Alex Viamari Professor: Marcus Nicolas ENC1102 T/R 9 October 2014 Issue Analysis Paper Following our nation’s reconstruction, racist sentiments continued to occur and White on Black violence was prevalent throughout American society. Racism was still alive with the oppression of African Americans through the Jim Crowe laws. Deprived of their civil and human rights, Blacks were reduced to a status of second-class citizenship. A tense atmosphere of racial hatred, ignorance and fear bred lawless mass violence, murder and lynching. The horrid act of lynching African Americans was thoroughly widespread in the United States, particularly in the South.
In The Handmaid's Tale by Margaret Atwood, there are many moments that establish Gilead, the fictional world the novel is set in, as a corrupt society. Gilead is incredibly segregationist, with minorities and women specifically being targeted. It has an incredible lack of reproductive rights for women, and sexual shaming and blame are very prevalent. Margaret Atwood herself stated that she based The Handmaid's Tale only on events that have happened in the past, so aspects of the novel will always exist and can happen again (Atwood Emma Watson interviews). Like Atwood predicted, themes in this novel are still relevant in today's society.
Margaret Atwood’s 1985 novel, The Handmaid’s Tale, talks about the dystopian system, which is called Gilead Republic, that takes over the United States of America after a terroristic attack on the state. The Gilead Republic is a theocratic state made by a group of religious extremisms, who were calling themselves “the sons of Jacob”. They thought that America should become a better place, and be saved from all the sins that were happening during that time. The laws of this system are all based around Biblical philosophies. The reason they chose that name was because United states was going through an infertility crisis, and we know from the bible that Jacobs wife Rachel, was an infertile woman, so she let her husband Jacob have sex with another woman called Leah, to give her children.
Racism is a topic still at the forefront of most political discussions to this day. Even though large strides have been made towards ending the racial divide, there is still a large amount of stereotypical behavior that can be seen. In examining the book “Coming of Age in Mississippi,” Moody’s outlook on different races, and Southern beliefs, it becomes clear that racism played and still plays an incredibly negative role on the lives of not only African Americans but all of those who are subject to this prejudice. In the book “Coming of Age in Mississippi” by Anne Moody she illustrates with her writing and offers a very interesting look at the prejudices seen by African Americans in the Southern United States around the time of Jim Crow laws. Often times in books and other reading surrounding racism the only outlook seen on these times is articles written by outsiders looking in.
On the other—it could be supposed that the blood stands for menstruation. If it stands for the period, the homosexual lovemaking act becomes even immoral than before: from the religious point of view, the sexual intercourse during the menstruation is a mortal sin (Delaney 19). The plea to “come quietly” is in such wise the only single act of obedience, the speaker of the poem agrees to be hushed by the society; but not to follow the religious rules and oppress her sexuality. Images from the news present another layer of narration. News report on physical assaults on a woman: and it demonstrates that it is the part of “The necessary, / daily litany” of life in Ireland as the Angelus.
This is done in order to create a dark and malevolent tone to associate with the Puritan Religion. This is first scene in Hawthorne’s introductory to the novel, when he describes of his ancestors as having, “ the Puritanic traits, both good and evil” (15). Here, Hawthorne introduces a negative connotation with the Puritan Religion by associating the word, “evil”, with the beliefs of Puritan Culture. From here on out, the audience views the Puritans as the antagonist of a peaceful society. Hawthorne then follows his beliefs expressed in his introduction when he displays how members of the Puritan Society treat Hester for going against the beliefs of their conservative views.
The handmaids tale is a dystopian novel written by Margaret Atwood in 1985. Offred, the narrator, describes Gilead, as being a corrupt city where her rights were suppressed. Throughout the book we (the reader) are presented with many allusions, one of these being the bible. Atwood uses specific parts of the bible that glorifies marriage, convict women but absolve men of adultery for the purpose of childbirth to make the law’s in Gilead. Other Bible references that focus on meekness and humility has been used to dictate the handmaid’s behavior.
He explicates that “the despotism of custom is everywhere the standing hindrance to human advancement, being in unceasing antagonism to that disposition to aim at something better than customary, which is called … the spirit of liberty, or that of progress, or improvement” (Mill 69). Here, Mill presents a contrary opinion to Burke by problematizing the overbearingness of what is customary, and positing that humans are progressive beings. Now, while Burke is not necessarily arguing against all forms of change, his framework criticizes the revolutionary manner of change in its abruptness and haste. However, in accordance with Mill, such revolutionary change is a part of the momentum of the spirit of liberty in its alteration of an oppressive system. Additionally, by destabilizing tradition, humanity appeals to its own originality and individuality by progressing to better forms of living.
It is seen as a modern classic that has attracted studies and banishment in equal measures. It cemented the author as one of the greatest modern-day writers, a feminist classic, and a warning of what might happen in the future. Does the character shape her own destiny? To answer the question, it is imperative that she is not in control of her own destiny. Since the dystopian government took place, it began slowly limiting women their
Children's Literature is everlastingly framed by variable ideologies; this represented the standards and values of a didactic society in the nineteenth century, which was controlled transcendently by the church. Enforcing religious perspectives on the idealistic family life, gender roles were compulsory in respectability, and a woman's place was inside the home. The nineteenth century was an extremely confusing time, with its firm Victorian qualities, class limits, industrialism and expansionism. It was the time when society was a male dominated society in which women were controlled by the male figures in the society. Hall says that “Key to all feminist methodologies is the belief that patriarchal oppression of women through history has been profound and multifaceted” (Hall 202).