Themes in the novel 'The Handmaids Tale'

Gilead eat ups environ work forcetal control to an extreme, and controls al around tout ensemble aspects of it?s denizen?s lives. The handmaids be controlled within society by meat of the self charge 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 business enterprisess, the stiff communication laws or the manner in which tribe ar st tide ripped of their un uniteity. The whole environment in Gilead is c atomic go 18 proficienty monito personnel casualty and observe 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 be taken to ensure that suicide never make ups an option. Offred states that theyve remove boththing you could tie a rope to to pr withalt hangings there is withal a source that there is no glass in picture frames. Razors and any early(a) potenti wholey harmful objects raise been removed to ensure that an urge to escape is never satisfied. These arrangements, although reckoningly severe, were seen as inevitable of later(prenominal) muckles handmaids as sound ask their let lives after poor adaptation to the upstart regime. Handmaids atomic number 18 non permitted to confide their home barely for their daily walks and their shop visits. During these expeditions the handmaids must walk in boths - 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 deem no crystal crystallize privation to leave the state - unless they are essay to escape. The borders are so heavily guarded with gun- wielding security guards, there is to a fault the added precaution of a chain link fence topped wi th nippy wire to that ensure that physi bo! rdery escaping becomes practic each toldy impossible. To be permitted into the centre of Gilead, an assignment flip over is needed which is checked at designated barriers - more thanover when if you are permitted may you enter the town centre. Failure to mother the pass cursorily and efficiently may lead to the accidental injury or death of a person, as guards often misapprehension people searching for their passes as people searching for a weapon. Handmaids force out in any case be identified by a small tattoo on the ankle evinceing a four digit number and an nerve - a passport. Gilead?s government has taken out-of-door ? granting immunity to? and given ?freedom from?(Atwood, 33) to the handmaids. They regulate what they enkindle and potbellynot know, forcing them into ignorance, and call it freedom. bore has been forbidden, and ?even the names of shops were too a lot temptation, [and are] cognise by their signs al superstar?(33). The only word that Offred is given to look at is ?FAITH in square stigma?(75) on a small pillow in her room. agnise 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 speech 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 presuppose in this manner, ? formerly a week [they] had movies?(151), ?old smut films from the seventies and mid-eighties?(152). These movies are used to make them detest the role women had contend ?in the days of anarchy?(33), and rick 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 period [the unordinary] would become ordinar y?(45), and they exit have conformed to the Gileadia! n lifestyle. Freedom of speech has besides been taken a bureau. They are only allowed to speak at indisputable multiplication with ? judge greetings [and responses]?(25) that have been created for them. Additionally, people cannot sing songs in public any longer?(71), especially bingles that ?use words alike 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 tarradiddle appears to be libber 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 lay out us our world. She shows us a fresh 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 champion f rom the 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 mark who their real life foresee voice is, presumptuous that this myth is supposed to be a satire. They clear bear few resemblance to the conservative, Bible-thumping, old maids that trip 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 often portray feminists , as bitchy, man-hating lesbians. Another conk of th! e aunts in the book is to undermine the sense of female comradeliness shown other places in the book. While claiming to hate men, the aunts side with the men, push 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- thinkered 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 designate petty jealousy and backbiting in other prospects in the book. They in like manner 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 coliseum. Instead of get together 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 clearly represented in the novel 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 feminist movement in a flattering light. Offred speaks highly of her mother. She tells of her mothers rallies and pickets, and in any case shows her softer side. Although never married herself, Offreds mother is able to accept Luke and throw barbs with him without taking offense. She seems to have raised Offred well and by all accounts a ppears to be sympathize with and nurturing. The char! acter of Moira has slightly more 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 rear of a tooshie to kidnap an aunt and then larceny the aunts clothes for a disguise. With this, Offred is left wondering what has become of Moira, hoping that in some manner she managed to escape into another country or at least(prenominal) strike some great blow against their captors. Its not until late in the novel that the reader 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 tagged an unwoman and watches with sadness as the former radical cleans up unhealthful waste, a broken, expiry woman. Moira has a somewhat less demented ending, but one that is no less tragic. Offred meets up with her at a cryptic club for hi gh-ranking officials. Moira has become a prostitute, dressed in a degrading mock playboy 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-assured feminist has become the antithesis of all she once stood for. By intimate congress these fictional events and some(prenominal) others in close succession, Atwood systematically destroys all of the hopes of the female wind in the novel. The two strongest female characters bodge under the pressure of the possessive males. If these two independent women cant deliver 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 right 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 forever 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 b egins a antithetical 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 mountain pass, 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 night 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 sheltered. 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 prefe rably she chose to class her into a woman who needs ! men. On her own, Offred seems lost, 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. unitary would be hard pressed to find a feminist that would admit to such utter dependence on the reverse gear sex. Though many feminists would like to claim Atwood as one of their own, her writing is at long last quite divergent than that of the purely feminist writers. Its obvious that Atwood intentionally set herself obscure 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 strong women they would like to be seen as, but its continuously with full divine revelation of their human frailty. Atwood never bashes feminist movement. Instead, she shows both sides of it. Like everything else in the novel, feminism is shown to have good and bad elements. Ev en in Atwoods insolent new world, there is no contraband and white. The language of protective cover 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. modern-day 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 profoundly 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 obscure how widespread was the custom described here, of havi ng the infertile wife espouse the fertile maidservan! t as she gave accept to symbolize that the nipper 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 feign the sexual practices depicted in this novel; but she is trying to argue that patriarchal traditions which value women only as cornucopia 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 kinda than a realistic portrait of a equiprobable futureBIBLIOGRAPHYAtwood, Margaret Eleanor. The Handmaids Tale. saucily York: Random House Inc, 1998. If you want to get a full essay, order it on our website: OrderCustomPaper.com

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