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The Handmaids Tale

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Deisy Monterrozo English 101 S26487 Fall 2017 September 20, 2017 The handmaids Tale Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, is about a future version of the United States. Atwood introduces Offred as a handmaid in the republic of Gilead. Handmaids are assigned to bear children for couples that have trouble conceiving. Offred serves the commander and his wife, Serena Joy. Offred’s freedom is complete restricted. She can only leave the house only on shopping trips, the door of her room cannot be completely shut, and the Eyes, Gilead’s secret police force watch her every public move. Offred tells the story of her daily life, frequently slipping to flashbacks that are portions of her life from before, and during the beginning of the …show more content…

Gilead seeks to silence women, but Offred speaks out, denies Gilead to take control over her inner life, Offred’s describing the horror of Gilead as she experiences it from day to day. Serena Joy, she used to be a powerful woman but Galilea’s government seems without freedom or choice. She worked as a gospel singer and anti-feminist activist and crusader for “traditional values” in Pre-Gilead times. After that, she used to give speeches as a television personality who promoted an anti-feminist about sanctity of the home she was advocating the women return to the home and submission to their husbands. Now, she’s the commander’s wife. Atwood makes it obvious how unhappy she is in the current domestic situation, acting as a wife, she is broken inside. This unhappiness derives from the restrictive and male dominated society. Gilead’s society cannot bring happiness even to its most powerful women. Only men have the freedom of read, and while he is in the room he opens the bible and reads a verse that Serena Joy is identify with, “Give me children, or else I die. Am I in God 's stead, who hath withheld from thee the fruit of the womb? Behold my maid Bilhah. She shall bear fruit upon my knees, that I may also have children by her." (88) This verse in the bible is talking about how she wants to bear children. In Gilead, they make their people believe that if they cannot have children, then they should die. If Serena could not bear children, she will

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