ipl-logo

Summary Of Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Eleanor Atwood

749 Words3 Pages

2. I was particularly drawn to this book because of how it is currently so popular and there is a lot of interest surrounding it. When I was talking with both my friends about what book I should read this book came up many times. My mother has watched the tv show and just gushed about it, she loved it, so by reading this book I can talk to her about her interest and connect with her on the subject. Personally I enjoy reading mystery or romance books but I wanted to step outside my comfort zone and go with something different. 3. Margaret Eleanor Atwood was born November 18, 1939 in Ottawa and grew up in Ottawa and the suburbs of Toronto where she currently lives (“Biography”). Her father had a career as an entomologist throughout her childhood. …show more content…

The society is turning no one into the guilty party but instead having everyone need to do something to solve their crisis. The character Aunt Lydia can been seen as struggling with this theme. She believes that by influencing her students she will be able to keep them innocent and away from evil (Novels for Students). The theme of identity in the novel is seen everywhere as this is something that almost everyone has gotten taken from them. Everyone has been reassigned names, no one is seen by their real name. Classism is seen as the women are grouped into classes Handmaid, Wife, Martha, and Econowife (Shmoop). The women especially are stripped of their identity and seen only for their bodies, and who they are and being educated is no longer important. The theme of freedom and confinement through the novel creates a sort of paradox. The Handmaids are forced into these lives of being almost trapped in their rooms aside from performing their household duties and going to few societal events (Shmoop). By bearing children they are given freedom in life and being rewarded for this by not being put to death. It also confines them to a life where they give birth to children that are taken from them and fathered by someone who they are not in love

Show More
Related

  • Individuality In Fahrenheit 451

    683 Words  | 3 Pages

    The book, Fahrenheit 451, by Ray Bradbury, is about a man named Guy Montag, a fireman, who lives in a dystopian society. In that society, they fear knowledge. To prevent knowledge from spreading, firemen burn books instead of putting out fires. Although Montag claims that he enjoys starting the fires, he meets a strange girl named Clarisse McClellan. She makes Montag view his world differently and pushes him to pursue his own thoughts and feelings.

    Read More

  • Child Labor Rhetorical Analysis

    285 Words  | 2 Pages

    She uses pathos by talking about how hard the children have in the working atmosphere. She uses child labor to her advantage saying that it could all be solved with the right of women's suffrage. By getting the reader

    Read More

  • Motif Of Cars In The Great Gatsby

    656 Words  | 3 Pages

    The Great Gatsby Analytical Essay F. Scott Fitzgerald presents many themes in his novel, The Great Gatsby. One theme that is seen in the novel is society and class. Society and class can be represented in the novel by the motif of cars. The motif of cars (e.g. taxis, limousines, trains) shows us the different values that each character holds and how people in the novel also see each other. Throughout the novel, the characters travel around using cars, so these cars may reflect on a person’s class and how society perceives them.

    Read More

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

    1620 Words  | 7 Pages

    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.”

    Read More

  • Dehumanization In The Handmaid's Tale

    783 Words  | 4 Pages

    “No woman can call herself free who does not control her own body”. When Margaret Sanger spoke these words, she was expressing her belief on a woman’s right to have an abortion. This quote, however, speaks to the fact that women are oppressed on more than just abortions. In the novel, The Handmaid’s Tale by Margaret Atwood, Atwood portrays the dehumanization of sexuality through both the characters and events within the novel, therefore proving that women will always be considered less than men will. Margaret Atwood was born in Ottawa, Ontario in 1939.

    Read More

  • Symbolism In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    808 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    1101 Words  | 5 Pages

    Imagine a nation in which its government commands by a religion where women are separated into different titles and must conceive children for their commander. Their rights from before this regime, and anything deemed unholy by the government, are a thing of the past. This situation is the one represent in the Republic of Gilead, where the rules of society and its traditions are not taken lightly if broken. In the novel The Handmaid’s Tale, Margaret Atwood shows that an oppressive government leads to the inevitable neglect and remiss of the rules through Offred’s characterization, irony, and flashbacks. Offred 's character development can show that her actions change .

    Read More

  • Power And Power In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    1587 Words  | 7 Pages

    “Power doesn’t corrupt people, people corrupt power.”- William Gaddis. People take advantage of power when it is entrusted to them because of their own greed, which as a result lead to societal deterioration. In the story, “The Handmaid’s Tale,” by Margaret Atwood, the higher-ups from Gilead abuse the power that is given to them, ruining the life of the citizens in the society. This was the cause for the need of higher birth rates and fixing conflicts in the world, but this was handled immorally.

    Read More

  • Gender Roles In Margaret Atwood's The Handmaids Tale

    1035 Words  | 5 Pages

    This year is the 30th anniversary of the publication of Margaret Atwood 's dystopian classic, The Handmaid 's Tale. The novel is told from a first person account of a young woman, Offred. In an age of declining births, she is forced to become a Handmaid in the Republic of Gilead, the imagined future in the United States. The Handmaids are to provide children by the substitution of infertile women of a higher social status. Through the creation of different characteristics of female characters – ones who are submissive yet rebellious, and like to take advantage of their power - Margaret Atwood portray themes of love, theocracy, rebellion, and gender roles.

    Read More

  • Criticism In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    889 Words  | 4 Pages

    The Handmaid’s Tale is a dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood in 1985. She is well-known for being a poet, novelist, inventor, essayist, and an environmental activist. She 's a feminist this is important because in her novels she often portrays the female characters being oppressed and rebelling against stronger males. Attwood is very interested in environmentalist issues and one of her main themes for her novels, particularly ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’ include men interfering nature. The Handmaid’s Tale is about a totalitarian society set in Gilead which used to be apart of the United States.

    Read More

  • Oppression Of Women In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    996 Words  | 4 Pages

    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.

    Read More

  • The Handmaid's Tale Analysis

    952 Words  | 4 Pages

    In Margaret Atwood’s novel, ‘The Handmaid’s Tale’, Moira is depicted as the symbol for resistance to authority and represents hope to the Handmaids. Atwood presents her as a polar opposite to Offred. She is independent, strong-willed, and outspoken. Conversely, the pair can be argued to be doubles in the fact that they both ‘resist’ to the oppressive Republic in Gilead.

    Read More

  • How The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood Dehumanize Women

    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.

    Read More

  • Freedom In The Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Atwood

    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

    Read More

  • Handmaid's Tale Literary Analysis

    857 Words  | 4 Pages

    Margaret Atwood has seamlessly woven a tapestry of feminist elements - mainly regarding gender oppression - within her works. With that, using two of Atwood’s texts, The Handmaid’s Tale and The Year of The Flood, as the foundation for our literary research, we will be focusing on the commodification of the female flesh in both similar dystopian contexts. Commodification refers to the action or process of treating an object, or a person, as a raw material or product that can be bought and sold, or even treated as an object of which sovereignty can be held over by one. In both works, women are victimized and treated as sexual beings whose bodies and physical expressions can be freely used by the men who have power over them against their will. The two texts illustrate how society brings about the oppression of women and this exacerbates the commodification of women.

    Read More

More about Summary Of Handmaid's Tale By Margaret Eleanor Atwood

Open Document