The Novel ' The Handmaid 's Tale '

Over the past 200 years sexual liberation and freedom have become topics of discussions prevalent within western culture and society. With the recent exploration of sexuality a new concept of sexual and gender identity has emerged and is being analyzed in various fields of study. The ideology behind what defines gender and how society explains sex beyond biology has changed at a rapid pace. In response various attempts to create specific and catch all definitions of growing gender and sexual minorities has been on going. This has resulted in the concept of gender becoming a multi- layered shifting hypothesis to which society is adapting. Since the 19th-century, philosophers and theorists have continued to scrutinize gender beyond biological and social interpretation. Margaret Atwood 's The Handmaid 's Tale captures the limitations and social implications forced upon a set gender based on societal expectations. Gender is a social construct that limits the individual to the restrictions and traditions of a society, or if it’s an individually formed self-identification of sex and sexuality that is formed autonomously. Evidence of gender establishment can be seen within literary works and supported by various schools of gender and sexuality theory.

At first, The Handmaid’s Tale (1986) may purely seem like a reconstruction of events. However, when examined more closely the reader can see that Atwood has used many narrative and poetic techniques. Each of these devices develop the novel into so much more than just a simple reconstruction of events, it becomes a precise and planned piece of work; a documented life experience that slowly unfolds. The reader becomes involved in the story and in Offred’s life; they go through her pain, suffering and occasional joy and trusts what she is telling them to be the truth. Yet, when the novel

"Rebels defy the rules of society, risking everything to retain their humanity. If the world Atwood depicts is chilling, if 'God is losing, ' the only hope for optimism is a vision that includes the inevitability of human struggle against the prevailing order." -Joyce Johnson-

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.

Form, Structure and Plot: The novel has 15 parts, 46 chapters, and 378 pages. The novel has a series of flashbacks and dream sequences that take the reader from Offred’s life in the present and her past life with Luke (her husband) and her daughter. The story is hard to follow because you do not always know what will trigger her flashbacks. The novel only covers about two years in the present, but the flashbacks cover the year leading to the present, and the historical notes jumps to 2195.

Parents typically don’t want their children reading in depth books about sex; however, The Handmaid’s Tale offers great fictional examples that teach sexism and the mistreatment of women, yet these examples can lead some in the wrong way. Therefore depending on the view in society, The Handmaid’s tale should be banned or kept to certain areas of the world because of the unfair treatment of women.

As a wide-celebrated book, the handmaid’s Tale described world as female dystopia. What role does women have in such a scrutinized social environment? In the story The Handmaid’s Tale, the advocacy and commences of feminism is the theme throughout the whole book. The author Margaret Atwood appealed to feminism by mainly three storylines: Moria’s attitude toward life, the depiction of Offred’s mother, and the organization of Mayday. To begin with, the author Margret Atwood stressed the idea of feminism sharply and insightfully from Moria.

Our narrator's brother had been walking in the direction of Chelmsford to hopefully find some of his friends and take refuge. While he was walking along a quieter path, he came across a taxing scene. Two women were being pulled from their pony chaise by several men. One of the women, a Mrs. Elphinstone, was throwing a fit merely for the plot of it all. The other lady, a slender woman, was engaged in trying to harm her attacker. The narrator’s brother quickly put himself in the fight to try and help the woman, but in the end, it was she who helped him escape the fight. The ladies told the man their story, that they were attempting to get a train once they reached Edgware. They had tried waiting for George, Mrs. Elphinstone’s husband, and that

Imagine a world where our basic freedoms are taken away from us; a world where we are not free to say what we want; a world where we are bound by the chains of oppression, and are at the mercy of an elite ruling class government, where even the slightest negativity expressed towards them is strictly prohibited. In this world we would have no identity, no names, and no communication. This obscene idea would ultimately be the dystopian world from our worst nightmares. Margaret Atwood’s Handmaid’s Tale paints a vivid picture as to the nature of such a dystopia, a world which is ruled by a small wealthy ruling class, and where everybody’s rights have been stripped away from them. This dystopian society is situated in what was once the

We first start seeing the changes in the movie The Handmaid’s Tale. Before it was a movie it was a book written by Margaret Atwood in 1984 and published in 1986. The book won two awards: The Governor General's Award in 1985 and the Arthur C. Clarke Award in 1987. In 1990, because of the book’s popularity it was made into a movie. The movie has the same setting as the book, a dystopic world in America where religion and state are mixed while fertility is in high demand.

An American journalist, Theodore White, once said, “power in America is control of the means of communication.” This holds true not only for America, but in many environments, including The Gileadean government in Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale. There are two linguistic elements employed throughout the novel which bolster the totalitarian regime of the Gileadean government. The religious terminology and speech and the sexist language and symbols highlight the repression of free speech and contribute to the oppressive behavior of the Gileadean administration by utilizing speech as a form of power that enables the government to control its citizens. By skimming over and failing to notice the occurrence of oppressive language, readers prove that people will readily accept sexist and domineering speech; analyzing these elements are important to regain control of the power of one’s own words, as well as the words of others.

Treloar's outward air of confidence was mostly a facade; an attempt to keep Lexi's spirits buoyed whilst and his own from plummeting. The past two days, being cooped up in the hotel room, where the walls had slowly seemed to creep closer and closer in on them, and the knowledge they were being hunted by Huntington's goons had lowered his spirits. At times, although he hadn't dared speak it out loud, he'd even begun to wonder if Lexi would have been better off if he'd never snuck into her Father's mansion that night to reconnect with her.

Wacobi was telling himself her name out loud, he said Gladys DANNELLE….she’s beautiful…..his mother over heard him and asked who is Gladys DANNELLE, one of our cousins, he tells her, no my future new wife….Willa said where did you meet her, around the corner, he tells her no, she lives in Utah and she will be here in a month…

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.

A Critical Analysis of “The Handmaid’s Tale.” In this dystopia novel, it reveals a remarkable new world called Gilead. “The Handmaid’s Tale,” by Margaret Atwood, explores all these themes about women who are being subjugated to misogyny to a patriarchal society and had many means by which women tried to gain not only their individualism and their own independence. Her purpose of writing this novel is to warn of the price of an overly zealous religious philosophy, one that places women in such a submissive role in the family. I believe there are also statements about class in there, since the poor woman are being meant to serve the rich families need for a child. As the novel goes along the narrator Offred is going between the past and