The Handmaid's Tale Totalitarianism Analysis

A totalitarian regime is a very large piece of what is typically required for a dystopia, and it is certainly present in The Handmaid’s Tale. A totalitarian regime is a political system where the state has complete control and authority over the society. One way that the Republic of Gilead controls its citizens is through surveillance. However, the surveillance is not equal in who is monitored. In the critical essay “Sexual Surveillance And Medical Authority in Two Versions Of The Handmaid’s Tale”, Pamela Cooper states that “The Handmaid’s Tale thus brings together pre-Christian notions of absolute patriarchal authority—the omniscient, avenging God—with postmodernist theories of the objectifying and possessive male

In Gilead, women are treated like objects and all of their rights are taken away from them. They cannot vote, hold property or jobs, read, or do anything else that might cause them to become rebellious or independent, and undermine the men, or the state. Even the shops where the handmaids go to buy food do not have names on for them to read, just pictures. The only thing important about a woman now is her ovaries and her womb, as they are reduced to just their fertility.

The most blatent form of control would of course be the punishments given for resistance and the retribution given out for disobeying the state. These, in Gilead, are really rather harsh and such things as homosexuality can resut in death, under the term "Gender treachery." This is positively appalling to any civilised person believing in equal rights and death is almost absurd for such a non-crime. It seems that the society has medieval tendencies, which can be expected seeing that it's main doctrine is taken from the most ancient book, the Bible. Still obviously this is no excuse for such barbaric acts in a modern society.

By such a description by Hawthorne, it shows the puritans control the settlement and has set the code by which the society has to live by. In the Handmaids Tale, a totalitarian government was formed in Gilead when birth rates dropped. Taking advantage of the situation the government of Gilead whole philosophy, structure and religious virtues were modelled around the looming decline in birth rates in the population with the ultimate goal of control reproduction and the society at large. Women become the targets and are politically subjugated. Women are stripped off most of their rights and freedom and are treated as lesser humans in relation to their male counterparts.

Besides, this execution shoes the state’s harshness toward crimes in society and demonstrates that Gilead is always concerned about its citizens’ safety. As a result, those throw-away people cannot change their lives, especially the innocent. The next punishment is being sent to the Colonies, the hell of the world, when they attempt to oppose the government or take action against the genders. “It was about life in the Colonies. In the Colonies, they spend their time cleaning up.

I think Gilead is thought of as a theocracy it is a government in which there is no separation between state and religion. Its official vocabulary incorporates religious terminology and references to the bible. House servants are Marthas in reference to the woman who helped Jesus in the New Testament; the local police are “Guardians of the

The republic of Gilead is controlled by a theocratic dictatorship called "The Sons of Jacob." They killed the President of the United States and the majority of Congress, shortly after they launched a revolution and suspended the United States Constitution to restore orderAll along the suspension of the Constitution would lead The Sons of Jacob to freeze women's bank accounts and take away the rights women possessed. The new profound government under The Sons of Jacob begins taking place to bring upon a new order. Where people are set into roles to keep order and keep the peace, or so they

Gilead government may have established at first by good intension for their society. However, the government’s efforts to make a better society is going to wrong direction. Gilead is a dictatorship, that was built by abusing people’s fear and dissatisfaction with societal conditions. After the dictatorial controls were established, those in power plays politics of fear to maintain the regime. In the social background which transformed from democratic to despotic government, there are many dissatisfactory conditions.

George Orwell once said, “Who controls the past controls the future who controls the present controls the past.” In this quotation, Orwell brings about an important interpretation about a dystopian society. Margaret Atwood’s novel The Handmaid’s Tale, reveals the true identity of religion and government that leads to manipulating the society of Gilead through the allusions of the bible, the symbolism of Gilead, and gow the narrator’s tone influences a negative way of Gilead. Religion is the idea of living through the words of the bible and of how it should dictate society.

Gilead’s government relies heavily on language from the bible to help maintain its theocratic dictatorship. It does this by taking religious quotes such as “Give me children or else I die” out of context and bending the meaning to impose their ideologies. A quote that is made to be taken quite literally in Gilead as the women are told it is their sole purpose to reproduce and if they do not they are an “unwoman” a disturbing term which implies that in the eyes of Gilead, unless the women meet its ideology, they are useless and their humanity is taken away from them.

Hi Ashley, I agree with you and you point some important facts. You said that it is difficult for the for the people of the book to achieve basic human rights because they have been taught that one gender is superior to another, in some ways I agree with you, but in the other I don't agree with you, because they have to noticed that today's society everything is different they have to respect women, and I think that men tread women like slaves because they know the potential of women, so they fear that women can be more powerful than

Gilead is ruled by a theocracy; a government in which God is its supreme ruler. Through the eyes of its central character, Offred, a handmaid, we are given a glimpse of a world where men and women are plagued by infertility, men have become the superior sex and handmaids, concubines used for childbearing,

Within the totalitarian society created by Margaret Atwood in the Handmaid’s Tale, there are many people and regimes centred around and reliant on the manipulation of power. The laws that are in place in the republic of Gilead are designed and implemented so as to control and restrict the rights and freedom of its inhabitants.

Such system is the outcome of radical ideology and brutality that some religious groups claim. For instance, nowadays ISIS is a radical group that is copying the Gilead Republic in many aspects, such as attacking cities and killing people who resist. Also, they are taking young girls from the palaces that they attack and control, which is very similar to the Gilead that they take fertile women and make Handmaids. Therefore, I think that it is every one’s responsibility, especially the United Nations to take actions against any attempts that these groups have in order not to face any radical or racial systems such the “Gilead Republic” in the

With these changes to society, members often felt bounded by Gilead and the ability to control one’s thoughts appears impossible, as Aunt Lydia tells Offred, “The Republic of Gilead, said Aunt Lydia, knows no bounds. Gilead is within you” (Atwood 23). It appears that Aunt Lydia believes that Gilead is an internal part of each individual and therefore, it is always helping to ‘shape’ one’s thoughts and actions. Gilead’s justification of why women don’t need an education is that since a woman’s purpose in society is to bear children and raise them, they no longer require an education to perform such duties. The male population of Gilead did not lose the same rights that the women lost, however, males still have restricted freedom and restricted access to materials (books, magazines, etc). The restrictions placed on women’s and men’s lives in Gilead appear to match a characteristic of a dystopia. Since men and women don’t receive the same education in Gilead due to the restrictions on freedom, it would be improper to consider Gilead a utopia.