Literary Analysis of the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood Essay Example
Literary Analysis of the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood Essay Example

Literary Analysis of the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood Essay Example

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  • Pages: 5 (1143 words)
  • Published: October 3, 2017
  • Type: Essay
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Offred. in Margaret Atwood’s upseting novel The Handmaid’s Tale says. “But who can retrieve hurting one time it’s over? All that remains of it is a shadow. non in the head even. in the flesh. Trouble Markss you. but excessively deep to see. Out of sight. out of head. ” The society of Gilead causes the aforesaid hurting and demoralisation by utilizing women’s organic structures as political instruments. Similar to Atwood’s novel. today’s work forces put huge force per unit area on adult females to be a certain manner. give them kids. and take attention of the place and the similar. In Atwood’s novel. The Handmaid’s Tale. she examines the subject of demoralisation of adult females through in writing anticipations of what women’s hereafters may look like.

In 1 Playboies 6: 19-20. the Bible provinces. “Or do you non cogni

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ze that your organic structure is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you. whom you have from God? You are non your ain. for you were bought with a monetary value. So glorify God in your organic structure. ” In The Handmaid’s Tale. the society influences the citizens. like Ofglen. otherwise. The society wrongfully manipulates adult females to utilize their organic structures for what the authorities decides is right. non what God planned for their organic structures. Through this unlawful usage. adult females have one time once more go less superior to work forces and treated more like an object than a individual. Besides in Corinthians 6:18. the Bible provinces. “Flee from sexual immorality. Every other wickedness a individual commits is outside the organic structure. but the sexually immoral individual wickednesss against his ain organic structure.

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” The authorities in The Handmaid’s narrative encouraged sexual immorality by go throughing the servants from adult male to adult male. destroying the women’s pureness and corrupting their organic structures by utilizing them strictly for reproduction methods.

In the clip period of The Handmaid’s Tale. the demoralisation of adult females was normal and recognized. but even the protagonists of the demoralisation remembered the clip when adult females weren’t being passed from adult male to adult male to reproduce and were respected and upheld in society. In today’s society most of the scriptural ethical motives are upheld and for the most portion. adult females are equal with work forces. Women aren’t forced to travel from adult male to adult male for reproduction intents and they have the pick of whom they will get married and reproduce with. The true intent of a adult female is to be the man’s equal and to supply in her what the adult male doesn’t have. The Handmaid’s Tale portrays adult females in a demoralising manner. giving them no picks. freedom. or say.

The authorities in The Handmaid’s Tale enforced the demoralisation of adult females in Gilead. The original authorities was overthrown by a group of totalitarian work forces who enforced the Torahs that began the demoralisation of the adult females. The authorities so takes complete control of everyone. doing Gilead more like a Communist state than democratic America. The Constitution is wholly thrown out. taking off citizens. particularly women’s. freedom and rights. Most of the work forces are wholly obedient and back up the government’s intervention of adult females. Even when the commanding officer broke the regulations and took Offred out. he

made sure that she still understood he has complete and entire control over her. Demoralization was in full consequence. and there was no get awaying it.

In today’s society adult females have similar functions to those of work forces. They work. supply for their households. and are seen as equal to work forces. In The Handmaid’s Tale. adult females are used as a tool to make kids for the “commanders” and are treated more like an object than a human being. In The Handmaid’s Tale. the society is reverted back to when adult females had no rights and were seen more like a trophy that would react to men’s every beck and call. The handmaids’ functions in the novel are even worse than that of the olden twenty-four hours “housewife. ” When the servants disobey. they are put to decease or left in the barren of what used to be America. No 1 receives a harsher penalty than that. Even in today’s society adult females don’t receive that harsh of a penalty if they disobey. This merely goes to demo that in the society and clip of The Handmaid’s Tale. the demoralisation of adult females as political instruments was in full swing.

Despite all of Gilead’s pro-women rhetoric. such subjection creates a society in which adult females are treated as subhuman. They are reduced to their birthrate. treated as nil more than a set of ovaries and a uterus. In one of the novel’s cardinal scenes. Offred lies in the bath and reflects that. before Gilead. she considered her organic structure an instrument of her desires ; now. she is merely a hill of flesh environing a

uterus that must be filled in order to do her utile. Gilead seeks to deprive adult females of their individualism in order to do them docile bearers of the following coevals.

Throughout the full text of The Handmaid’s Tale. the governing totalitarian authorities does what is in its power to try to insulate adult females from society. Not merely do are the adult females isolated from society in footings of sexual contact ( or any contact. for that affair ) . with work forces. but they are besides individualized within the gender itself and separated from each other. Evidence of this isolation is available throughout the novel in different degrees. The first degree. possibly the harshest. is the division of genders. with adult females like the Handmaids unable to pass on with single work forces. Offred’s separation from work forces is evident when she compares herself to the “power of a Canis familiaris bone” ( 29 ) . but the bone is “held out of reach” ( 29 ) .

This depicts how there is a rigorous gender division that disallows them to even pass on with each other. much less have sex. For the Angels. they are non even allowed to look at the alleged Canis familiaris bone. When we are foremost introduced to the thought of the Angels. Offred references that the Angels must stand outside of the secondary school “with their dorsums to us” ( 10 ) . Offred wants that they would merely look at her and if merely “something could be exchanged” ( 10 ) . The guards of the complex Offred is held in at the beginning of the novel aren’t

even allowed inside it. With the work forces non allowed in the Red Center and the adult females now allowed outside of it. they are each stray from each other.

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