthrows which was once the United States a country of freedom, a country of liberty. Gilead forms so that men would be superior, and women would be controlled by bearing children. Gilead feared the world outside it, fearing that if women were not controlled the population would decrease and the human population would go extinct. The dystopian society is fighting a war outside their walls, and fear that the world outside would have an impact on the society causing them to change their religious beliefs. “They seemed undressed.

In her endmost narrative, Jane Austen writes, “But I hate to hear you talking so like a fine gentleman, and as if women were all fine ladies, instead of rational creatures. We none of us expect to be in smooth water all our days” (45). By using only two sentences, Austen is able to touch on one of the many generalizations of women that says all women are delicate individuals. Another eminent author that has focused on the abuse of women is Margaret Atwood in her novel called The Handmaid’s Tale. During this dystopian story, women have been completely stripped of their freedom and are continuously facing the oppression that their new culture has presented them with.

“Freedom is the oxygen of the soul, “Moshe Dayan once said. Freedom is the power or right to act, speak, or think as one wants without hindrance or restraint. Having freedom and being free is a privilege, a privilege that is denied to many. Without freedom individuals lose the opportunity to think as they wish, and express themselves and, most importantly lose touch with the person they truly are. In the novel, The Handmaids Tale by, Margaret Atwood freedom that had once been alive and present has been taken away from the people of Gilead.