The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

Throughout the course of world history on Earth, humans have always worked harder and harder in order to improve society and make it more perfect, although it still hasn’t been done quite yet, because it is merely impossible to achieve perfection in a world with close to seven billion people. There is a very distinct difference between a utopia, which can also be known as perfection, and a dystopia, which can also be known as a tragedy; and the outcomes normally generate from the people in charge or the authority that sets up the foundation, the rules, and the regulations for a society. In the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, The Republic of Gilead is created by a powerful authority group called the Eyes after a huge government take over and the assassination of the US president. It’s very strict rules and goals are set up to protect women, to increase childbirth, and to keep all violence, men, and powerful social media under control. The novel is set in a first person point of view and the narrator, Offred, tells her story to us readers about her experiences as a handmaid and how her life was completely turned upside down. Throughout the course of the novel Offred reveals many sides of herself; although her thoughts do not remain consistent, her personality and opinion tends to change revealing, that she is hesitant and strong because she learns to make the best of what she has and silently overcome the system of the Republic of Gilead.

The literary masterpiece The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, is a story not unlike a cold fire; hope peeking through the miserable and meaningless world in which the protagonist gets trapped. The society depicts the discrimination towards femininity, blaming women for their low birth rate and taking away the right from the females to be educated ,forbidding them from reading or writing. These appear in Ethan Alter’s observations that:

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

In her book, “The Handmaid’s Tale”, Margaret Atwood describes a dystopian society in which all of the progress in the feminist movement that was made during the twentieth century is reversed and the nation is reverted back to its traditional patriarchal ways. The story is told from the point of view of Offred, a woman who was separated from her husband and child and forced into the life of a handmaid. In this book, Atwood explores the oppression of women through her use of literary tools such as figurative language, symbols, and literary allusions.

In the book, The Handmaid’s Tale, written by Margaret Atwood, the story begins in an old school gym. In the beginning, the narrator’s name is unknown, and she was surrounded by other women. Her life is completely controlled by a married commander. While preparing for the lit circle discussion, I discovered that the book is a little complicated to read, as the language used throughout the book was old and hard to understand. I realized that although the word choices may seem easy, there are many connotation meanings behind them.

In a time when complacency is commonplace; A Handmaid's Tale, by Margaret Atwood, is an important read. The dangers of not paying attention to the occurrences of injustice are front and center throughout the entire story of a woman suddenly stuck in a world ruled by religious zealots. Offred, as she's known now, speaks of the small signs that everyone ignored, constantly looking the other way on any infractions that didn't personally affect them.

In Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, power is emphasized multiple times throughout the text. The plot of the story consists of wealthy men being the overseers of the economy. Since the birth rate of healthy children has drastically decreased due to environmental problems, women are only wanted for their ability to reproduce offspring and replenish the world. Therefore, the poorer women are taken away from their homes and placed with wealthy couples to bear offspring for them. The main character, Offred, is one of the many women who was taken from her family and placed in the home of a Commander and his wife. Since the role of each societal class’ power has changed, different characters in the text have subtle ways of displaying power.

In a “A Handmaid’s Tale” by Margaret Atwood, readers see a world go from what it once used to be to total totalitarianism. In this now cruel world called Gilead, we see people stripped from their original identities, and no longer free. Furthermore, they are brainwashed to believe and abide by new regulations and rules, and the ones that rebel or no longer are of any use for the government end up dead. Besides the narrator who is now named “Offred” in this new society, her past friend “Moira” from the pre-totalitarian world, is a central figure of hope in the story. Moira becomes a rebel and fights to win back her freedom, but ultimately that thirst to outsmart the government, leads to her ultimate destruction.

Procreation is a driving force that manifests itself differently within the numerous characters in Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s tale. Social classes are structured on the basis of child rearing, and sexuality is used as a tool to control the lives of citizens living within Gileadean society. People of different classes experience different motivating forces in relation to the goal of procreation rather than simply continuing the civilization. The whole class system is also based entirely off of fertility, although in private the separation of the classes may become less defined. This system is reinforced through many control tactics which affects those of a lower class in a negative manner. This is evident in many areas of the

In her dystopian novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood subliminally raises the question of how one’s personality is influenced by their role in society. This question is answered through multiple characters in the novel, specifically Offred, The Commander, and Moira.

In American society, people deem it unjust to hinder someone due to their gender, race, religion, and more. However, in the past and presently, there are societies that restrict people due to these same characteristics. Atwood criticizes the idea of having these restrictions through her work, The Handmaid’s Tale. With this work, Atwood establishes connections between disparate historic events, which share similarities. Atwood’s book explicitly relates to slavery due her commentary on the power dynamic through her character, Offred. Offred resembles a slave during the 19th century through her emotional, physical, and mental conditions, commenting on the disregard society has for its imperious control over people.

Power: a simple five-letter word with numerous definitions. Power a noun. Power meaning the ability or right to control people or things (“Power”). Throughout the history of human existence it has been human nature to crave and want power. The feeling of being in control and not having to answer to anybody is an indescribable feeling. But being in power can also lead to undesirable decisions. In the 19th century, Lord Acton a British historian said “Power tends to corrupt, absolute power corrupts absolutely”. In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, readers are exposed to a dystopic novel where individuals use the influence of their societal roles to manipulate others. There is no coincidence that Atwood’s novel can be considered a speculative fiction. Nor is it a coincidence that The Handmaid’s Tale is still relevant today. Abuse of power is relevant in not only Atwood’s novel, but also present in numerous societies today across the globe.

Atwood takes doesn’t take the feminist side in “The Handmaid’s Tale”, but does examine the possibilities of what could happen if the feminine was removed from the norms and reverted back to pre-1970s gender roles as being a ‘slave’ (Irigary 795). The dystopian government or the Republic of Gilead is the epitome of false Christian values that have been altered to achieve a person goal of obtaining knowledge at the risk of destroying something that already existed. The goal to achieve such knowledge ends up being flaw by the creators, The Commanders of the Faith, Offred’s commander actually breaking the rules for caring and allowing knowledge that she already had being given. She is allowed other freedom that were supposed to be forbidden and even begins breaking into her sexuality to be with Nick. In a way, Offred captures the ideals of Nietzsche to have the will to keep going and find the flaws in the Republic of Gilead.

Expressing feminist views is forbidden in this society. Women do not get basic human rights, power, or freedom. The common theme throughout this tale is women’s bodies are used as political instruments; every aspect of women’s lives is controlled by men, especially their bodies being used solely for sex and childbearing. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred is the narrator when The Republic of Gilead replaces The United States Government.

The Handmaid 's Tale is written by Margaret Atwood and published in 1985. The novel takes place in a city that used to be in the United States, now called the Republic of Gilead. The Handmaid 's Tale explores themes of a new totalitarian theocratic state society that is horrific, constantly terrifying, controlling and segregating its subjects. Its main concentration is on the subjugation of women, and it also explores the plethora of means by which the state and agencies gain control and domination against every aspect of these women 's lives. The use of coded language and restrictive dress codes also play an important factor as a means of social order and control in this new society. In the Republic of Gilead there’s a Handmaid