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Gender Equality In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

1261 Words6 Pages

In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood allows and almost disturbs the readers to question if they are truly satisfied with their lives and the society they are living in, and conveys to the readers that our society needs change and improvement. People nowadays believe that gender equality is necessary since the topic is so often discussed. The fact that people believe in this shows how much progress our world has made. However, it is so easy for us to forget the real reason behind this general statement; Why do we truly need gender equality? This question is the background to Atwood’s main message and her opinion on women’s oppression. As Atwood builds the main character, Offred, to represent our contemporary world, she especially focuses …show more content…

Besides this message, the author also strongly proves that society’s oppression and inflexible mindset is the main factor that limits people in improving and thus leaving them with only one resource of happiness, the past. Now, this argument all ties back to the question in the beginning of this essay, “Why does our world truly need any equality?” People have to realize that the fight for gender equality is the biggest revolution that has been occurring for so many generations, as people cannot even trace back to the beginning of this fight. However, the reason behind this ridiculous length of the revolution is people’s misuse of memories and history. Instead of referring back to memories for happiness or satisfaction, people should move forward and improve their present lives in order to be satisfied. Instead of simply memorizing historical facts for meaningless reasons, people should learn from the past and not make the same mistakes our ancestors made. Therefore, it is time for modern people to have an open mindset for each and every unique human beings, and leave the conservative past behind, as past is past. If our current world, which is so developed, is mainly established by white males, think about how much better our world could be with every single person’s potential and uniqueness. This is why the world is desperately in need of

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Often, we see a society’s cultural values reflected in its citizens. For example, the United States values equality, a standard that is shared in all facets including gender. The opposite is true of Gilead, a fictional society in Emily Bronte’s The Handmaid’s Tale. The novel’s main character, Offred, is subjected to degrading treatment simply because she is a woman. It becomes apparent that this repeated degradation has affected the protagonist’s mind.

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Argumentative Essay 'The Handmaid's Tale'

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Jasmine Gonzalez Garnham English 12B-2 24 March 2023 Argumentative essay The Handmaid's Tale, a literary masterpiece by Margaret Atwood, has made significant progress in contemporary literature. This is a powerful piece of literature that raises the plight of women as an issue worthy of debate. As the world progresses, students should be exposed to themes that reflect current social issues, and this is precisely what the Handmaid's Tale offers. The Handmaid's Tale is needed for students to understand or learn more about women's mistreatment and gender equality.

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Essay On The Oppression Of Women In The Handmaid's Tale

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Throughout history, women have often been subjected to prejudice and an inferior status to men. Due to sexist ideologies of men believing that women are not capable of controlling their own lives, women have often been reduced to the status of property. This concept is prominent in many pieces of literature to demonstrate the struggles women have to go through in a predominantly, male structured world. In the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, by Margaret Atwood, the author illustrates a woman’s battle in an extreme society ruled by men to express the misogyny occurring in the time period when it was written, 1894. Benet’s Reader’s Encyclopedia summarizes Atwood’s story as one that “depicts one woman’s chilling struggle to survive in a society ruled by misogynistic fascism, by which women are reduced to the condition of property.”

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In the Handmaid 's Tale power is used to control the women and sort them into certain gender roles. Each women in the society of Gilead is assigned a certain job that is stereotypical of a woman 's job such as cooking, sex, and reproduction. These women are the lowest class in Gilead and have no control. The men have superior power of the women but the women such as Ofgeln and Offred gain control in power in their lives. Men have an upper hand in the control of these women.

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Symbolism In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

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The book The Handmaids Tale by Margaret Atwood is a literary masterpiece containing many symbols hidden in everything from the flowers to the clothes worn by the characters. These symbols are used to represent the purpose of the characters in Gilead, the setting of the book. The flower is a symbol for the sole reproductive role of the handmaids and the colors are used to symbolize how the characters are meant to behave, red meaning fertile, white for purity, green for service, and blue for sadness.

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This creates an environment in which tyranny and torture become the norm, simply because they are what people are accustomed to. In today's society, women face many challenges that are reflected in Margaret Atwood's The Handmaid's Tale. The oppression and control exerted over women in the novel may seem extreme, but the underlying themes of power dynamics and subjugation are all too

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In The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood demonstrates a quizzical protagonist, Offred, in a dystopian, totalitarian society where fertile women are only a mere vessel for child birth. Every month during Offred’s menstrual cycle her Commander, Fred, and his wife Serena Joy perform detached intercourse while Serena holds Offred’s hands. The handmaids of the Republic of Gilead are not allowed to use their mind for knowledge nor take part in formal society. They are but the vacuous-minded property to their Commanders and their infertile wives. In The Handmaid’s Tale, Offred discloses the day to day moments and her commicalOffred had once lived in a world where she was her own person with a job and a home with a family of her own but now she lives under unfortunate circumstances that disable her from being a true, soulful human.

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Oppression In The Handmaid's Tale

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“Nolite te bastardes carborundorum,” a phrase in the novel meaning, “don’t let the bastards grind you down”. This phrase found in the closet pushes Offred to fight against the oppression within the society of Gilead. Margaret Atwood's, The Handmaid's Tale, narrated through the protagonist, Offred, a Handmaid who serves the purpose of reproducing, lets the reader know that handmaids are not allowed to have any verbal interaction with men or have the ability to read. The novel reveals how a patriarchal society leads to the oppression of women throughout the character of Offred, hierarchy, and symbolism. Atwood reveals oppression through the role that Offred portrays in the novel, which shows how a patriarchal society leads to oppression

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Theme Of Marxism In The Handmaid's Tale

2035 Words | 9 Pages

Works of literature often portray ideas relating to Marxist theory, this is why in a dystopian society, class distinctions dominate the social climate, using Marxist ideologies as a tool to define the lives of the narrator and those around her. In Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, ideologies from Marxist theory dominate the society in which Offred, the narrator, lives in, evidenced by the strict class systems and limited interaction between them. In writing the novel, Atwood makes a point to create a world that could exist using technology and ideas already accessible in today’s society, meaning the events that take place in The Handmaid’s Tale could happen in present day. Offred lives in a reality where class distinctions dominate society, and women, especially fertile women. These women are displaced downwards, although there are those women who attempt to resist the grip of society.

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In this written text, the emphasis will be on Margaret Atwood’s novel, The Handmaid’s Tale and as well as the way Atwood portrays women and how it can be argued to show the oppression of women. The main purpose is to analyze the way women are treated throughout this book and depict why they are represented this way in the society in Gilead. Then, comparatively, observe the men’s domination over women and how they govern this society. In The Handmaid’s Tale, women are stripped of their rights, suffer many inequalities and are objectified, controlled by men and only valued for their reproductive qualities. The Gilead society is divided in multiple social group.

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981 Words | 4 Pages

In The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, the Republic of Gilead actively represses women by forcing them into very narrowly defined, ultra-conservative gender roles. This totalitarian government strips women of all rights and protections, and imposes severe punishments for defiance. Pollution and disease had caused severe infertility in this society, drastically reducing birth rates. In an effort to reverse a drastic population decline, this thoroughly misogynistic and power-hungry regime, takes full control over the human reproductive process. Furthermore, the leadership uses various dehumanizing methods to achieve complete subservience of women to men.

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1364 Words | 6 Pages

Aunt Lydia’s more relevant quote in The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, is the two freedoms, who gives the reader an accurate insight of the Gilead society. This quote exposes the contrast between the freedom before and after the settlement of the Republic of Gilead, and the mentality of the brainwashed nation. It is well known that the Gileadean era is a dystopia, but the reader must study deeper into both societies –Gileadean and pre-Gileadean- to understand which one is really worse. Before the appearing of the Republic of Gilead, freedom was seen as a person’s desire, however, on the Gileadean era, freedom is a collective idea. On the current community, freedom is settled by laws based on moral and social values, but ignoring the

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