A Theocracy In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid Tale

Gileadean women are divided into seven classes based on hierarchy and identified by the color of their clothing. However, “They are not divided into functions. They have to do everything; if they can” (Atwood 24). The commanders’ wives wear blue. Their responsibilities are to bear children, and if they are not able to reproduce, they are to take on a handmaid and stay loyal to their husband. Aunts wear brown clothing, they work for Gilead, enforcing, teaching, and supervising the handmaids; urging them to accept their new way of life. The Marthas clothe themselves in green dresses and aprons. They are the household servants, in charge of the cooking and cleaning. Handmaids wear red, symbolizing their fertility. Their sole responsibility is to bear the Commanders’

In today’s news we see many disruptions and inconsistencies in society, and, according to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, humankind might be headed in that direction. The deterioration of society is a concept often explored biologically in novels, but less common, is the effect on everyday social constructs such as the position of women as a item that can be distributed and traded-in for a ‘better’ product. The Handmaid’s Tale elaborates the concept that, as societal discrimination towards women intensifies, gender equality deteriorates and certain aspects of societal freedoms are lost. Offred’s experience with serving Gilead demonstrates a victim’s perspective and shows how the occurring changes develope the Republic.

In The Handmaid’s Tale, the Gilead regime oppresses women in many different ways; they take complete control over their bodies, they

In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale, Offred recounts the story of her life and that of others in Gilead, but she does not do so alone. The symbolic meanings found in the dress code of the women, the names/titles of characters, the absence of the mirror, and the smell and hunger imagery aid her in telling of the repugnant conditions in the Republic of Gilead. The symbols speak with a voice of their own and in decibels louder than Offred can ever dare to use. They convey the social structure of Gileadean society and carry the theme of the individual's loss of identity.

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.

It is necessary for the government to impose a certain amount of power and control of its citizens in order for a society to function properly. However, too much power and control in a society eliminates the freedom of the residents, forbidding them to live an ordinary life. In the dystopian futuristic novel, The Handmaids Tale, Margaret Atwood demonstrates the theme of power and control through an oppressive society called the Republic of Gilead. The government established power and control through the use of the wall, military control, the salvaging, the particicution, and gender.

In “The Handmaid's’ Tale” (Margaret, Atwood), neologisms are sprinkled throughout the story's characters and it’s deeper meaning. Neologisms (being words that have a different meaning than their current uses) show how certain characters or terms are viewed in Gilead’s society. Salvagings refer to the executions that take action against those that do not abide by the Gilead Republic's laws such as the doctors who practiced abortions before the war. Another neologism is the view of freedom. Offred and the other Handmaids are not given any freedom. Similar to a regiment, the women are given orders and tasks and they must follow suit while the other roles are in this same regime, just with different tasks such as the Martha's who clean and

In Gilead Handmaids are seen as adulterous, harlots and are hated by everyone because of their role, “But the frown isn’t personal: it’s the red dress she disapproves of, and what it stands for.”(pg.19 ) they are especially hated by the wives of commanders.

The Handmaids Tale is a poetic tale of a woman's survival as a Handmaid in the male dominated Republic of Gilead. Offred portrayed the struggle living as a Handmaid, essentially becoming a walking womb and a slave to mankind. Women throughout Gilead are oppressed because they are seen as "potentially threatening and subversive and therefore require strict control" (Callaway 48). The fear of women rebelling and taking control of society is stopped through acts such as the caste system, the ceremony and the creation of the Handmaids. The Republic of Gilead is surrounded with people being oppressed. In order for the Republic to continue running the way it is, a sense of control needs to be felt by the government. Without control Gilead will

   American society has had certain cultural and political forces which have proliferated over the past few decades-described as the return to traditional Christian values. Television commercials promoting family values followed by endorsements from specific denominations are on the rise. As the public has become more aware of a shift in the cultural and political climate through the mass media, Margaret Atwood, in writing The Handmaid's Tale, could have been similarly affected by this growing awareness of the public consciousness. This may have led Atwood to write of a bleak future for the country where a new regime is established and one religion becomes so powerful as to

In the Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, life in the newly formed dystopian society of Gilead is partial to the rights of women. Once the college town of Cambridge, Massachusetts, Gilead has produced laws that prohibit women from writing, reading, conversing in a casual manner, having jobs, purchasing items, and even forming intimate and meaningful relationships. They are brought down to just a means of reproduction. Those who reproduce are called Handmaids and one such Handmaid is Offred. Her way of adapting to such a drastic change of lifestyle is to separate her mind from her body, to dissociate herself from what’s happening around her and to her. Pollock, the author of The Brain in Defense Mode, cites a definition of dissociation

Offred can see herself in the mirror like a distorted shadow, a parody of something, some fairy-tale figure in a red cloak, descending towards a moment of carelessness that is in the same as danger. A Sister, dipped in blood."(8). In Cliff Notes, Mary Ellen Snodgrass wrote, "The persistent color motif suggesting menstruation and the female cycle in the blatant scarlet color of the Handmaid's uniform"(31). For that reason, it seems appropriate the color used to represent the Handmaids is red. Their job is to deliver a child for Commanders and their wives; therefore, the menstruation cycle has a strong meaning. Giving birth is another representation. Red could be associated with the bleeding and afterbirth that is part of childbirth. The mode of transportation to travel to the birth of a fellow Handmaid is the Birthmobile. The bench seats, curtains, and floor, as well as the Birthmobile itself, is red. The place where all of the of Handmaids are trained as potential breeders is named "Red Center." That is where they are taught how to act and present themselves proudly. The Red Center is also where the Handmaids are told everything they cannot do anymore, such as read, because they are women. In today's society, we associate "Red Light Districts" with prostitution. Several examples in the novel show how little the other women in the Republic think of the function of the Handmaids. Perhaps they look at the Handmaids lives as a form of

Set in the near future, Gilead is a failed attempt at creating a utopia. After the present day United States of America fell, Gilead arose from the ashes. Centered around the idea of repopulating the human population that was decimated by pollution and nuclear waste, the society seemed like a beacon of hope in a desolate world. People accepted the new society without much resistance only to later realize that they had been duped. The founders of Gilead took conservative ideas and implemented them to the extreme. Women’s rights are taken away. Reading is forbidden. Handmaids are introduced to bear children. The government takes over and a dystopia is born. They control almost every aspect of the people’s lives, down to the food that they

Though the English language has its roots in a male-dominated society where the true meaning of words are now taken for granted. In The Handmaid’s Tale, language facilitates power. In order to effectively rule over class and gender the level of censorship on literature and control of discourses runs high. Atwood uses word choice to expose the shocking structures of the Gilead society and how faulty its foundations are as it was built upon gender inequality. The repercussions of gendered language are evident throughout the novel, implying that the sexist structure of Gilead is a result of oppressive language modern Americans accept and use in every day talk.

Feminist discourse has existed for decades in our society, especially reaching its pinnacle in the past year with the 2016 presidential election. There has been much debate over whether or not feminism is necessary, though this notion is not new. In fact, it even stretches back to being at the center of political debate in the 1980s, an era featuring Ronald Reagan’s “Reaganomics” and the rise of the Christian Right Movement. This movement exhibited social desires to uphold religious and conservative ideals and aimed to cast out the feminist agenda altogether. The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood is a dark fabrication of what could happen if this Christian movement had succeeded in taking over America, exhibiting a pseudo-religious society named Gilead that functions off of submissive women who are merely viewed as wombs for bearing children to those who no longer can biologically reproduce. Thus, it is evident that the morals of Gilead are a reflection of those of the Christian Right Movement. One of the members of the religious movement was American Baptist pastor Jerry Falwell, who, in 1989, claimed (about feminists), “These women just need a man in the house. That’s all they need. Most of the feminists need a man to tell them what time of day it is and to lead them home. And they blew it and they’re mad at all men.” Falwell makes it clear that he disagrees with the feminist agenda, suggesting that feminists only exist to hate men—and that they need a man to be a