Offred's Mother In The Necessity Of Telling Her Story

From the outset of 'The Handmaids Tale' the reader is placed in an unknown world, where the rights and freedom of women have been taken away. We follow the narrative journey of a handmaid, named Offred.

Offred's Narrative in The Handmaid's Tale "Writing is an act of faith; I believe it's also an act of hope, the

Firstly, the author uses many similes, symbols and short sentence structures to emphasise the oppression and the totality of the control that the government has over Offred. She uses different objects in the room to symbolise Offred’s situation.

Despite the little dependence on women, they are still objectified and subjected to injustice because of their gender, regardless if they were a female in general or as a poor female. As something as simple as what a person is born with affects the respect that is given to them. Margaret Atwood formulates Offred’s personality much like any other handmaid in the community. Offred becomes familiar with the functionality and role of women in the community, therefore she adjusts herself in order to be up to par with the unethical standard. “I wait. I compose myself. My self is a thing I must now compose, as one composes a speech. What I must present is a made thing, not something born. (Atwood, 75). To be what is required of her, Offred must act unhuman because the expectations of females exceed the

The Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood describes the story of Offred, a Handmaid, that is a woman ascribed a breeding function by society, and who is placed with a husband and wife higher up the social ladder who need a child. Through Offred's eyes we explore the rigidity of the theocracy in which she lives, the contradictions in the society they have created, and her attempts to find solace through otherwise trivial things. The heroine is never identified except as Offred, the property of her current Commander, she was a modern woman: college-educated, a wife and a mother when she lost all that due to the change in her society. The novel can be viewed from one perspective as being a feminist depiction of the suppression of a woman, from another

The Handmaid’s Tale is about Offered as she shares her thoughts and experiences in a journal-like form and provides some advice. Offred is a lower class female who has been taken from her husband and daughter at 5 years old to be a handmaid for the red commander at the red center. The point of this center is to reproduce with the Commander

These women have been stripped from their names, beliefs, and anything that reflects them. Throughout the novel, the first person view allows the reader to see how Offred identity is being stripped away. For example, “And if I talk to him I'll say something wrong, give something away. I can feel it coming, a betrayal of myself. I don't want him to know too much.” Offred says this quote and it implies that even the simplest exchanges can reveal portions of her identity. The reader gets to see how scared she is to say something that will give herself away because now being herself is forbidden. Offred recognizes the danger that can come from giving up her identity and first person point of view allows the reader to also recognize that and see how her identity is slipping away because of fear. This feeling of fear that the narrator feels starts to develop the

If the whole story is just a memory, many of the “facts” are again adjusted to fit the narrator’s ex-post perspective. The Handmaid even offers three versions of the story of her and Nick having sex for the first time – here, Atwood again addresses the stereotypical expectations of romantic love and depicts three possible realities which play on Offred’s wishful thinking”2. Offred’s unreliability as narrator is furthered due to the that the fact that the tapes have been ordered by somebody else , but also because she is telling the story after it has happed. Hindsight surely must have shaped her opinions in some form. As well as exploring natural conflict within the human mind, as the novel progresses it becomes clearer that Offred does not always reflect the typical aspects of what is deemed as a normal mentality. As Offred’s perceptions of reality seem to merge more and more with her imagination we are made aware that isolated under the regime of Gilead, sanity is at least something Offred has to now fight for. "Sanity is a valuable possession; I save it, so I will have enough when the time comes." Insanity has always had in place amongst the control of totalitarian regimes ‘following the fall of the Soviet Union, it was often reported that some opposition activists and journalists were detained in Russian psychiatric institutions to intimidate and isolate them from

Offred's memories are a way for her to escape a society riddled with hopelessness. The authoritarian society of Gilead prevents her from

Her belief gives her a false sense of security as well as her unwillingness to rebel due to fear of the Eyes. Her conversations with others are "Praise be," "Blessed be the fruit," and "May the Lord open" it is difficult for Offred or any women to really have a meaningful conversation for fear that anyone is a spy. Everything that Offred does is now part of the norm of society. She doesn't question her duties just does what is expected of her. As Offred begins a secret relationship with Nick she believes she has reclaimed a tiny piece of her past. She becomes addicted to the small amount of companionship from Nick, causing her to turn a blind eye to the injustices going on around her. She feels empowered because it was her own choice. When in reality she did what was expected of her. Using her body in order to produce a child.

Unlike Moira, Offred is desperate to conceive the Commanderís child in order to survive. Both women parallel many women in todayís society. On one hand, there are feminists who rebel against society no matter what it costs. On the other hand, there are women who are just trying to survive and find their place in a society in which they are second class citizens. In the novel, Offred is torn between smearing her face with butter to keep her complexion and hanging herself. In the same manner, she is caught between accepting the status of women under the new regime and following her own desires to gain knowledge and fall in love. Offred doesnít know whether to accept the circumstances and die inside, or to fulfill her own desires, set herself free like Moira has done. The contrast between Moira and Offred reveals Atwoodís attitude towards women and their sometimes self-destructive submission. Atwood shows the oppression of women through the extreme setting of the story, but she also allows the reader to see how women passively oppress themselves.

the novel is a role model for Offred and serves as a part of Offred’s conscience. The

Throughout The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred recalls her past life before and during the creation of the Republic of

Atwood used Offred to express her ideas on pornography. Atwood obviously does not like it. But, in another sense, she emphasizes the fact that Aunt Lydia lies to Offred and the others when saying that it is how life used to be. Atwood never disregards the fact that women have been misrepresented both by themselves and by men. She is careful to go through the whole novel placing no blame, and leaving the questions to the reader. How did this society get to this point? Could this really happen? Are we doing anything to prevent it? In the novel there is no real one strong force. Especially no male or female dominant role, which makes it hard to decide who is to blame. Feminism is clear throughout the book, and Atwood represents women very well. Many readers have questioned the novel's character as a feminist critique. The Handmaid's Tale delivers a conservative interpretation of women's ideal social actions, advocating what looks more like traditional femininity, rather than revolutionary feminism.

As the female narrators reads the story to the audience we realize that she often has flashbacks to former times, when the United States was still a nation. She recalls the happier times she had with her mother, her close friends, and her lover and husband Luck. In the Pre-Gilead period, she also had a little daughter, June, with Luck. Offred's mother was a single mother and feminist activist. Her best friend was Moira, who was also fiercely independent.