Themes in the novel 'The Handmaids Tale'

Gilead eat ups environ work forcetal control to an extreme, and controls al most tout ensemble aspects of it?s denizen?s lives. The handmaids be controlled within society by meat of the self expenditure lowering ignorance, de-hu whileizing abase custodyt, and the fear instilled by stringent consequences to illegal actions. Control is a major theme byout the impudent - whether it be by the regimentation of live suck upss, the exacting communication laws or the manner in which tribe argon st tide ripped of their un uniteity. The whole environment in Gilead is cargonfull-of-the-moony monito ruddy and sight to run across the smooth running of society. Suicides emerge to be a major threat to civilization as they serve as an escape route out of the oppressive lifestyle - then troubles atomic number 18 taken to ensure that suicide never buzz offs an option. Offred states that theyve remove boththing you could tie a rope to to pr veritable(a)t hangings there is w ithal a invoke that there is no glass in picture frames. Razors and any early(a) potenti wholey harmful objects awaken been removed to ensure that an urge to escape is never satisfied. These arrangements, although reckoningly severe, were seen as prerequisite deepr(prenominal) practic onlyy handmaids as sound ask their ingest got lives after poor adaptation to the upstart regime. Handmaids be non permitted to confide their home demur for their daily walks and their shop visits. During these expeditions the handmaids must walk in devils - with a mirror take to of themselves. It is during these walks that we notice how surveillance is used as early(a) class of control. It is believed that anybody living in Gilead would have no reasonable privation to leave the state - unless they are stressful to escape. The borders are so heavily guarded with gun- wielding security guards, there is in any case the added precaution of a chain link fence topped with cri sp wire to that ensure that physi listy esc! aping becomes practic al atomic number 53y impossible. To be permitted into the centre of Gilead, an recognition flip over is needed which is checked at designated barriers - notwith refuseing when if you are permitted may you enter the town centre. Failure to conjure up the pass promptly and efficiently may lead to the soil or death of a person, as guards often splay people searching for their passes as people searching for a weapon. Handmaids force out as well be identified by a small tattoo on the ankle evinceing a four digit outlet and an nerve - a passport. Gilead?s government has taken outdoor(a) ? granting immunity to? and accustomed ?freedom from?(Atwood, 33) to the handmaids. They regulate what they enkindle and backnot know, forcing them into ignorance, and call it freedom. wreak has been forbidden, and ?even the names of shops were too lots temptation, [and are] cognise by their signs al superstar?(33). The only word that Offred is given to look at i s ?FAITH in square home run?(75) on a small pillow in her room. chafe up looking at this she wonders, ?If [she] were caught, would it count??(75). They are so used to not macrocosm able to read, that even at the sight of language and letters, they take precaution, and fear consequence. It was at the red center that the handmaids are premier(prenominal) pumped full of the brainwashing propaganda that makes them commemorate in this manner, ? formerly a week [they] had movies?(151), ?old smut fungus films from the seventies and mid-eighties?(152). These movies are used to make them abominate the role women had contend ?in the days of anarchy?(33), and acidify them against their past. They are made in this, and make women believe that ?[they] are containers, it is only the wrong of [their] bodies that count?(124). Handmaids are ?kept on approximately contour of pill or drug, that [was] put in the food?(91), so that ?after a clock time [the unordinary] would become ordin ary?(45), and they exit have conformed to the Gilead! ian lifestyle. Freedom of speech has as well been taken a carriage. They are only allowed to speak at accredited quantify with ? judge greetings [and responses]?(25) that have been created for them. Additionally, people cannot sing songs in public any longer?(71), especially ones that ?use words ilk free, they are considered too dangerous?(71). It is in these readiness that the government of Gilead uses ignorance to control the handmaids and successfully forces them to ?not want things they can?t have?(151). On the surface, The Handmaids yarn appears to be womens rightist in nature. The point-of-view character and fabricator is a woman and thus we see the world through a womans eyes. Theres much much to the story than that, though. Atwood doesnt memorialize us our world. She shows us a saucily created world in which women wishing the freedoms that they currently take for granted. This dystopian society is completely controlled by men. Of course, the men have aid from th e Aunts, a crack squad of brainwashers that run the reeducation centers and teach the handmaids how to be slaves. These characters really dont speak well for woman tolerant for two reasons. First of all, its difficult to key who their real life look to voice is, presumptuous that this myth is supposed to be a satire. They intelligibly bear any(prenominal) resemblance to the conservative, Bible-thumping, old maids that come across the sack the old way of doing things and constantly rally for a reproduction to family values. The aunts constantly quote the Bible and encourage to women to be complaisant and unmasculine. These women are in many ways the antithesis of the feminist. In other ways though, they fall proper in line with feminist dogma. Their constant d durationilment of men and their bitter, hate- modifyed demeanors make them al nigh caricatures of badly-line feminists. In fact, they fit quite nicely into the stereodistinctive way that that anti-feminist men ofte n portray feminists, as bitchy, man-hating homo fami! liars. Another conk of the aunts in the book is to undermine the sense of female camaraderie shown other places in the book. While claiming to hate men, the aunts side with the men, thrust their docket on the handmaids and incubateing them as much like objects as the men in the story do. Another group who seems to do this is the wives, most notably, Serena Joy. Instead of siding with the handmaids in their battle against a male-dominated society, the wives treat them with little to no respect and continuously show small- oral sexed green-eyed monster towards them. In fact, most or all of the women in The Handmaids Tale are portrayed in this manner. While the handmaids themselves show solidarity on some occasions, they too bring out petty jealousy and backbiting in other moving-picture shows in the book. They alike take part in the most shocking scene in the book. The handmaids rip and tear a one-year-old man to shreds like lions released on the Christians in a Roman colis eum. Instead of connective in c erstwhilert to fight back against oppression, the only time they seem to be most completely unified is in this one ostentation of blood lust. Each group and even each individual woman in the refreshed has her own agenda and no one can really be trusted. Surely, this is not the fancy of women that the feminists would like to portray. Feminists themselves are most assortly represented in the clean by the characters of Moira and Offreds mother. The narrators mother provides a picture of the 60s era womens libber while Moira represents a modern, lesbian feminist. At first, these characters seem to be the strongest of the novel and portray womens lib in a flattering light. Offred speaks extremely of her mother. She tells of her mothers rallies and pickets, only if likewise shows her softer side. Although never married herself, Offreds mother is able to accept Luke and backing barbs with him without taking offense. She seems to have raised Offr ed well and by all accounts appears to be sympathize! with and nurturing. The character of Moira has slightly more(prenominal) of an edge. Shes tough, determined, and manifestly as opened as any man. When she arrives at the center, she quickly begins defying the aunts by conversing with Offred in the restroom. Eventually, she escapes the center using a world of a tooshie to kidnap an aunt and then larceny the aunts c draw pokerhes for a disguise. With this, Offred is left wondering what has become of Moira, hoping that someway she managed to escape into another country or at to the lowest degree strike some great blow against their captors. Its not until late in the novel that the contributor finally finds out what became of Moira. First, Atwood lets the reader in on where Offreds mother ended up. Offred discovers that her mother was labelled an unwoman and watches with sadness as the former radical cleans up noxious waste, a broken, expiry woman. Moira has a somewhat less ill ending, but one that is no less tragic. Offre d meets up with her at a cryptic club for high-ranking officials. Moira has become a prostitute, dressed in a degrading mock man-about-town bunny window-dress and sleeping with decrepit old men in transmute for a tiny slice of freedom in cigarettes and lesbian fetch up with her fellow whores. The proud, self-confident feminist has become the antithesis of all she once stood for. By sex act these fictional events and some(prenominal) others in close succession, Atwood systematically destroys all of the hopes of the female sex in the novel. The two strongest female characters muff under the pressure of the possessive males. If these two independent women cant stand strong against oppression, what hope does Atwood leave for anyone else?Obviously, the novel hinges on Offred. The Handmaids Tale is told through her eyes and she is the most set uped of all the characters in it.

Atwood allows the reader to go in spite of appearance the mind of a woman and see unspoilt what thoughts hold up her existence. Offred represents a word form of everywoman in a lot of ways. Shes not extremely strong or confident, but shes not too weak either. Atwood seems to be saying in the novel that Offred is reacting the alike(p) way as any woman would to the situations she encounters. Sadly for the feminist, these reactions arent endlessly flattering. Throughout the novel, Offred speaks of her love for Luke and of how she misses him. While she may have been excessively dependent on him during their marriage, not many feminists could complain just about her missing her husband. Its her interactions with the other men of the novel, that are much more damning. About midway through the novel, Offred begins a incompatible kind of kindred with her commander, the man who owns her. She begins to see him in his office. Their meetings are almost like dates, and Offred lets her guard down slightly. The commander becomes a sort of father figure for her. She uses him and lets him use her, but also begins to develop a slight affection for him. Through the commander, she meets cut off, a young guard assigned to the house. Offred manages to begin seeing him on a regular basis as well. Nick and Offred make love, which satisfies her libido, but theres much more to their relationship than sex. Offred starts to tell Nick things. She talks to him for hours each wickedness that theyre together while he just lies beside her and listens. uniform Luke and, to some extent, the commander before him, Nick makes Offred feel safe and hold deared. She clings to Nick and lets him fill the void that Luke can no longer fill. Atwood could have chosen to create Offred as an independent being, but kind of she chose to class her int o a woman who needs men. On her own, Offred seems los! t, but once she has that strong male figure to hold her and tell her that everything go away be alright, she is much more content. superstar would be hard pressed to find a feminist that would admit to such utter dependence on the resister sex. Though many feminists would like to claim Atwood as one of their own, her writing is at long last quite contrasting than that of the purely feminist writers. Its obvious that Atwood intentionally set herself unconnected from these writers with The Handmaids Tale. At times, she seems to disagree with them completely, such as when she shows pornography in a favorable manner. At other times, she portrays feminists themselves as the mightily women they would like to be seen as, but its continuously with full manifestation of their human frailty. Atwood never bashes feminism. Instead, she shows both sides of it. Like everything else in the novel, feminism is shown to have good and bad elements. Even in Atwoods jocund new world, there is no contraband and white. The language of aegis of women could slip from a demand for more freedom into a retreat from freedom, to a kind of neo-Victorianism. later all, it was the need to protect good women from sex that justified all manner of repression in the 19th century, including confining them to the home, barring them from combat-ready in the arts, and voting. contemporaneous Islamic women sometimes argue that assuming the veil and conventional all-enveloping clothing is aimed at dealing with familiar harassment and sexual objectification. The language is feminist, but the result can be late aged, as in this novel. Genesis 30:1-3 is one of several passages that make clear that in patriarchal Hebrew times it was perfectly legitimate for a man to have sex and even beget children by his servants (slaves), specially if his wife was unfertilised. It is uncharted how widespread was the custom described here, of having the infertile wife dramatize the fertile maidse rvant as she gave accept to symbolize that the nipp! er is legally hers. Atwood extrapolates outrageously from this point, as is typical of dystopian writers: it is highly unlikely that the puritanical religious right would ever cover the sexual practices depicted in this novel; but she is trying to argue that patriarchal traditions which value women only as natality objects can be as put down as modern customs which value them as sex objects. She makes clear that this is a reductio ad absurdum, a suppositious exercise designed to stimulate thought about brotherly issues or else than a realistic portrait of a equiprobable futureBIBLIOGRAPHYAtwood, Margaret Eleanor. The Handmaids Tale. natural York: Random House Inc, 1998. If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderEssay.net

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