The Handmaid 's Tale is one of Margaret Atwood most famous novels written during the spring of 1984, when the Berlin wall was still encircled. Atwood writes this book to create a dystopia, which most authors invision as the world’s fate. The Handmaid 's Tale effectively portrays the United States as a modern day totalitarian society of Gilead, which was depicted as perfect by using the book of Genesis. Although the authors’ ideas are inherently and completely fictional, several concepts throughout his book have common links to the past and present society which is the author herself calls a speculative fiction. Atwood integrates a totalitarian systems of the past, including the soviet system from deprivation, repression and terror which are …show more content…
The novel has created a society in which the only two important beliefs in a society are the ability to procreate and a strict belief in God. As it it mentioned above, Gilead is depicted as perfect by using the book of Genesis. The Biblical society is not as right as the republic of Gilead, which Margaret Atwood has built, but it is very similar . The Handmaid 's tale holds several biblical allusions. The most important in a state of opinion would be. “It’s the usual story, the usual stories. God to Adam, God to Noah. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth [...]. Give me children, or else I die. Am I in God’s stead, who bath withheld from the fruit of the womb? [..]and she shall bear upon my keens, that I may also have children of her.” (Atwood 88) This verse was read to the Handmaid 's everyday at breakfast and before the ceremony just to drill it in their minds, even though most of them know those were not the right textual evidence from the Bible. This appears in the Old testament, which complicated matters because it actually states that Jacob falls in love with Rachel on first sight, but is tricked by her family into wedding her older sister Leah instead. Another biblical allusion depicted would be the Angels, so they are called. But they were simply Guards. “Carried by two angels” (Atwood 91) They are most likely driven from “Archangels” who symbolize strength, protection, and guardianship. “The Angels stood outside in with their backs to us. They were objects of fear to us..”
King David sees a lady bathing and orders her to come to him despite her being married, and later Bathsheba conceives King David’s son, very similar to Amy and Holland. Rash’s Isaac is a dark twist on the Biblical tale of a child longed for. In the Hebrew Bible in book of Genesis, Abraham and Sarah did not think they could have children, so it was Sarah’s idea for her servant, Hagar, to become impregnated by Abraham so he could father sons. They were successful.
To begin, the foundation of every government’s power has always been fear. Governments depend on public fear to secure societal position. Tracing back to thousands of years ago, governments relied primarily on conquests. The research author Robert Higgs argues, “Losers who were not slain in the conquest itself had to endure the consequent rape and pillage and in the long term to acquiesce in the continuing payment of tribute to the insistent rulers.” In other words, Higgs’s point emphasizes that the government violently conquested lands and hence attacked people living there in the old times.
It is noteworthy that this story of Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden is the foundation of the religion with the largest number of followers worldwide. Why does it continue to resonate with so many people even today? The reason is that this utopia contains archetypes that reflect the collective unconscious that is found across all cultures. This is the result of universal themes in this story about humanity’s needs and desires that we still see occurring in our society today. The story of Genesis contains three archetypal characteristics that illustrate these patterns that still demonstrate humanity’s needs.
What would become of the world, if our current societal flaws, such as sexism, racism, and classism were ingrained and executed at a systematic level? This is exactly what The Handmaid’s Tale set out to explore. The novel, which claims to be speculative fiction, is set in the theocratic Republic of Gilead (formerly the USA), where birth rates are rapidly declining and women have been marginalized by the patriarchal regime, forbidden to read, write or love and valued only if they are able to procreate. They are separated into classes, including Wives, Marthas, Aunts, Unwomen, and Handmaids, distinguishable only by the color of their clothing. The Handmaids are renamed by combining ‘of’ and the name of the Commander that they have been assigned to, stripping them of any individuality.
The society in this book is basically the epitome of a dystopia. It has a totalitarian government and everything about the world the people live in is a frightening nightmare. The government has completely dehumanized the way people live their lives. People in this dystopia aren’t even actually human any more. They aren’t even born the natural way through reproduction, they are created.
However, Atwood depicts the Republic of Gilead in “The Handmaid’s Tale”. Both “The Hunger Games” and “The Handmaid’s Tale” are dystopian novels that have many similarities, however they have some differences. Collins’ and Atwood’s novels hold similarities in their ideas of societal categories, identification of these sections, constant surveillance, and public punishments. In both societies, the citizens are split into groups. In Panem, there were 13 districts and in Gilead, there were many categories of men and women.
In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the protagonist, Offred, expresses her wish that her “story [is] different,” that it is “happier,” or at least “more active, less hesitant, less distracted” than it is ultimately portrayed (267). However, as her story is told, these characteristics are evident in the way she talks and acts, especially around those with authority. Hesitant to express her true thoughts and feelings, and distracted by memories from her previous life, Offred attempts to piece together her role in the society that has taken her freedom. The result is a compilation of moments, of memories, both from her present, her past, and even speculation about her future.
“For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil” (Genesis 3:5). John Steinbeck’s work, East of Eden, is the one he considered to be his greatest, with all novels before leading up to it. Indeed, it grandly recounts the stories of the human race as told by the Bible, including Adam and Eve, but most prominently that of Cain and Abel. It touches upon both Steinbeck’s own family and a fictional family in a depiction of “man 's capacity for both good and evil” (Fontenrose). Joseph Fontenrose, however, criticizes Steinbeck’s message as contradictory and convoluted, with no clear relationship between good and evil.
From my personal research, the events in the novel were influenced by negative situations that involved the American society prior to the 1980’s. These negative aspects of Gilead’s religious society in ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ were drawn from similar issues facing the American public prior to the 1980’ s. These issues were based on religious concepts that were thought to greatly improve the American population's standard of living. The main ideas that influenced the creation of certain events and
Dystopian novels have an entrancing factor that allows them to captivate the American public like no other genre. The mass popularity gained by these novels can be seen dating all the way back to 1950’s with the publishing of George Orwell’s 1984, and through the present day with the publication of various dystopian novels such as Divergent, Maze Runner, and The Hunger Games. The main reason why these dystopian worlds resonate with so many people is because they address present day problems in outlandish but conceivable ways, "whatever its artistic or philosophic qualities, a book about the future can interest us only if its prophecies look as though they might conceivably come true. "(Beauchamp). While The Handmaid 's Tale focus on a variety of issues, such as the mistreatment of women, it also realistically illustrates the mental deterioration that occurs during prolonged periods of isolation in captivity.
In the 1980s, United States was experiencing the rise of conservatism. Under the presidency of Ronald Reagan, conservative religious groups were gaining popularity. In response to the social and political landscape, Canadian author Margaret Atwood published a fictional novel The Handmaid’s Tale in 1986; a genre of dystopian novels. The storyline projects an imaginary futuristic world where society lives under oppression and illusion of a utopian society maintained through totalitarian control. Dystopian novels often focus on current social government trends and show an exaggeration of what happens if the trends are taken too far.
This essay will discuss how The Handmaid 's Tale by Margaret Atwood and Parable of the Sower by Octavia E. Butler represent religion. The Handmaid’s tale In the handmaid’s tale, The republic of Gilead is a fundamentalist Christian theocracy, meaning there is no separation between the state and religion. Gilead is built on the biblical idea that men are more important than women. The bible also has an important role in the naming of objects, buildings and people.
God to Adam, God to Noah. Be fruitful, and multiply, and replenish the earth [...]. Give me children, or else I die. Am I in God’s stead, who bath withheld from the fruit of the womb? [..]and she shall bear upon my knees, that I may also have children of her.”
In the first verse, he describes how people reacted when they found out by using senses sight and sound. For instance, he stated, “Pushing through the market square, so many mothers signing.”
The novel is set in a dystopian future that illustrates the collapse of the US government, a new theocracy taking over, and how the theocracy has supposedly solved the problem of fertility with the creation