Torture and fear in the handmaids tale

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.

A genuine identity and individuality is not possible in an oppressive environment especially when one’s daily life, actions, and thoughts are dictated by domineering societal expectations. Oppressive environments such as regimes controlled by a dictatorship and that run off a totalitarian government system strip an individual of their civil rights as a human being in order to gain ultimate control over its citizens. A government such as the Republic of Gilead in Margaret Atwood’s work, The Handmaid’s Tale, controls their citizen’s lives to the extent to where they must learn to suppress their emotions and feelings. In the Republic of

In Gilead the social relationship that once existed between men and women is a thing of the past. In the former society women had value and felt good about themselves and how they looked. However, in the new society the men have stripped the women of their freedom and equality and lowered them to varying degrees of status. The young healthy women are labeled handmaids and are "issued" (24) by the government to various high-ranking officials in order to offer them the opportunity to create offspring. Getting pregnant is their only hope of survival. Females who are not of childbearing age are called Marthas because their purpose is to work and serve the men. A third category of women is labeled Unwomen because of their worthlessness in this male dominated society. All three categories are divided into colonies to prevent their rebelling against the system. Also, within each colony communication is limited and higher education is denied. In order to enforce this kind of oppressive social structure, the government uses various forms of intimidation.

In Margaret Atwood’s, The Handmaid’s Tale she explores the concept of a not-so-distant future where toxic chemicals and abuses to the body have left many men and women alike sterile. The main character, Offred, gives the reader a first person account about her submissive life as a handmaid in the Republic of Gilead. A republic that was formed after a coup against the U.S. government. She and her fellow handmaids are fertile women that the commanders of Gilead ‘enslave’ to ensure their power and to repopulate their ‘society’. While the laws that govern the people of Gilead seem outlandish and oppressive, they are merely

The Handmaid’s Tale is a story told in the voice of Offred, who is the character of the “handmaid”, which is described best by women who are being forced and used for reproduction because they can make babies. In the Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood uses symbolism, which is the use of symbols to represent ideas, to show the reader the handmaid’s role in society of Gilead. The handmaids were women who had broken the law of Gilead, and forced into having sex and reproducing for the higher class. They had no rights and were watched constantly so this created a very nervous atmosphere. This horrible way of living is most likely why Offred never fully made the reader aware of the horrible life she was forced to live because

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

To dehumanize someone is to strip them of everything that makes them human, all their good qualities, all their basic rights, everything that can label them an individual. Similarly, in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale, the women in the Republic of Gilead are degraded in such a way that they are stripped of their previous selves. Women in Gilead are outfitted by their functions, forced to have sex and they, especially handmaids, are used as tools. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Atwood utilizes motifs to further dehumanize the women of Gilead.

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.

The Bible is distorted once again to manipulate the women during the Women's Prayvaganzas. The Commander hosting the service makes a speech to the crowd: "Let the woman learn in silence with all subjection…All…But I suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence. For Adam was first formed, then Eve?(221). The Bible is once again used selectively, isolating only the passages that pertain to Gilead's interests, which in this case is restricting women to be submissive. Gilead is trying to implement the fact that women should be subservient to men in society by literally justifying it from a myth in the Bible. This is only one of the stories of creation in Genesis, and is secluded and appropriated to make the women believe that "if they continue in faith and charity and holiness with sobriety,?(to the Republic of Gilead) "they shall be saved by childbearing?(221). The theocracy of Gilead encourages the handmaids and women in their society to continue to obey the hierarchies of their totalitarian-like regime, and in turn also have them provide children

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.

Torture, (n.), the action or practice of inflicting severe pain on someone as a punishment or to force them to do or say something, or for the pleasure of the person inflicting the pain. After reading “Torture” by Holocaust survivor, Jean Amery, it is clear that the above definition of torture does not provide an honest connotative definition for the act and effects of torture. Amery speaks about torture from his own personal experiences in both Auschwitz and Buchenwald, providing witness to the dehumanization of Jews. In “Torture”, Jean Amery truthfully depicts torture as an unimaginable terror, in which one loses sense of self, human dignity, and trust in the world, while gaining a haunted future.

Margaret Atwood’s harrowing novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, follows the story of a woman marginalized by the theocratic oligarchy she lives in; in the Republic of Gilead, this woman has been reduced to a reproductive object who has her body used to bear children to the upper class. From the perspective of the modern reader, the act of blatant mistreatment of women is obvious and disturbing; however, current life is not without its own shocking abuses. Just as the Gileadian handmaid was subject to varied kinds of abuse, many modern women too face varied kinds of abuses that include psychological, sexual, and financial abuse.

Fear is power. Fear is ever-present in Gilead; it is implemented through violence and force. It is through fear that the regime controls the Gileadian society. There is no way Offred, or the other Handmaids can avoid it. What used to be Harvard University, a

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